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Chapter Text

It was the opening night of summer, and the air had settled to that hazy contented hum of crickets and the susurrus of wind, and water lapping at the muddy edges of the Lake of Shining Waters. The croakings of birds and frogs speared through the air like the last glorious hurrah of sunlight that shone through the branches of the weeping willow Anne and Gilbert lay under, reaching them dappled and gentle and safe.

It had been an afternoon of celebration, the two friends christening the season with splashed freshwater, sliced fresh fruit, and sweet scents of fresh flowers that had spent the spring blooming and blossoming.

They lay in the warmth of the sunlight now, stomachs full of good food, limbs tired from playing and chasing each other, and throats resting from the past hours of laughing and chatting. Gilbert closes his eyes, a relief from the bright golden sunlight as well as from the sleepiness that comes with comfort and safety. He has sunglasses in his hair but the afternoon has been too beautiful for him to see it with anything but his own eyes.

“Marilla will be wanting me back home soon,” Anne sighs, sitting up to watch the silhouettes of wetland birds swoop and play over the lake, her heart swelling and smile curving in awe.

Gilbert hums in acknowledgement, but doesn’t make any move to pack up.

Anne turns her head to look at her best friend and chuckles at his obvious comfort. “You comfy there?”

He nods slowly. “Come lay down,” he says, his voice deep and slow as pouring honey.

Anne kicks his hand away, laughing. “I am so not falling for that again.”

Gilbert’s chest rises and falls with amusement, his smile spreading to dimple his cheeks. “I can’t believe you fell for it three times!”

“It’s not FUNNY!” Anne exclaims though the curve of her voice says otherwise.

“The fact you think I can hide whoopee cushions under grass is a testament to my superiority as a practical joker,” Gilbert says his mirth calming.

He expected Anne to protest, but there’s no sound so he opens his eyes to find Anne tucking a lock of damp red hair back behind her ear to better see her phone screen. Gilbert frowns. Anne’s not one to touch her phone unless she needs to use it, especially not when with family or friends and double especially not in the middle of a conversation.

“What is it?” Gilbert asks, propping himself up on one elbow.

Anne draws out in a murmur, “One moment.” She grins at her phone and turns it to show Gilbert. “Aw, so pretty,” she says.

Gilbert squints against the sunlight before giving up and taking the phone, casting shade over it with his hand enough to see… himself. He cocks his head in confusion at the photo, heat of something not the sun burning his ears. Sunlight is dappled brightly over photo-Gilbert, his eyes squinting with the radiance of his grin, his sunglasses reflecting a dazzling play of green and golden light from within the darkness of his curls.

“I didn’t know you were interested in photography,” Gilbert says, looking up to Anne and handing her phone back.

“Oh you know me,” Anne says, settling back onto her elbows beside Gilbert and tucking her phone into the pouch pocket of Gilbert’s ice-hockey hoodie she wears. “Our world is too interesting for my life to ever be anything but too short. Although-“ she perks up, her voice jumping from wistful to excited as she turns on her side to face her friend. “Ms Stacy set us an assignment where we have to spend three months learning a new skill, and after I told her what a productive and interesting and delightful assignment she’d dreamt up, I spent the entire lesson in the most complex of quandaries trying to decide what skill I should dedicate my interest to.”

“Knowing you, I can only imagine,” Gilbert laughs.

“Yes, well, I’ll save you the list of possibilities or we’ll be here until we’re celebrating Autumn. But oh, how grateful I am to have dedicated time to explore a new hobby. Photography is ever so interesting, you know. Why, it’s capturing the entire visible world in a way that conveys the invisible. Such things as happiness, humour and relaxation do not have visual equivalents, but-“ Anne shoves the phone back in Gilbert face “-they kinda do.”

Gilbert turns the photo of himself away. “Here I was thinking it was just about pretty pictures.”

Anne giggles, lifting her phone abover her face to continue editing. “Well, that’s a plus too. The whole year level is doing a showcase at the end, and if I’ve learnt my skill as I intend to, hopefully it will make quite an impressive sight.”

“So when will you start?”

Anne looks up at Gilbert, her face blank for a beat. “I already have.” She turns the phone around to convey her point when Gilbert doesn’t seem to understand.

“I-I thought it was about landscapes and light-play and Marilla’s plum puffs.” Gilbert frowns, sitting up and stretching on a shirt, suddenly self-conscious. “Not… me.”

Anne’s face falls and she kneels up. Gilbert never would have let her wear his hoodie if he knew she was going to beg.

“Oh but Gil! Please! I’ve been itching to photograph you properly since forever!”

Panic starts to creep up on Gilbert. That’s a dangerous thing for her to say, and the idea of her literally focusing him in the centre of her crosshairs fills him with discomfort.

“Look, Anne-girl,” he says, his hand rubbing awkward tension out of the back of his neck. “I’m never one to turn down a favour for you, but this is- isn’t this a little weird?”

“Why would it be weird?” Anne smiles with half her mouth as though amused at his thoughts.

“Because it’s- I’m not… a model. I’m your friend,” Gilbert stutters, settling into a crouch as he starts to pack up their belongings. “And if people saw a couple dozen photos of me as your assignment, what would they think?”

“That I’ve thoroughly learnt my skill of photography and have put together a wonderful composition? That I have the best friend ever because he’s let me photograph him for my assignment? I don’t understand. What thoughts don’t you want them to think that you think they will… think?”

Gilbert can’t bring himself to say it, so he asks a different question. “Why do you even want to photograph me anyway? There are a thousand other subjects you could photograph. Or if you’re so set on people, why not Diana? Or literally any of your other friends who would be overjoyed to have you take pretty pictures of them and put them on showcase in front of the whole year level.”

“Because I want you.”

It’s as though a cloud has covered the sun, casting the moment in a thousand serious shades of grey, sending a shiver to unravel all across his body. But the sun is still finishing its brilliant evening’s arc as it was, bleeding peach and vermillion to reflect in the shining purple-blue of the lake. There is no explanation for the sensation besides Anne’s words.

She pfts the implication away with a smile, chuckling, “That came out wrong. But you know what I mean.”

Gilbert’s eyebrows dip in the way Bash teases him for all the time, effectively telling Anne that no… he really doesn’t.

“Oh my gosh, dude!” Anne rolls her eyes exasperatedly. “You’re so freaking photogenic, it would kill any photographer to not have you in their repertoire if they could. If you don’t agree, fine. I’ll die, but I won’t push you into something if you’re truly uncomfortable, Gil, I hope you already knew. So I am BEGGING YOU to agree. I mean you say you’re my friend not a model, but 1. be a pal and help me and 2. the model thing is for lack of want, not lack of means.”

By the time Anne’s finished, she’s pretty sure Gilbert’s turned the same colour as the rim of the sky. She should compliment her male friends more often if this is the reaction to her telling him something that literally everyone knows as a fact.

“So yeah, that’s why I want to photograph you,” Anne adds dumbly, fiddling with the drawstrings of Gilbert’s hoodie, her hair falling in her face, hopefully not too wet-rodent looking to deter him.

“Fine,” Gilbert says, fairly certain that Anne has used the glow of the sunset on her infinitely cherry-gold, half-damp hair as an (entirely successful) manipulation tactic. “But!” He interrupts the instant joyful triumph on Anne’s face, making her shut her open mouth with a click. “You have to be subtle and I wanna know when you’ve taken a photo. I’m probably an awful model, even if I’m sure you’re a wonderful photographer, so if we’re out somewhere and your creative senses are tingling, go ahead but don’t-“ Gilbert squirms a little, his hand drifting back up to his neck. “No photo shoots is what I’m saying. And get a camera that goes ‘click!’”

He watches Anne hesitate, her top teeth sinking into her bottom lip as she debates whether the deal’s worth making. Anne’s wardrobe is filled with hobby skeletons, so he knows the camera isn’t the point of contention. He’s not willing to budge on photoshoots though, so he lifts an eyebrow and starts, “D.”

“E,” Anne draws out hesitantly.

“A?”

Anne exhales heavily, sticking her hand out for a handshake as she confirms, “L.”

And so it’s decided. Anne’s getting a clicky camera, and Gilbert’s getting into a lot of trouble with himself.

Chapter Text

“GILBERT BLYTHE!” Anne yells as she slams the fly-screen on his back door. “Hey Bash.” She smiles sweetly at the man feeding purée to his daughter. “Hi Delly. GILBERT BLYTHE!” Her boots clomp on the hardwood as she runs up the stairs to his bedroom, colliding with his door as it opens.

Anne clutches her nose with a sharp inhale, muttering under her breath, “Friggity frackety fructose, glucose and galactose GILBERT BLYTHE!”

Gilbert peers confusedly around the door from his wheelie chair. “Did you call for me?” Taking note of Anne clutching her nose, he promptly stands and trips over the chair, asking, “Oh my gosh, are you alright? What happened?”

“You happened,” Anne grits out, looking up at Gilbert with a deathly glare before realising the room of senior boys splayed around his bedroom, all smiling barely-hidden laughs. “Oh you’re holding a meeting,” she laments, waving awkwardly before she feels her nose start to bleed.

“Crap,” Gilbert says, pulling Anne into his room with an arm around her waist as he reaches for his tissue box and presses a wad into her hands. “Minor technical difficulty,” Gilbert jokes to his friends, flashing a grin and motioning for them to continue with their chat while he takes care of the issue. The issue being Anne.

“Do you think the boy sitting on your windowsill would mind scooching over a little?” Anne asks through a pinched nose as Gilbert leads her into the bathroom.

“Sloane? I suppose so, why?” Gilbert asks, sitting Anne down on the toilet before opening the under-sink cupboard for wipes.

“I’d like to throw myself out of it at his earliest convenience.”

Gilbert glances a wry smile at Anne as he closes the cupboard and takes a seat on the edge of the bath. “I’m sure that won’t be necessary,” he reassures her, smiling slightly at the sight of Anne with a huge wad of tissues pressed to her face. “All of us have done far more embarrassing things for this to even be a footnote. Don’t sweat it.”

“Yeah, right,” Anne scoffs. “You couldn’t embarrass yourself if you tried, Mr Cool Kid.”

“I think you recall not the Carrots incident,” Gilbert says. “Height of my humiliation. Especially in retrospect.”

“It doesn’t count though,” Anne protests, “because I then followed by smacking my new graphing calculator over your head which is undeniably ten times worse. I am sorry for that by the way,” she adds.

Gilbert chuckles, his eyes sparkling with amusement. “You do have a special gift at getting into pickles, Anne.”

A comfortable silence falls over them, rumbled over by the deep laughter from down the hallway. Anne watches the fond smile form over Gilbert’s mouth as his eyes drift to his team, almost as though he can see them through the walls.

They’ve come off a high from last month, having worked hard all season and secured the inter-school championship with Gilbert Blythe as captain. But as much as they share a home on the ice, over the years they’ve created a one for themselves. One Gilbert is proud and grateful beyond words to be a part of.

Click!

Gilbert snaps to look over at Anne in surprise, holding her new camera in one hand and a wad of crimson-stained tissues in another.

“I think I’m okay now, Gilbert,” Anne says, standing to face the mirror as she washes her face with water, throwing the tissues in the bin. “You can go back to your meeting. If I’d known you were having one I wouldn’t have interrupted; I’m awfully sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologise,” Gilbert says airily and almost laughs himself at the difference between his reactions at Bash or Mary interrupting his meets and Anne doing the same. “What did you want to speak to me about?” He hands her a hand towel for her to dry her face.

It smells of honey and vanilla and Anne blames her embarrassed blush on the towel’s fabric. “Oh nothing. Diana just lent me her camera this afternoon and I was maybe a little eager to get started.”

“It’s very nice,” Gilbert praises. “And it clicks!”

“Like a biro.” Anne grins, leaning back against the bathroom door. “So, I know you’re like super busy, but-“

“I’m free.”

“Oh.” Anne blinks. “I-“ she scoffs a smile. “I was expecting to have to fight your team and teachers to get more than a minute with you.”

“It’s the off season,” Gilbert excuses, “and studying is never as all-encompassing as anyone thinks.”

Anne rolls her eyes without malice, muttering under her breath, “For you.”

Gilbert stands too, and his height suddenly reduces the space in the bathroom to significantly less than there was before. “Ever think that may be because my assignments take me an evening to smash out while you choose things like photography?” Gilbert twangs the pastel rainbow shoulder strap of the camera.

“It happens to be,” Anne lifts her dainty nose high into the air, “that I’m enjoying my photography assignment very much for all it is encompassing. The same can not always be said for you.”

“Untrue,” Gilbert counters, and Anne already knows he’s going to say something insufferable by his grin. “It happens to be that I’m enjoying your photography assignment very much as well.”

For once Anne is speechless, not quite knowing how to respond because she isn’t entirely sure Gilbert’s meaning. His smirk is glad enough to be called a grin, and Anne can’t help touching her finger to his nose. “Boop,” she says, breaking the twanging silence and they both laugh.

“You should probably get back to your meeting,” Anne says.

“Uh, yeah.” Gilbert rubs his neck, sighing. “Probably.” He inhales and tilts his head with good humour. “I’ll walk you to the window, then.”

Anne laughs so loud that Gilbert has to wipe the grin off his face for fear Bash will see it.

Chapter Text

“So you’re going to photograph your best friend, Gilbert Blythe all summer and not fall in love?” Diana asks, the breeze tickling her dark curls. “Hm… Interesting.”

“Yeah he’s gorgeous but you may be overestimating it a little,” Anne chuckles.

It’s been a curious and confusing day for the friend group, the observations of Anne’s giddiness alerting the girls that something is up. They had expected it to be the result of some outing Anne has planned, or some delectably exciting news, or perhaps just the early touch of summer upon Avonlea, painting the whole town and all it’s residents in golden light.

Diana had not expected it to be about a boy.

Admittedly, this is just Gilbert helping out a friend with a school assignment. And while Gilbert Blythe is the dreamy, doctor-to-be, champion ice-hockey captain for half the girls at school to swoon and blush and daydream about… Anne, bride of adventure, has never fallen close to that category.

But if all that’s true… “And the giddy excitement is because…?” Diana peers at Anne, two red braids down her back, lifting her face up to the sky, a cap keeping her fragile skin out of the sun, so completely oblivious as to how this assignment of hers might change things between her and her best friend. Anne and Gilbert are so each other’s, that Diana fears if they add in the factor of attraction every time Anne lifts the camera to her face, things might get a little messy.

“Because as much as I begged him, I hadn’t actually expected him to say yes,” Anne replies. “And he did! And it’s going to be such fun! Don’t you just love starting new assignments, Di?” Anne links their arms, beaming brightly. “Never knowing exactly what you’re going to learn?”

“Might learn something you don’t want to,” Diana mutters under her breath. Knowing Anne, if Diana seriously said something about her catching feelings, she would roll her eyes and deny it, claiming that it’s not true. She would go off to Gilbert, huffing about how Diana is trying to make things happen between them, stupid right? And either he’s hurt by it, because he disagrees, or he agrees and Anne’s hurt by that and-

So many of Anne’s paths end in explosion for better or for worse. Diana will try her hardest to make sure this one doesn’t.

“How did you get him to agree?” She asks, quickly exhaling the meddling thoughts away and slapping a smile on. “He’s not the kind of person I’d pin for modelling.”

“I threatened our friendship,” Anne replies casually, flicking a leaf off Diana’s shoulder.

“You didn’t.” Diana’s eyes widen.

“No, just my life,” Anne chuckles. “And he made me promise no photo shoots anyway, so it’s not really modelling.” Her smile brightens as she points to the sun bursting through the clouds ahead in an angel’s descent, fluffy and golden as a painting. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she positions Diana in front, saying, “You however…”

The two giggle as Diana pulls poses and Anne snaps away, finding it quite fitting to put angel Diana in the light. When they’re done fiddling and laughing over the photos, and their feet find friction again Anne says, “If Gilbert had said no, there’s no doubt as to who I would’ve asked next.”

“Ugh.” Diana makes a face. “I’ve sat for enough of my family’s ridiculous portraits to model ever ever again.”

“I think they’re regal!” Anne protests. “Oh to sit for an oil painting…”

“Oh to have a butt and a brain that isn’t numbed by the process…” Diana smiles wistfully. “Gilbert really will do anything for you, Anne.”

“There will be no butt or brain numbing during our time together thank you very much.”

“No, seriously,” Diana says. “I can’t imagine he has agreed to help you for any other reason than it’s to help you, Anne.”

Anne sighs, leaning her head on Diana’s shoulder. “I know. Between you and Cole and Gilbert and all the girls and everyone- oh! I just have the best friends…”

“Speaking of Cole…” Diana’s eyes slant mischievously, her face dappled by the yellow-green light filtering through the impossibly large oaks lining her driveway. “You should ask Gilbert to third wheel with us when we head up to Charlottetown for Aunt Jo’s soiree.”

“Oh, Di!” Anne clutches her friend’s arm, her eyes wide and starry. “That’s such a wonderful idea! Do you really think it wouldn’t be too much of a bother?”

“Nothing is too much of a bother for Rollings, Anne. A friend of yours is a friend of Aunt Jo’s.” Diana places her hand over Anne’s. “And she’ll be so glad to meet him; you’ve certainly spoken plenty about him.”

“And it will be so lovely to see Cole,” Anne says.

“Ready yourself for the teasing,” Diana cautions. “Especially when he finds out about this little summer photography modelling shindig you and Gilbert have started.”

Anne’s lifts her chin up as they walk up Diana’s porch steps, defiant as ever. “I’ll just threaten not to show him any of the photos. That’ll shut him up.”

“Now who’s overestimating Gilbert’s looks?” Diana smirks, opening the shiny black door before hovering in the doorway. “Anne-“ She closes her mouth, presses it into a smile. “No, never mind. See you tomorrow.”

“Di!” Anne calls, a frown forming on her face for the first time today. “Tell me. What is it?”

“Nothing, I just-“ Anne raises an eyebrow, until Diana closes the grand door behind her with a soft click, her eyes on Anne’s flower-embroidered converse. “I just… Gilbert would do anything for you, Anne,” Diana sighs.

“You already said that.” Her eyes remain as toneless and steady as her voice.

“I know, but I don’t- think you understand.” She probably should’ve thought this one through. “Just… with this whole photography thing, tread carefully, won’t you?”

Anne blinks, her frown reaching her forehead. “Has he said something? Di, what did he say?”

“No! Nothing but- sometimes actions speak louder than words.” Diana puts a hand on Anne’s shoulder and smiles sympathetically before disappearing inside. As much as she doesn’t want Anne’s path to end in an explosion. She doesn’t want Gilbert’s to either.

Anne stands staring at that gleaming gold lion knocker, puzzling over Diana’s meaning for a good while before giving up with a shrug. The cautions flit from her mind as she skips over to the Blythe’s in time to catch dinner and extend an invitation.

———

“Hey Gil, what do you say?”

Gilbert looks over at Anne over his laptop screen as she plonks herself into his spinny chair, brushing her wet hair over her floral pyjama top.

“Charlottetown, Aunt Jo’s manse, next weekend. Great photo ops but no photo shoot.”

“VIP invite?” Gilbert raises his eyes, the clicking of his typing pausing. “Count me in.” His mouth tilts up into a smile.

“Oh yay!” Anne squeals, knocking her bare feet on the legs of his desk and bed to spin herself. “Except you’re not really VIP,” she says. “I’m VIP, and you’re my VIP so really you’re a second-hand VIP.”

“VIP once removed.” Gilbert nods his head, peering back at his laptop. “I can work with that.”

“Do have to warn you about my friend Cole,” Anne adds, dragging her brush through the other half of her hair. “He likes to tease.”

Gilbert raises an eyebrow, a corner of his mouth. “Shall I add him to the list?”

“Oh, absolutely.” Anne places the brush down, joins Gilbert on his bed to watch his assignment form. A beat later she asks, “May I ask what is the list and who is on it?”

“People who don’t believe we’re not dating,” Gilbert starts. “Bash, Matthew, every teacher at our school, my entire team, Jerry… Cole.”

“Ha,” Anne says, not quite convincing Gilbert of her amusement. “Well, Bash is Bash. Matthew is a dear who is too embarrassed to ask the difference between boyfriend and boy space friend. Jerry just can’t be bothered with technicalities and loves to irritate me, your team is your team so I can’t really excuse that, but teachers!” Anne turns her alarmed face to Gilbert. “They think we’re dating?” Anne exclaims, with no small amount of alarm.

Gilbert freezes, retracting his fingers from the keyboard to rub at his neck. “Uh- no. Why?”

“You just said they did.”

“I probably misinterpreted.”

“Misinterpreted how? What did they say?” Anne demands, kneeling up, her brow creased with concern.

“Oh, there’s just been… comments about… you, and uh-“ he clears his throat awkwardly, “me.”

“Like what?”

“Like how we’re dating?” Gilbert winces.

Anne purses her lips. “Misinterpreted, huh? Well did you at least correct them?”

Gilbert grins, dimple at his cheek as he meets Anne’s gaze. “It’s kind of gotten easier not to, Carrots.”

She buries her face in Gilbert’s pillow, screaming before resurfacing. “That explains so much. Oh gross! That explains so much!”

He laughs, tilting his head back against his headboard. “Like what?”

“Oh it’s entirely too mortifying to repeat aloud,” Anne mutters, her eyes wide and unseeing as she clutches the pillow. “My gosh! Miss Stacey!”

A phone buzzes on his bedside table and Gilbert leans over to check the text, only to be yanked back by his belt loops and smacked in the chest with a pillow.

“Gilbert!”

“What!” He replies in the same exasperated tone, looking up at Anne as she kneels over him.

“You need to tell her we aren’t dating. What is she going to think when she sees my assignment!”

Gilbert wrinkles his nose as he swiped away a droplet of water from Anne’s hair that landed on his cheek. “I literally warned you about this in the first place.” He sits back up properly before leaning down over his bed to reach his dropped phone, groaning dramatically. “And besides,” he says, resurfacing, “my telling her will do nothing but increase her certainty.”

“Fiddlesticks,” Anne grumbles, lowering back to her heels. “Maybe I should just change my assignment. Shame, after all the fuss.”

“No!” Gilbert chuckles. “Who cares what they say, Carrots? They’re going to say it anyway. And I- you were so excited about this.”

“I do care what people say,” Anne says, her face falling to her fidgeting fingers. “An awful lot. I don’t want your fangirls to come at me with insults and judgement and crap about ‘why would he wanna date you?’ and-“

“That’s not going to happen,” Gilbert says, gently interrupting, his eyes steely and undistracted. “You want to know how I know? Because no one would naysay my girlfriend if there was any chance of it getting back to me.”

Anne can’t help a smile and a subtle roll of her eyes at the ridiculousness verity of his statement.

“And anyway, everyone knows not to give you crap - whether they think you’re my girlfriend or not - unless they want to answer to the whole ice hockey team.”

Anne snorts.

“What?”

“You wouldn’t hurt a fly, Gil.”

Gilbert sighs and leans back against his pillows as though to better look at Anne. “Sometimes I forget how different your image is of me compared to everyone else’s.”

“What, to everyone else you’re some big beating bully?” Anne can’t help giggling at the idea of her sweet friend laying a violent hand on anyone without apologising desperately afterwards and rushing to fix them up with frozen bags of peas and bandages, shrivelling into himself with guilt.

“You know,” Gilbert muses, “I know you come to my hockey games, but I always assumed you watched them.”

Anne rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. That’s a sport that people sign up for and voluntarily play. You’re talking about getting all shovey with someone just for mouthing off about me.”

Anne is still chuckling and shaking her head at the idea, but Gilbert doesn’t know why she thinks he’s joking. “Have I ever told you about Billy Andrews and ninth grade?” He asks, and Anne knows he’s about to prove a point just by the cocky tone of the question. But before he can get to the story, his phone buzzes again.

Probably a good thing, he thinks as he swipes up the Lock Screen of his team lifting the championship cup last season.

“What is it?” Anne asks when Gilbert looks up from his phone to Anne, biting his bottom lip before holding his thumb down on the delete button.

“Uh, just the team.” He cricks his neck from side-to-side. “Planning the tennis match on Saturday.”

“Can I come?” Anne’s eyes light up. “If I’m gonna do this, then I better do this, right?”

Gilbert inhales, opening his mouth to respond. He feels like he should say no. He feels like a hypocrite inviting her when their team has always been so strictly exclusive, especially to girlfriends. But then again, he reasons, Anne’s not his girlfriend, it’s the off-season, and they’ve known her as his friend since he first started in this team.

“Of course you can come.” Gilbert smiles softly, something in his chest clicking sweetly into place.

“And for the record,” he adds, “my fangirls prefer the term ‘GillyGirls.’”

“STOAP!” Anne yells with laughter, pushing him away.

Chapter Text

Summer has soothed over the island just as Anne smoothes over the photos she’s printed out. She loves them all for more than their aesthetics and spreads them over her sun-bleached hardwood floors. The morning sunlight shines over their glossy surfaces, and Anne moves a photo from their drive earlier in the week into her shadow.

She had taken a thousand photos of John Blythe’s old chrome vintage, tilting the photo and increasing vibrancy to catch the electric blue glint of the sky on the chrome. But her favourite is one she had taken from the passenger seat, only catching a skim of Gilbert’s profile, dark sunglasses set on his nose, mouth tilted into a smirk at something he said, one handedly gliding the car around a corner. She’d tinted it so that the cold blue of the sky became turquoise, contrasting stunningly with the rust-red roads of the island.

The photos she took at the waterfall were good fun too. The cool whisper of the rainbow through the water’s spray, the glint of sunlight turning dragonfly wings gold and emerald, the wide closed-eyed grin on Gilbert’s face as he had glided into the cool, dark water. He had laughed, and she’d wanted to take a photo of the sound, so beautiful it was backlit by birdsong and the rush of the waterfall. They’d eaten watermelon and chicken/coleslaw sandwiches, daring each other half-jokingly to jump from the highest ledge. She’d let him take the camera, watching him snap photos of the private, green grotto, but when she’d uploaded the photos to her laptop to edit, there were a few sneaky ones of her too. Hair half-dried and at least not clashing too harshly with her cherry-patterned swimmers. She looks so happy in the photos that it’s hard to pick at insecurities.

Last night they’d gone out to dinner for Bash’s birthday. Anne had been loitering in the kitchen when Gilbert had appeared, hair curling more than usual with the damp of a recent shower, tan skin glowing in contrast to the white linen shirt. She’d teased him about the lack of women in the house meaning the lack of ironing too, but the creases in his shirt added that much more interest to the side-profile photos she took of him on the front porch of the pub, amber fairy lights strung gorgeously in the background creating a haze that reflected the fuzzy warmth of the summer evening, mixed with the grassy citronella smell keeping the mozzies away.

When Anne and Gilbert were waiting to collect drinks up at the bar, he’d leant close to her so she could hear his whisper over the din of pub talk and laughter. He had said that Delphine told him to tell her that she thought Anne looked so pretty with her hair curled and half-tied up like that. Anne had laughed, until Gilbert met her eyes and added, “And I wholeheartedly agree with her.” It was far from the first time Gilbert had said Anne looked pretty, but there was something softer in the way he had said it, and something faster in the way her heart beat as they walked back to the table, balancing wine, beer and raspberry lemonades.

Something about recording her life as she lives it, emphasising all the beauty, all the interest, and above all - the essence of the moment, creates such a sense of gratitude in Anne that she would no longer care if anyone thought she and Gilbert were dating. The project is worth it.

———

“Hired your own paps, have you, Blythe?” Fred laughs, looking over his shoulder at Anne sitting on the side-bench, clicking through photos on her camera.

Gilbert rolls his eyes, chuckling good naturedly with the boys as he zips up his racket.

“Nah, Anne’s got this assignment,” Jerry explains to them as Gilbert glugs from his water bottle.

“Oh, has she talked to you about it?” Gilbert asks, wiping water from his chin.

“Yeah,” Jerry says. “The aim is to see how big Blythe’s head can get before it falls off.”

The team laughs as Gilbert swats Jerry’s head with his racket.

“Ouch!”

“I stepped up!” Gilbert exclaims, sitting down in the shade of a nearby tree. “You think I want all her classmates oohing and ahhing and pointing at pictures of me. It’s about the painter not the canvas.“

“You mean it’s about the time you get to spend with her,” Jimmy adds, joining the rest of the team in lazing in the shaded grass, “sweating over how hot your best friend is as a professional. And not the photos she’s actually taking.”

Gilbert rolls his eyes, squirting water into his mouth as the boys tease and jeer, unable to fault Jimmy’s argument. Anne giving him commands from behind the camera, biting her lip in concentration, staring at him completely objectively, intensely… there’s a reason besides feeling stupid that he banned photoshoots.

Moody settles the teasing down. “You’re gonna have to face the photos eventually, mate. Ruby’s in Anne’s class and she says they have to put on a whole exhibition for the whole school to look at and everything!”

“I’ll just- miss that day,” Gilbert mumbles. He vaguely remembers Anne telling him about it now that Moody mentions it, but she was laid out on his towel eating watermelon and he was too distracted by keeping his fingers from swiping the water droplets drying along her bikini line.

“What’s Ruby’s skill?” Fred asks, watching the arc of water as he squirts his water bottle.

“Cooking.” Moody grins. “Luckily for me.”

“Ah, that explains it,” Jimmy teases, patting Moody’s stomach as the boys mock Moody’s huffing and puffing from the recent tennis match, leaving even Gilbert laughing as Charlie leans over, hands on knees, gasping out, “Just… need… a moment!”

Laughter still bubbling through the cool breeze, the boys get up and start walking back to their bikes, chatting about next season’s training regime when Anne runs over, her camera bouncing on her shoulder. “Gil! Gilbert!”

He turns, slinging his racket over his shoulder. “Hey Anne-girl.” He grins. “What’s up? Get everything you need?”

“Oh absolutely!” Anne’s eyes light up. “I’m definitely getting better at capturing motion, and I’ve already got a few marked for monochrome. But um, well Jane is doing astronomy and she was telling me about how the clearest night of the year is going to be next Friday, so I wondered if you wanted to camp down by the Lake of Shining Waters that night. It would look just…” Anne holds her breath, trying to convey with her hands before giving up with a whoosh of air, “ethereal having the whole cosmos reflected in the water.”

“I’ll be there,” Gilbert assures her, his grin widening with her Anne-ness.

She squeals before bouncing up on her tiptoes to hug him. He barely has time to wrap his arms around her slim waist, his fingers sneakily around her camera strap before she releases him. Anne barely moves a step away before she’s yanked back by the camera. Gilbert raises the device to his face, clicking the button multiple times and dancing away as Anne laughs, calling “Don’t you dare!”

“Oh, so stunning Shirley,” Gilbert laughs, tilting the camera this way and that. “Just like that.”

Anne yanks at his racket strap to pull him close enough to grab the camera. Close enough that Gilbert stumbles over the curb, falling into Anne, pressing them both into the bonnet of the car behind them.

“Woah!” Gilbert places his hands on the bonnet to take his weight off her hips, and Anne takes the opportunity to snatch the camera away, jumping up onto the bonnet and scooting all the way up to lean against the scorching windshield glass.

Click!

“Oh, so stunning Blythe,” Anne murmurs, peering at him over the camera. “Just like that.”

Gilbert exhales a breath deeper than his friendship with Anne, and pushes off the bonnet. When he looks over his shoulder, the boys snap their heads back into the circle they’ve created and start chatting as though it wasn’t obvious they were watching.

He shakes his head with a laugh. “I’ll see you…”

“Next Friday,” Anne finishes, sliding off the poor bonnet. “Or earlier, if you like.” She straddles her bike, trying to shake the feeling of Gilbert pressed so against her, and sets off, looking back over her shoulder and sharing a laugh with him as he waves back.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Gilbert walks back to the boys trying and failing to keep the smile off his face.

“Oooooooo Blythe’s got date night…” Jimmy sings, the rest of the team whooping and oohing loud enough for Anne to hear.

Gilbert violently hushes them. “It’s not like that,” he says, cringing at the defensiveness in is voice. “It’s the photography thing; we’ve done it loads of times. Just last week we drove seven hours to this waterfall place. Anne has a thing for beautiful places.”

“Cough cough faces,” Charlie says.

“Pretty boy.” Fred rubs Gilbert’s head.

“Where’s Jerry?” Gilbert asks, ignoring the comments.

Moody points a thumb back to the figure hunched over behind the courts. “Throwing up in the bushes.”

“You don’t foreplay with a guy’s sister right in front of him, dude,” Fred says, the rest of the boys shaking their heads disapprovingly.

“He’s not-! We weren’t-!”

Chapter Text

Avonlea being how it is, by the time Friday rolled around the populace of Anne and Gilbert’s Lake of Shining Cosmos camp night could be depicted as a Venn Diagram of half the school’s friendship groups.

Gilbert’s whole team was there, as well as Anne’s girls, and all of Jane’s attempts to keep her brother out of it could not deter Billy from inviting his crew and all of their acquaintances. And where there was a group of teenagers far enough away from Mrs Lynde, there was moonshine.

A large bonfire had been struck up, and now cast all the teenagers laughing and chatting and roasting marshmallows in the foreground into jittery waves of amber and shadow and those dancing, pitching up tents or splashing around in the lake background as simple silhouettes and noise.

“Not quite what I pictured when I proposed this,” Anne says, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand as she drops her backpack of stuff, glancing around the clearing.

“How do you always end up accidentally throwing the best parties?” Gilbert asks, chucking her a water bottle.

Anne sits by Diana, drizzling the water over her head. “By inviting blabbermouths whose parents have cellars full of grog?”

“Grog?” Diana snorts, tying her black curls up into a ponytail with a blue checkerchief. “What are you, a pirate?”

“Yeah, actually I am,” Anne says, turning to Diana with deadpan face.

“Or she will be once she drinks enough grog,” Gilbert comments with a sly smile, sitting down in the too-long grass beside Anne as the rest of the group laugh at the recollection of Anne’s pirate impersonation at the last bonfire.

“Gosh, do you remember?” Moody sighs wistfully, breathing in the summer air (comprised mainly of sweat, smoke and citronella bug spray).

“Nope,” Anne says, which makes everyone laugh again.

“Remember?” Diana nudges Anne. “We did the whole… Gosh, what was it called? Britannia?”

“You read the encyclopaedia?” Jimmy asks, eyes wide and voice awed. “What an experience!”

Gilbert rolls his eyes, amused. “That’s Britannica, Jimmy. Diana’s talking about that Beltane ritual all the girls had a phase with.”

“Ohhhhhh,” Anne draws out, leaning back on her elbows. “No. I still don’t.” She laughs, the sound joining so many others. “I do however remember when we all snuck out after dark in those long white nightgowns and flower crowns, and danced around a bonfire with Ruby’s old twirly gymnastic ribbons.” She barely manages to get the words out, as she wheezes with laughter.

“Not last year, on our property?” Moody asks, frowning.

“Yes!” Diana chimes in. “And we printed out a whole script and everything?”

Anne claps her hands, unable to speak through her tears of mirth.

“That was you guys?!” Moody exclaims. “I told Charlie - in confidence! - about the fairies I saw-“

“Fairies!” Anne laughs

Diana buries her face in Anne’s shoulder as she snorts.

“-and he told the whole team! I got called Pixie-boy for months!”

Jimmy laughs, him and Gilbert sharing a glance glimmering with mirth. “Charlie didn’t tell us anything, Mac. We called you pixie-boy because of your hair cut.”

“But this!” Gilbert flops back onto the grass, wiping tears from his eyes as he laughs. “This is useful information!”

Moody grumbles, his cheeks pink, but it’s impossible for him not to chuckle a little.

The rest of the girls find them, filing into the make-shift camp, Josie carrying her phone, Ruby carrying everything else, and Jane having an enthusiastic conversation with Tillie that she probably doesn’t realise is about the shirtless boys rather than the stars in the sky.

“My girls!” Anne squeals, jumping up and giving them all hugs despite having seen them mere hours before.

“Oh my god, Anne.” Tillie pushes Anne’s shoulders back from the hug. “BEST party idea. My eyes are feasting.”

“It was actually my idea,” Jane says, but miffed turns back into awe as she stares at the ombré sky. “But so are mine.”

“So you’re all setting up here then?” Gilbert asks.

A chorus of excited ‘yup’s later and Anne and Gilbert share a glance. The way people have coupled up in tents hasn’t left room for much flexibility, and unless Moody is willing to swap with Anne, or Ruby with Gilbert… dodging implications and innuendos just became a whole lot more difficult. If developing relationships are fallen buffalo, their friends are a hungry pack of vultures.

———

Hours later, when the sun had fully descended, the bonfire had lost it’s roar but kept it’s snap-crackle-pop, and a rough third of the camp had retreated to sleeping or making out in tents, Anne and Gilbert returned from a game of volleyball, wet from sweat and Gilbert’s water bottle, and discussing the game.

There were still whoops of laughter from the lake, a comfy, cozy haze of chatter settling over the clearing and Mr Worldwide playing from someone’s speaker, so the two friends weren’t expecting the total dead silence when they walked back to their tents.

Gilbert put an arm in front of Anne to stop her from stepping further. “Is this a trap?” He whispers.

Anne pushes the arm away, rolling her eyes. “Don’t be jaded, Gil. If I knocked the beers back as hard as they did, I’d be conked out too. Take this as a stroke of luck; now they won’t be up our ass about us sleeping in the same tent. So quick!” She hisses. “Go go go!”

Gilbert dives into the tent, making Anne stifle her laughter as she crawls in after him, and it’s such a kerfuffle trying to get all their limbs inside while Gilbert’s stressing about taking shoes off and Anne’s trying to pull the zipper up before anyone sees, that when they’re safe they take a moment to breathe.

The close proximity and enclosed quarters seem to amplify each other’s breaths, the heat of them only enhancing the already suffocatingly sticky warmth.

“It’s farking hot in here,” Gilbert states the obvious.

Anne leans over Gilbert’s head to open the opposite window and he barely has any time to dry-mouth over the tiny t-shirt stretched over her breasts in his face before the bright torch-light and Jimmy’s giddy slur, “Playing hooky, are we?” makes them both scream.

“Oh my God!” Anne laughs in relief, smacking the flimsy tent wall and hoping it’ll hit one of her friends - all of whom were apparently waiting on the other side of their tent with their torches. “We have a front door, you know?”

“But this is so much more fun,” Tillie giggles. “And what are you two doing? Little hanky panky?”

Gilbert clears his throat. “No, no hanky panky.” He lowers Anne with hands on her hips, but straddling really is no better a look so he scrabbles out from under her and into the cooler fresh air outside. Adjusting his clothes and smoothing his hair, he chuckles awkwardly. “Nope. Zero, no hanky panky no.”

“Oh.” Ruby tilts her head disappointedly. “Well, we need to fix that.” Her blonde hair is stringy with water against her pink tank top, and her eyes seem wider than ever, like a possum in the night. “You know what we should play?”

“Spin the bottle?” Josie suggests with a nasty smirk as Anne climbs out of the tent.

“Yes!” Ruby squeals.

“Lame,” Charlie sings. “Let’s play strip poker.”

“Yes!” Jerry yells.

“Let’s play!” Ruby claps her hands three times, marching towards the center of their tent-circle. “Strip poker!”

Diana rolls her eyes. “You don’t even know how to play normal poker, Rubes.”

“That’s why I’m on Moody’s team, duh.” She wraps her arms around Moody’s middle, looking up at him as she asks, “Can I be on your team?”

“Ordinarily I’d say ‘of course’, but strip poker isn’t exactly the kind of game you play on the same team as your girlfriend, Rubes.” He presses a kiss to her temple. “You can show me your cards though, and I can tell you what to do.”

Gilbert shakes his head at Moody. Something tells him Ruby will end the game with a lot more dignity if she ignored her boyfriend’s ‘guidance’.

“You’re the best boyfriend ever!” Ruby squeals jumping up to press a kiss to his cheek. “Isn’t he just the best boyfriend ever?” Moody winks at the rest of the group over Ruby’s head.

“Where are you going, Anne?” Josie asks, bringing the group’s attention to Anne as she sneaks back into the tent.

She straightens up, her eyes wide and caught. “Oh! I was just- going to- I’m not wearing much…” Anne looks to Gilbert for his help but before he can process his actions, he’s leaned over and grabbed Anne’s hand, pulling her to sit right opposite him, babbling, “Putting more clothes on before the game is cheating and you can’t cheat the game if you want to win the game because you don’t want to win by cheating do you, Carrots?”

The rest of the group seemed to have taken notice. Of course the girls knew about Gilbert Blythe helping Anne with her photography, but they believed Anne when she said they were good friends because Anne and Gilbert have always been just good friends.

But people don’t usually ban their good friends from putting more clothes on and then beg them to stay for strip poker.

If it was any darker Gilbert may not have seen Anne blush. “Pretty sure there are no winners in strip poker anyway,” she mumbles.

“You’ve obviously never played before,” he says, smirking in a way that allows her a glimpse at what everyone else must see when they look at Gilbert Blythe, captain of the hockey team, and not Gil, Anne’s next door neighbour.

Her heart stutters in her chest, and she stands back up on wobbly legs, dusting wet blades of grass from her legs as she walks back to the tent. “Sorry guys, I just- I think I’ll head to bed.”

The statement is met with a chorus of groans and naysaying, Charlie whining, “Anne, Gilbert won’t stay if you leave!”

“Really?” Anne asks hopefully, missing the meaning of the statement. She looks to Gilbert, inclining her head towards the tent with pleading eyes. He mentally calculates the chances of retreating to the tent and stripping her consequence-free against the chances of convincing her to play and doing the same.

“You’re chicken.” Gilbert grins, leaning back on his hands.

Anne crosses her arms over her chest, scoffing dramatically. “I am not! I simply-“

“You are more chicken than an entire bucket of Charlie’s triple chicken tenders,” Gilbert laughs.

Anne pauses, staring him down until she breathes out a quiet, “Fine,” her gaze no less steely.

“You’d think,” Tillie mutters to a nodding Jane, “that after twisting her ankle walking the ridgepole on a dare, she’d learn not to let the word ‘chicken’ be her weakness.”

“You’d think.”

Anne stalks slowly to her place on the grass, flicking her half-damp hair over her shoulders before grabbing the pack of cards. “By the end of this, we’ll see who’s calling who tender,” she says, shuffling the cards in a snapping riffle like a pro as the rest of the group explodes into cat-calling laughter.

Gilbert shakes his head, grinning but picks up his cards.

Chapter Text

It was pretty far into the game before Anne lost a hand. Charlie was down to his jocks, Jerry still fully clothed, Ruby in only her bikini, and most everyone else missing a shirt and slapping at mosquitos.

“Anne?” Gilbert had asked, raising an eyebrow and gesturing for her to reveal her hand, a cautious smile flickering upon his lips.

“No,” Anne said primly, turning her nose into the air as she pressed her cards to her chest.

“No?”

“No,” she repeated.

A grin spread across Gilbert’s face, and he reached across the circle for her cards, laughing, “Give ‘em here, Shirley!”

“Never!” She cried, bunching her legs up and turning around to protect her cards.

“Don’t be a sore loser,” Jerry called.

“Strip!” Charlie exclaimed.

Gilbert grappled with Anne, kneeling behind her back as he reached for the losing cards, laughing. He eventually pried them out of her fingers and tossed the pathetic hand into the centre for everyone to see. “Uh oh,” he chuckled. “You know what that means.”

“You’re all sweaty!” Anne exclaimed, shrieking with laughter like the rest of the group and arching her back against Gilbert’s torso. “Get! Off!”

“He will if you strip,” Tillie called.

Diana snorted.

Anne felt her best friend’s fingers grope for the hem of her t-shirt, not yet dragging it up, his deep warm chuckle at her ear. “You know you gotta.”

“Bite me.”

His teeth tug at her ear lobe, and she can’t help gasping, unable to choke out any words except, “I didn’t- Gil! Not-“

“Up,” he chuckles, and Anne puts her forearms up, shirking a little.

Gilbert sighs. “I’m not going to tickle you,” he promises.

Her arms straighten and he drags the shirt up and over, throwing it behind him, unable to drag his eyes away from the navy lace bra - decidedly not a bikini - that cradled Anne’s small breasts. He heaves a deep breath, and jumps up, joking about bug spray as if he isn’t totally out of sorts, tripping over Jane’s leg on the way, and prompting the group to fall further into hysterics.

This game needs to hurry up and end before Anne notices and decides to get him back for the biting thing.

———

“Say hi to the camera,” Anne sings.

Still sleeping, Gilbert grumbles a barely coherent, “Hi… camera,” before rolling onto his side. He wakes with a sharp, but deep inhale that turns into a yawn that turns into a sigh that - after a short pause - turns back into a snore. “Owah,” he groans confusedly when Anne elbows him in the back.

“Get up,” she whispers.

He squints over his shoulder, grunting a sleepy wordless question.

“Four fifty three,” Anne answers. “Come on, Blythe. Get up before the sun does please.”

Gilbert presses the heels of his palms into his eyes, full intending to curl into a ball and head back to sleep before he can notice the taste in his mouth.

Click!

“No,” he protests slowly, groping out for the camera.

“If you want it, come and get it,” Anne sings, and her musical laugh fills the tent as she dances around the tent.

Gilbert gets a good ten seconds of rest before Anne gives up and yanks him half out of his sleeping bag, asking, “What happened to Gilbert Blythe, light sleeper?”

“He drank six beers in one night,” Gilbert grumbles, easily pulling himself out of Anne’s grip and curling back into the sleeping bag.

Anne sighs with all the weight of the world and straddles his back.

“No, Anne…” Gilbert starts, but she shakes him with each whisper-yelled word.

“Get! Up! Right! Now! You! Trog! Lo! Dyte!”

“This is a tent, not a cave so your insult doesn’t stand,” he replies, the word half squooshed into his pillow.

“Maybe not, but you will if I have anything to do with it.”

Before Anne can start again, Gilbert rolls around to face her and with bleary eyes notices her weary even less than the end of the game last night. Not that he really remembers the end of-

Anne’s smirk sharpens as his mind works through the brain fog.

He sits up abruptly, a hand already dug into his sleep-mussed curls, eyes wide open. “Did we-?”

Anne takes a moment to understand, and when she does she stands off him, her eyes just as wide. “No! No, of course not! Gosh, Gil, we’re doing a photography assignment; I highly doubt Miss Stacy would accept pictures of… that in my portfolio.”

Gilbert flops onto his back. He reaches for her clothes and lobs them to her. “Well- put some clothes on before you wake me up next time! Jesus…”

“Sorry,” Anne mumbles, dressing herself in a simple, white day dress and pretending not to notice Gilbert watching as she braids her hair into two short plaits. “Better?” She asks, turning around.

Gilbert grins, arms folded behind his head. “You look cute.”

She pushes at his head, smiling too. “Get out of here. Literally. There are some things I can put in my portfolio and I would like to obtain them before this time tomorrow.”

Gilbert stretches his arms before pulling on a fresh shirt, grabbing his water bottle and unzipping the tent as quietly as he can.

Dew has slid onto every surface, clinging in droplets that wash his fingers and soak his shoes and reflect bursts of moonlight from the circle of tents and each blade of grass. He and Anne step barefoot through the wet grass, silent as shadows as they walk down to the lake.

“Where’s the flat?” Gilbert whispers.

Anne looks around, but the small boat is nowhere to be seen. “Looks like we’re swimming.”

“Where to?” Gilbert asks, complaints left back in the tent with his three hours sleep.

“Round the back of the island. I don’t want people interrupting and the willow tree should hide us,” Anne replies, lowering herself from the grassy banks to the grey mud.

Gilbert follows and Anne grabs his forearm as they slip on the freshwater pebbles. He slides his arm up to tangle his fingers with hers, both of them pretending to be focused on their steps.

When the dark freshwater reaches Gilbert’s untucked shirt tails, he glides forward into the lake with a splash that breaks the quiet, but not the moment.

Anne can’t help a smile but hushes him all the same. She gets a splash up her front for that, and then a louder one all up her right side for the shocked face she makes.

“Gilbert Blythe!” She hisses, aiming an underwater kick and missing. “You’ll get my camera wet and shut! Up!” She flicks water into his face, but he wipes it off with one hand and a laugh, returning the favour.

The water drips from the end of Anne’s nose as she huffs like a bull. “Oh, you are in for it now,” she whispers, grinning despite herself as she builds up a smooth wave with an arc of her forearm and washing the whole thing over Gilbert’s head before he can paddle away.

When the water sluices off of him, Anne giggles at the pond fronds in his hair and the way his curls have straightened with the water. The sound is cut off as Gilbert lunges forward to grab Anne’s waist and pull her into the river with a god-almighty splash and squeal followed by giddy laughter as she struggles to hold her camera high above the water.

Circles of torchlight from back on the banks light up white and bright, stealing the breath from the two as Gilbert reflexively hooks Anne closer to him, ducking them behind the islet where sleeping boughs of ferns and snapped branches have collected to form a low shelter through which the star-speckled way above them shines down on the tight moment.

Voices float through the breezy dark morning, quiet and blurry compared to the high definition chirping song of the crickets, gluck of the water rippling against the muddy islet and the sound of Anne’s breath embracing Gilbert’s in relief.

Anne’s eyes are wide as a deer’s as she scans the few people they’ve awoken, subconsciously moving closer to Gilbert as though to keep out of their bouncing torchlight. Gilbert’s gaze however, migrated rather quickly to the slick curve of Anne’s slack lower lip, fixating as she sinks her teeth into it anxiously…

Then she chuckles breathlessly, sparing a final glance at the torchlights turning off one by one before she shoves lightly at Gilbert’s chest. “Gilbert Blythe, you menace,” she laughs whisperingly.

He catches her hand at his chest, holding onto the previous moment for inability to breathe in the next. He wants nothing more than to kiss her, to just lean forward with a burst of courage and take her by warm surprise, take her in his arms, and feel her startled smile against his mouth before kissing him back.

But he’s startled out of his dazed dreaming with a click!

Anne lowers the camera, her eyes limped and serious. Without looking at the photo, she breathes, “Beautiful… No. Wonderful,” she amends with a slow but full smile.

And when she leads him by the hand, still holding hers, and out into the reflective water, tinged purple at the edges with dawn and sugared with stars, the beauty of the moment and the person he shares it with requires such mindful gratitude that he doesn’t even mind the quiet clicks beneath the lake’s symphony, or the fact that his dream will stay just a private one for himself and for ever.

Chapter Text

Cole was radiant as ever, but he absolutely shone as a host, beckoning Anne and Diana and Gilbert out of the sticky midday heat and inside the cool marble foyer - an entree to the opulent 1800’s meal that this manse seems to be.

After all the hugs and handshakes and exuberant greetings and introductions, Cole positioned Gilbert directly in front of him and stared until Gilbert’s cheeks started to pink.

“My god, you are a snack,” Cole declares.

“Cole!” Anne and Diana exclaimed, fixing him with admonishing glares, as Gilbert’s eyes widen and his colour deepens.

Cole’s mouth opens in defence as he turns to his two friends. “As in, I see what Anne means!” He gestures to Anne, but yanks his hand back when she slaps it away, her own face burning. “Cole!” She exclaims again, shriller this time.

“As in,” Cole tries again, “I get why-“ Anne’s eyes seem read to pop with how full of warning they are “-you chose him for your photography assignment!” He finishes wisely. “Lemonade and cucumber-cream-cheese sandwiches this way, follow me!” Cole lifts his silk neck scarf above his head as he promptly changes the topic and turns, leading them down the hallway, manoeuvring around all the people delivering harried last minute tasks in preparation for the summer evening’s soirée.

“Nice save,” Diana mutters as she links her arm with Cole’s.

“Are they like that all the time?”

“Like what?”

Cole frowns at Diana. “Like two attracted magnets that for some reason are repelling instead of clicking, and no law of science can explain why?”

Diana laughs - the free one that comes with a smile too wide for her mouth and means she’s truly amused. “Oh Cole,” she sighs, “if you got that from introductions I almost have to apologise for the rest of the evening because I can assure that they can do a lot better than that.”

Click!

Cole casts a glance over his shoulder to see Anne lowering her camera to see through her own eyes rather than a lens. All the better to appreciate the soft smile and bright eyes on Gilbert’s upturned face as he admires the stained glass ceiling dome through which a rainbow of sparkling colours shine down upon him.

“Fuck me,” Cole mutters in response to Diana who smiles with more pain than amusement.

———

Anne makes a frustrated noise that Gilbert would best describe as a mix of a velociraptor screech and the low hum of a washing machine.

“Yeah?” He answers, focused on trying to decide between the blue tie or the pale gold by holding them up against his suit in the full length mirror in Anne’s room.

Anne turns around in her vanity seat, a fluffy white robe wrapped around her outfit. “Do you know how to do make up?” She asks pleadingly.

“Do I look like I know how to do make-up? Blue or gold?”

“No, you don’t, but neither do I and Diana’s in the middle of a phone call with her parents and I have learnt the hard way that you do not want to interrupt those,” Anne finishes in a mumble, making a face in the mirror. “And gold. It will bring out the sparkles in your eyes.”

At this, Gilbert finally looks away from the mirror. “I don’t have gold sparkles in my eyes. Do I have gold sparkles in my eyes?”

“No, but I’ll photoshop them in later, don’t worry,” Anne says as she stares into mirror and peels off a botched fake eyelash. “Now,” she continues, turning in her seat to face Gilbert, “I beseech you to help me! Doctors are meant to have fine motor skills, are you not? It will be good practice for you and my hands are shaking with excitement, and besides, all you have to do is follow instructions!”

“You know, you don’t even need make-up anyway, Anne-girl. You’re stunning as you are.” Gilbert ties his tie at his throat, making eye-contact with Anne’s puppy dog eyes in the mirror.

Anne tuts. “Ah, you know, if you hadn’t added the stunning part that actually might have worked.”

“Really?“ His tone is surprised.

“Well, it wouldn’t have convinced me?“ Anne reasons, and Gilbert hums in resigned agreement “-but at least I wouldn’t have thought you were just putting on.”

“I wasn’t just…” Gilbert folds his collar over his tie, letting the sentiment trail off considering it wasn’t very loud to begin with, and that Anne is already begging him to help her with make-up again.

With a sigh and a smile, he drags another seat to the vanity.

———

The soirée was an even larger success than all that came before, as the star-studded midnight blue sky surpasses all the vibrant oranges and purples of the transitioning sunset.

Swathing the room like a child, filmy white curtains flutter in the evening breeze reflected every colour. Inside, the nostalgic gold of the soft chandelier and candlelight, outside, the ethereal silver of the moon. Guests whirled and twirled, cool silks and light chiffon as bright as their laughter and chatter and eyes.

The centrepiece, however, is the magnificent three-tiered water fountain in the centre of the terrace, the eye of the dancing tornado. The water pulsates blue, pink, and green as it flows from tier to tier, and spurts out of the statue twins’ matching flutes to create an eternal pink water heart above the whole piece. Floating atop the water, amongst the delicate, exotic water lilies are spectacular cocktails and amuse-bouche in their own lit-up ‘bumper’ platters.

More spectacular than it all, however, is Anne, who is dancing or chatting animatedly with someone new every time Gilbert sees her. The puffed skirt of her knee-length electric blue chiffon dress bounces adorably as she walks, and the sleeves drape around her upper arms, leaving her freckled shoulders bare but for the silky red waves of her hair that slide over them.

They’d argued until the party had started about her make-up, with Anne insisting he contour within an inch of his life. Gilbert had refused, arguing that ‘sometimes knowing when an artwork is finished is half the skill.’ If Gilbert were still as cocky and stupid as his fourteen-year-old self, he may have attributed his eyes’ constant attraction to Anne’s face to his own talent rather than nature’s.

“She’s the belle of every ball that one,” Aunt Jo says wistfully, coming up behind Gilbert who smiles politely and offers his arm.

“She’s certainly something,” he agrees with a chuckle. “The party is spectacular Jo. I thought Anne had lifted my expectations too high with her recounts, yet I still find them exceeded,” he admits, laughing with her.

“Oh thank you,” she sighs. “Hosting was more of Gertrude’s pleasure than mine, but I find that in partaking with her projects, I feel closer to her than ever.” Aunt Jo’s smile is wistful, and sad, but it is still a smile, and Gilbert understands the comfort of grief even more than her words.

“I often feel the same way,” he says.

“Oh!” Her expression opens with interest. “Of course, Cole has told me all about your noble assistance with our Anne’s photography project. My my, I’d love to see how it turns out. Anne often sends me her creations and they delight me each and every time.” Aunt Jo shakes her head, chortling with amusement as she recalls.

“Well, she’s my best friend,” Gilbert acknowledges as though it were a weakness rather than a strength.

“You still could’ve said no,” Aunt Jo probes.

Looking over the rim of his glass at Anne as she and Diana twirl each other around and around, shrieking with laughter and giddy as the stars themselves, Gilbert sighs. He looks to Aunt Jo with such resigned eyes and wry smile, that she can instantly understands

“Ah. I see,” she draws out. “Not to her, you can’t.”

Gilbert looks down into his empty glass, spinning it between his fingers. “Uh.” He crinkles his eyes at Aunt Jo in an embarrassed smile, gesturing to nowhere with his glass. “I should let you get back to enjoying your party,” he exhales a chuckle.

She heaves a breath and uncurls her arm from his. “As you wish… But only if you go and enjoy it too,” she replies, glancing pointedly towards where Anne is now chatting with the butler who refilled her glass.

Gilbert dips his head with a smile. “As you wish.”

———

“I saw you talking with Aunt Jo!” Anne bounces up to Gilbert, her cheeks flushed with merriment. “Did she say anything nice about me?” Anne bumps her hip against his teasingly.

“She said you were the belle of every ball,” he recounts, grinning as she twirls in demonstration. “And then ordered me to ask you for a dance.”

“Oh,” Anne rolls her eyes, “like that, was it?”

“It was.”

“Well, if Aunt Jo orders…” Anne holds out her hand, the other arm bent chivalrously behind her back.

“If Aunt Jo orders,” Gilbert repeats, shrugging as though helpless even as he places his hand in hers and curtsies, making Anne laugh.

“I have something to admit to you, Anne-girl,” Gilbert murmurs as he leads her out onto a separate, smaller terrace, so bathed in moonlight they seem to almost drip silver.

“Oh? What’s that?”

“Dancing is my one weakness,” he whispers, fumbling uncertainty as he grazes her shoulder and hip and waist and arm with touches as light and naive as the evening summer breeze that caresses them.

“One weakness?” Anne whispers back incredulously, before giggling at him tucking his hands safely behind his back.

“Well,” he allows, his gaze soft as he looks upon her, unknown by Anne as she takes his hands and places one gently upon her waist and interlaces the other with her own. “Maybe I have two.”

She looks up then, the smile fading from her face as she seems to sink into his hold, moving closer as though stuck in his orbit like all the stars seem to be stuck in theirs.

His heart beats loudly in his chest, and Gilbert almost has the courage to lean forward to press his lips to hers. Maybe if Anne had waited a moment longer before quietly teaching him a few basic steps, he would’ve kissed her. Maybe if Gilbert had kissed her a moment sooner, she’d not have resorted to the familiar practice of teaching.

Soon enough, however, their laughter peals through the night as they spin each other around and around, twirling slowly across the terrace at first, then faster and faster until their cheeks are flushed with dancing and laughter, and they are no longer paying attention to the orchestra playing inside.

Instead, Gilbert pulls her closer and rests his forehead on hers to catch his breath, the both of them still humming giggles even as his hand tightens against the small of back, bringing her flush against him so that her breath is warm against his neck. Swaying, they rest in each other’s arms, the air becoming taught with each second as though someone has started gently pulling on the fabric of the moment.

Gilbert spins Anne out and back into his arms, slow as though stuck in honey, and this time she lifts her gaze to his, blink by blink, their pulses speeding up with each hastened breath until Gilbert swallows, his heart blooming with fondness for the beautiful girl held just a moment away.

He lowers his face, tilting slightly and intending to slot sweetly against hers with a warm sweet kiss, his pulse racing faster than it ever has.

Anne loses herself in his eyes, the reflection of the cosmos almost blacked out by his dilated pupils and she thinks that maybe she should photoshop silver flecks into his eyes instead of gold. She gasps, gripping Gilbert’s shirt in her hands. “This would be the perfect photo!” She exclaims. “Wait right there, I’m just going to set my camera up!” Her voice is distant as she runs back into the ballroom, her gait unfamiliar in her high heels. She’s gone before Gilbert can stutter out for her to wait a moment.

He thought he knew disappointment, in himself and in his grades and in his team when they lose a match, but rarely so deeply because of how a moment turns out. His whole being seems shaky with plateaued anticipation, uncertainty, spent nerves and a bone-deep ache of what could have been if she’d just forgotten her camera for a moment.

Anne returns shortly, but her excited smile fades instantly when she realises Gilbert is nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Text

Curled up on the window seat in the bedroom Aunt Jo had given him, Gilbert watches the tired but happy parade of colourful people snake from the front door where they express their gratitude to Aunt Jo, to their various cars parked up and down the long, winding driveway. The moon is bright and whole, the stars winking their goodbyes as the poplars wave them off too.

The door of his bedroom clicks open, and he turns his gaze to see Anne poke her head in, face clean and natural, wearing her faded star-patterned cami and a pair of matching pyjama shorts.

“Gil?” She calls quietly. “I thought I’d come check up on you. May I come in?”

Gilbert smiles with a nod, and as Anne steps in and closes the door behind her, he stands and draws the black-out drapes, immediately transforming the room into a private space where golden sconces and lamps offer a soft, cozy light.

“I wasn’t sure where you’d gone off to, when I went to get my camera,” Anne says. “Did I do something wrong? I’m awful sorry if I did.”

“No,” Gilbert assures her, walking forward to stand by her. “No, you didn’t do anything wrong, I- it was me. I was…” He sighs, before offering a wry smile. “…tired.” As if to demonstrate his point, he sits on the bed and pats the spot next to him for Anne. “Did you enjoy the party?”

“Oh, it was a dream,” Anne sings, falling back onto the bed gracefully. The ceiling is decorated like a wedding cake, detailed and extravagant and symmetric, and Anne traces the patterns with her fingers as she details her observations of the party and her favourite parts.

“Oh, I couldn’t pick a favourite,” Gilbert admits when she asks.

“You didn’t dance with anyone who’d caught your eye?” Anne asks, almost mournfully. “There were ever so many beautiful young ladies there…”

Gilbert contemplates for a moment, his eyes slightly narrowed and fixed on the corner of the deep green canopy above the bed. He’d had a wonderful dance with a beautiful young lady who had caught much more than his eye. His gaze shifts minutely towards her. “Hmm,” he pretends to think. “Nope. Not really.”

Anne catches the teasing glint in his eye, the sharp curve of his grin - his amusement is a much more exciting knife than his humour.

Chuckling at his jokes as she always will, Anne whacks him with a pillow, kicking playfully at his back. “I obviously hadn’t meant me,” she grins, “but you don’t have to be so rude.”

Gilbert laughs, holding Anne’s ankles still with one hand to stop her attacks as he slumps beside her on the bed. Anne starts to make silly faces to fill the silence with his laughter, crossing her eyes and poking out her tongue. But it just reminds him of how much he loves her, and that comes with a sadness. The Great Gilbert John Blythe, future Dux, Captain of the hockey team, MVP of the year level can’t muster the courage to kiss the girl he loves.

“Boop,” he whispers, touching the tip of the nose she’s so proud of, before sliding in between the sheets, his eyes lidding with the movement.

Anne climbs under too, lifting the sheet over their heads to exclude the world from their buttercup bubble of warm, steady breath and the shift of the bed as Gilbert leans over to turn the lamp off.

Warm darkness ensconces them, but each can feel the comforting, intimate presence of the other right beside them. Anne’s hip against Gilbert’s side, his elbow resting gently upon her stomach, the both of them moving in the slight but vulnerable way all living things do when they’re still.

“Gil.”

His eyelashes flutter back open at the whisper. “Yeah.”

“I… have a question to ask you.”

A twitch of his knee against hers. A swallow that she feels in the air. She wonders if the reason it feels so hot is simply the overheating of her heart as it works to beat so fast.

“Um… do you think, you know, in the future,” Anne whispers slowly, knowing she’s edging over the cliff, and not knowing whether his response will be there to catch her or not. “I don’t need an answer now or anything, but…”

“Yes.” His word is rough and it’s not due to tiredness. He feels her head turn quickly on the pillow, as though she could see his face in the darkness.

“Yeah?” She repeats hopefully.

Gilbert too, turns on his side, his words curved with a smile. “Yes, God Anne, of course!” He whispers in the darkness.

“Oh!” Anne exclaims, a giggle threaded through. “Well- okay! Good! Goodness, I was so nervous,” she laughs. “I thought I was pushing boundaries-“

“Not at all! I thought I was! I thought you didn’t want-“

“What? Of course I do! Okay, okay!” Anne laughs, and turns back on her pillow, as Gilbert leans over to turn the light back on. “Okay, so whose bedroom should we use?”

Click! The room fills with a soft golden glow just in time to illuminate Gilbert’s frown.

"E-excuse me?"

"Well, no need to look so scandalised." Anne grins, reaching out to graze her fingers against the blush on his cheeks. He's too shocked to throw them back at her. "Generally boudoir photo shoots are shot in a boudoir."

At his blank face and frozen breath, Anne chuckles. "A boudoir is a bedroom, Blythe. Keep up."

"Boudoir..." Gilbert manages to move his tongue.

"Yes," Anne coaxes condescendingly.

"Photo shoot..."

Here, Anne shoots up into a sitting position, the sheets lapping over her thighs and clenched in her nervous fists. “Oh my gosh." Her voice is flat with dissociation, her eyes frozen wide as Gilbert's were just a moment ago. "Is that not what you said 'yes' to?”

While contemplating the certainty of dual embarrasment if he has to explain what he thought he was saying yes to, Gilbert realises he's frozen a beat too long and Anne's snapped the sheet over her red head. “No!" Gilbert answers, gently tugging it back down. "I mean- yes. It was. Is." Gilbert closes his mouth and eyes before he can make any more of a mess than he already has.

Why can't he just realise that she doesn't think of him like that? God, he wishes he had his skates and the ice-rink right now, and a locker-room full of friends who can decode this stuff. Not that there's much to decode, Gilbert thinks. It's pretty obvious that to her, he's just 'Gilbert Blythe, my best bud', and not 'Gilbert Blythe, star of my dreams'.

And now look what's he's gotten himself into. A boudoir photo shoot is the exact situation he's been trying to avoid this whole time, but it's not like he can back out now after saying yes so enthusiastically. The boys are going to piss themselves laughing if they ever find out.

"Um." Gilbert drags a hand down his face and slumps back onto the pillow. "So, this is the last thing you gotta do for the assignment?"

Anne laughs. "Don't act like you haven't enjoyed it, you."

He wisely decides not to answer that with anything but a gooey grin.

"And yes." Anne crawls over to the foot of his bed where she riffles through her camera bag for a piece of paper. Reading from it, and walking on her knees back to him she says, "Action photography, tick. Vintage photography, tick. Nature photography, tick. Night-time photography, tick. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. And lucky last..." Anne leans on Gilbert's propped up knee for balance as she points at the last item on the list: boudoir photography.

He wiggles his legs side to side, making her sway and him laugh in that deeper way he does when he's laying down. "Mkay. Well, I don't mind where we do it," he says. "You choose, you're the professional."

"Hm." Anne rests her cheek atop his knees as she thinks, the fabric of his pyjama pants softening the edges. "Maybe we’ll do it in yours, then. Yours spends much more time in darkness than mine. And besides Bash and Mary are ten times more chill about this than Matthew and Marilla."

Gilbet lifts his head to protest with the ghost of a smile, "Hey, you don't see how they act when you leave!"

Anne giggles, hiding the bottom-half of her face behind his legs even as her hands grip the tops of his thighs.

That. The coy sparkle in her look, Gilbert thinks, that's why he finds it so hard to label his infatuation unrequited.

Anne yawns, melting to curl back down beside him, kicking the blanket down to the bottom of the bed. “I should go,” she sighs.

Gilbert does too, staring up at the canopy of the bed and ignoring the path her gaze wanders all over him. "Probably wise."

"Mm." Anne's forehead leans against his bicep, her knee nudging at his thigh.

Gilbert turns his head to check for the tell-tale upturn of her mouth that means she's teasing but her cherry hair has fallen over the side of her face. She doesn't move, but for the steady expansion and contraction of her chest against his arm, and the rise and fall of her freckled shoulder. He closes his eyes and exhales, more out of frustration than fatigue.

---------

It takes a moment for Anne to realise where she is. She stares in sideways discombobulation at a suit jacket hung on the wardrobe door, and a bottle of cologne on the dresser. That slim phone on the bedside table is black and not hers. The charger plugged into it is white, not green with yellow petals. And this arm curled tight under her breasts, and the chest at her back and the dark curls soft under her jaw are decidedly male.

Anne sits up abruptly, to check that it is indeed only Gilbert, feeling only a tiny breeze of relief before whispering, "Fiddlesticks! Not again!"

Gilbert's head falls softly onto the pillow, his arm dropping to her lap, and fingers tightening in confused response to her sudden movement against the sliver of waist available between her pj shorts and cami. Anne's eyes pop wide at the electric sensation it sends into her stomach and she safely maneouvers herself out of his hold and onto the edge of the bed, gripping her hair away from her face. "Diana," she decides with a nod. "Need to talk to Diana."

"Hm? ‘Bout what?”

“Huh?”

“Need to talk to Diana about what?" Gilbert asks groggily, reaching out to draw a finger down her curved spine. It immediately straightens like a board.

"Nothing!" Anne squeaks, slapping a smile on that looks more like a grimace as she feels his weight shift on the bed.

He rests his chin on her shoulder, and chuckles hummingly. "Why're you freaking out, Anne-girl? We didn't do anything. Promise."

Anne's shoulders drop and she rolls her eyes. "Well, I know that. And I'm not freaking out. We're fine. It's just-" She sighs, swivelling around and forcing Gilbert's heavy head back up. "Cole," she says. Anne takes in the sight of Gilbert, and giggles.

He flops back onto the bed, burrowing his face in his pillow. "What?”

“Your hair," Anne explains, leaning over to touch the curls that poke out in every which way, unable to stop a smile from spreading over her face, right over the panic from before. This is one of the things she loves about their friendship, how easily they can move between sections that everyone else has the need to signpost and label and toll.

Gilbert swats her away and Anne leans over his head to grab her camera.

"No," Gilbert groans, hiding his head as she lifts the viewfinder to her eyes. "Not again. Hey, we've gone over this!"

"Oh, that's right," Anne says, lowering her camera. "In that case..." Gilbert uncovers his face, and Anne exclaims, "Sike!"

Click!

"Traitor!" He yells, laughing as he grapples with her for the camera. "Cheat! Liar!"

Anne squeals, snapping as many photos as she can, as Gilbert tries to pry her fingers. "Genius! Winner! Domina-" She's cut off with her own shrieks of laughter as Gilbert manages to throw her camera into the pile of blankets at the bottom the bed, and dig his fingers into her ticklish waist.

"No! Wait! Stop!" She manages through her laughter as she tries to get away, twisting and turning in his grasp, and attempting to elbow him as he holds her back against his chest.

"Gil!" She bends over at the waist, pulling him up onto his knees behind her before trying to somersault away from him. The clumsy attempt that ends with her tangled on her side and Gilbert losing his balance and falling onto her, has the both of them laughing so loud that neither has the strength to overpower the other, however much they try.

The squealing and yelling, laughter and thumps must have caused quite a ruckus in the rest of the manse, so it really shouldn't have been such a surprise when the door opens to reveal the butler, Rollings, looking calmly down his nose at what must be quite a sight.

Anne sees him between Gilbert's legs and is abruptly aware of their flushed cheeks and tangled sheets and the fairly clear picture it must paint. Unfortunately, she cannot utter a single word of warning, so shaken by mirth is she. And it only becomes more and more difficult as Gilbert - unaware of Rollings trying to get a word in edgewise - attempts to pin Anne’s legs down with his own, and her arms up above her head with his wrist.

She heaves against his force, but he’s too strong so she succumbs to the moment, tears of silent laughter streaming sideways over her temples, as Gilbert continues, “You! Stay there!” He laughs, grunting with exertion. "Stay there or I'll make you stay-"

“Ahem!” Rollings says.

Anne clocks the exact moment Gilbert realises that door is open because his whole face snaps to guilty.

“I have been requested,” Rollings continues, “to ask the two of you to lower your volume.“

Gilbert spears Anne - who is still gasping with amusement - with a lethal glare.

“And I might also ask you to please unhand Miss Shirley Cuthbert,” Rollings requests, calm but stern. “She seems to be in distress."

Gilbert immediately leans up off of Anne, cringing apologetically at Rollings, the red burning brighter in his cheeks. "Yes. Of course. We're, um, we’re sorry for disturbing everyone. I can imagine that after last night’s festivities they mightn’t appreciate, er, th-the noise.” He had hoped that through his mortifying rambling, Anne might have reassured Rollings that he was not - in fact - physically assaulting a young woman, but it seems as though every one of his awkward mannerisms, from the clench of his jaw to reaching for the back of his neck - had spurred a new wave of laughter-attacks.

“Um-“ He turns to Anne, who is clutching her stomach, her eyes squeezed close. “She’s- she’s fine, I swear,” he tells the butler, gesturing to her tiredly.

Anne offers a weak thumbs up in their direction, massaging her aching cheeks with her other hand.

"I might ask that this door be left open,” Rolling says nevertheless.

"Of course.” Gilbert stands, used to walking people out.

Rollings disappears down the hallway promptly, and Gilbert closes the door before launching himself onto the bed to whack Anne’s torso with a pillow.

“Oh my God!” He whispers between thwacks. “Why didn’t you tell me he was standing right there!?”

"Oh, I’m sorry!” Anne giggles, hoo’ing herself down from another laugh-attack. “I physically couldn't! It was too funny!”

Gilbert slumps, letting Anne grab the pillow. “You do realise what he thought we were doing all morning, don’t you?” He asks, seriously. “What everyone is thinking we’ve been doing all morning? If we were so loud someone sent Rollings to tell us to keep the volume down, then the whole manse must have heard us!”

“Oh calm down, Gil,” Anne sighs, finally in enough control of her body to turn on her side. “It’s not like we were in our underwear.”

“You do realise I can see your nipples through this fabric, right?” Gilbert says, tugging at the hem of her cami.

Anne gasps and pulls the sheets up to her chin.

“I’m kidding! I’m kidding,” Gilbert laughs. “You’re perfectly decent. But in all seriousness, I hope you were overreacting when you were freaking out about Cole.”

“You are cruel,” Anne says, “I was not, and so it’s a good thing we weren’t moaning or anything.”

Gilbert scoffs in his throat, arching a smug eyebrow. “Speak for myself. You were something else.”

“I didn’t say anything weird!”

“Oh, oh, oh, Gil,” Gilbert mocks her, pitching his voice higher, “wait, Gil, Gil, please, please please *
plea-”

Anne slaps a hand over his mouth, her face burning pink. “Shut up! I did not!”

Gilbert throws her hand away, revealing a shit-eating grin. “You did, and you know it, and that’s why you’re blushing.” He presses the backs of his fingers to her cheeks to prove his point.

Before Anne has the chance to think of a protest that burns stronger than her face, there’s a knock at the door.

“Helloooooooo! Lovebirds!”

Anne slaps at Gilbert chest, her face clear of any indignation. “Oh my god. Window window window window!”

He runs towards the window, spurred by the urgency in her voice.

“Get out the window, Blythe!” She whispers, pushing at his back.

“What the fuck, Shirley?” He whispers back, just as urgently.

“I hope you’re decent!” The voice on the other side of the door calls. “Who am I kidding? No, I don’t.”

“Gilbert Blythe, if you don’t climb out this window, I will throw you out of it.”

And that’s how the two found themselves crouching behind a chimney on a burning summer morning in their pyjamas.

“How is this better than hiding in the wardrobe?” Gilbert says quietly, inspecting the scratch of brick on his bare back.

“Wardrobes are an amateur hiding spot,” Anne says, trying to hide her discomfort about how Gilbert was not lying when he made that quip about the translucency of her pyjamas. At least he was a good enough friend to pretend it was a lie.

“What about under the bed, hm?” He asks.

“We always get found when we hide under the bed.”

“No, we don’t!”

“Yes, we do! But Matthew and Marilla can’t bend down that far-“ she ignores Gilbert’s snorting laughter “-and so they just pretend to ignore us!” She slaps him on the arm, trying her utmost not to laugh and failing. “I thought you were meant to have sympathy for elderly joints, Mr Dr!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he sniffs. “Alright, I think it’s all clear. Shall we head back?”

Anne eyes the ground three floors below them warily. “Mhm.”

Anyone else might have teased her - ‘not so cocky now, Miss Shirley’ - but Gilbert can tell that that fall from Diana’s roof three years ago still scares her. “C’mere,” he says, standing up and holding out his hand. “I’ve got you.”

Chapter Text

"You two," Diana huffs as she plonks herself down on the train seat next to Anne, "are welcome."

"And we thank you most sincerely," Anne enthuses.

"But just because I got Cole and his innuendo off your back for one morning," Diana continues, fiddling with the air-conditioning vents above them, "doesn't mean that you can get rid of me and my curiosity."

Anne and Gilbert's smiles drop from their faces as they share a glance.

"What were you two doing in the same room last night?" Diana asks suspiciously, leaning back in her chair.

Gilbert sighs, opening up his neurology textbook. "Why, sex, of course."

Anne kicks his shin and rolls her eyes. "We were not having sex," she tells Diana. "We were organising something for my photography assignment, and I fell asleep, okay?"

Diana pauses. The carriage rocks. "Allow me to rephrase: What were you two doing in the same room this morning? And by what, I don't mean why."

A bright burn rises on the cheeks of both Anne and Gilbert. The former casts her gaze outward to the rushing scenery of PEI, the latter burrows his nose further into his book, his eyes on the diagrams, his gaze on a blurry Anne.

"Well?" Smug delight curves Diana's probe.

Anne opens her tatty novel, and flips to her dandelion bookmark, ignoring the question by clearing her throat. How do you explain something like that? Something that did feel like more than usual but that she could never confess to someone aside from herself, let alone when Gilbert's right there?

Diana chuckles to herself, opens her hardback Frankenstein and sighs so happily that Anne closes her book with a frustrated thwap.

"We were just-" she sighs, "-you know, mucking around."

Without looking up, Diana asks daintily, "And by mucking, do you mean 'making', and by around do you mean 'out'?"

Gilbert sinks further into his seat. How he wishes he could answer that with a truthful yes.

"Diana," Anne exasperates, "I promise you, if we were making out this morning, or at any other time in the recent past-" she laughs, high and incredulous "-you would be the one supremely uncomfortable right now. Not us!"

"Please," Diana smiles thinly, placing the navy ribbon between her pages, "if I got uncomfortable with PDA or UST or any other sexual acronym, I never would have sat next to you two. Don't think I didn't notice the game of footsie under the breakfast table this morning."

Gilbert's heart rises up in his throat. He thought they'd been so sly too.

And fine, so the brutal reality slap of miscommunication last night wasn't enough to make him stop toying with Anne. Her push and pull is as addictive as he feared, but he's rather certain she knows what game they're playing. And rather certain she enjoys it as much as he does, too.

"I- We-" Anne freezes at Diana explicitly stating what she and Gilbert have always kept tacit, before changing tack. "Where did you get that book?"

Diana clutches the tome to her chest, folding her arms over the cover. "You're changing the topic!"

"You're avoiding my question!"

"Ah," Gilbert sighs, clicking his biro to take notes in his margins. "You have no idea how much it relieves me to know you have useless fights with all your friends, Carrots."

"It's not a useless fight," she snaps, peering between Diana's arms.

"What's it about then?" He asks calmly.

Anne gasps, and meets Diana's deer-in-headlights expression. "JERRY?!"

Gilbert looks up then, at the mention of his teammate. "You're arguing about-" he blinks "-Jerry?"

Diana flounders like a defensive fish with no armour.

"How long?" Anne demands.

“How did you know?”

“Please." Anne rolls her eyes. "I taught him to read. Like I wouldn't know a book of his when I saw it. So, how long? How long have you been seeing each other?"

Diana sighs, defeated. "March," she admits, her voice quiet as though in a confessional.

"March!" Anne exclaims in disbelief at the same time as Gilbert frowns, sitting up straighter as he protests. "But that's impossible. We were in season in March."

Diana's eyes freeze wide, and she covers her mouth as though to prevent any other admissions from squeezing out. "Oh no."

"March!" Anne repeats. "You've been hiding this since March?"

"You're telling me Jerry had a girlfriend while we were in season?" Gilbert asks, his face stony with intimidation. "Unbelievable!"

Anne turns to Gilbert, her face twisted in shock. "March!"

"March!" He says back, just as displeased.

Diana tuts, a grimace stretched over her rosy face. "Well, you weren't meant to be here when I told Anne," she says to Gilbert, "and I couldn't tell any of the girls because they'd tell you," she says to Anne, "and I wasn't meant to tell you because you'd tell Gilbert!"

"Why does it matter if Gilbert knows?" Anne asks.

Diana turns her pinched, displeased look to Gilbert, who clenches his jaw and stares out the window in stubborn avoidance.

"What?" Anne asks slowly, her eyes roving the taught distance between her two best friends.

The unspoken argument continues for another moment before Diana sits up straight and flicks her dark hair over her shoulders. "Gilbert doesn't let the guys have girlfriends during season," she explains, prickly with distaste.

"Thanks, Di," Gilbert mutters stonily.

"What?" Anne chuckles, her brow creasing with confusion as she tries to strain a valid explanation from Diana.

"How could you not have known that?" Diana asks her.

"Maybe because I didn't want her to know that," Gilbert says, voice low and controlled in a way that rings warning bells in Anne's mind. He's angry, she realises. Frustration, upsetness, determination, she's seen, but anger is not as common an emotion in Gilbert Blythe's repertoire as it is in Anne's. "Maybe because I went to great lengths to ensure it," he says.

"Why?" Diana asks.

"Why?" Gilbert repeats, incredulous, snapping his gaze from the window. "Because-!" He replaces his explanation with a swallowed sigh when he remembers Anne's presence.

"Because," Diana says, leaning forward in her chair, "you don't want Anne to-"

Gilbert pleads Diana to stop talking with desperate eyes over Anne's head.

"Don't want me to what?" Anne asks, chuckling nervously as she turns back to face Gilbert - his face wiped clear. "Date you?"

Soft as a feather, he lets a poisonous gaze fall on Diana. "Ignore her," he says to Anne. "She has no idea what she's talking about."

"Look," Diana says, softer. "Gilbert, Jerry really respects you as a Captain, and doesn't want to let you down, so he made me promise not to tell anyone. Surely you can cut him some slack. You still won the premiership, so... no harm, no foul, right?"

Gilbert shakes his head at Anne, tongue in cheek as if to say 'can you believe her?' He chuckles, then leans his elbows forward on his knees. "It's not about winning the premiership, Diana," he says slowly, his amused grin staling into a disappointed twist. "It's the fact that he disobeyed me - as his captain. You say he respects me, but his actions show that he doesn't. This is Avonlea. I don't cut slack, I cut slackers."

Shit, Anne thinks, her heart shaking in her chest, her skirt wrung between her hands. This wasn't supposed to happen. The whole her two best friends fighting about Diana dating her brother thing, yeah. But also the whole... pulse between her legs thing.

"Oh shut it, Blythe," Diana snaps. Anne raises her eyebrows. "Don't you think you're being unnecessarily harsh? This whole 'no dating during season' rule is ridiculous."

"Hey," Gilbert says, holding Diana's gaze from under his brow, serious as the brightest star in the night sky. "Question my methods when we lose, Barry."

Then he smirks like he couldn't help it, like his 15 year old self, like salted caramel unspooling from a spoon. Slow and indulgent and infuriating. Infuriating to both girls in two very different ways.

Anne and Diana mirror each other unconsciously, the way best friends are won't to do. Averting their gaze from Gilbert, slumping against their chair, cursing quietly. "Fuck." But where Diana mutters, Anne groans, and Gilbert, leaning back in his chair and reopening his textbook, doesn't notice either.

"God, Anne was right all those years ago," Diana sighs, rolling her eyes.

"I'm sure she doesn't appreciate you bringing her into this," Gilbert murmurs, underlining a phrase.

"I'm sure she doesn't appreciate you speaking for her," Diana snaps back.

"Actually, Di," Anne says, "Gil's right. I really don't want to be choosing teams here."

Gilbert doesn't look up from his textbook, but he does grin his victory. "Which means she's on my team. Ow!" He looks up when Anne kicks his shin.

"Congratulations," Anne lifts her nose into the air. "You tricked me and now I'm on Di's side." She hugs Di's arm and sticks her tongue out at Gilbert.

Gilbert returns the gesture, wrinkling his nose adorably and making Anne laugh, making him smile too.

"Ew," Diana says, shrugging Anne off as though she'd just dribbled onto her sleeve. "Can you two not foreplay over my shoulder?"

"We're doing no such thing," Anne asserts, tapping Diana's shoulder. "Turn around. I'll braid your hair off your neck for you."

Diana does so, fluffing her hair out behind her as Anne shuffles to kneel up against her back.

Gilbert watches a moment before unzipping Anne's third backpack pocket and finding her familiar camera, smiling through the viewfinder at them as they trade focused murmurs and girlish giggles.

Click!

The sound captures Anne's attention and she looks to Gilbert, grinning cheesily and making a moustache for herself with Diana's hair as he takes more photos.

"Come on Di," he coaxes. "Smile for the camera!"

"No. I'm still angry at you," Diana replies, her head stubbornly facing the aisle.

"That's no reason not to say 'cheese'!" Anne says.

"Are you actually going to cut Jerry from the team?" Diana asks in reply.

"Give us a grin and you might find out," Gilbert chuckles.

Anne throws up a peace sign, sticking out her tongue carelessly. Diana throws up her middle finger.

"I'll take it!" Gilbert announces grandly, putting the camera back. "No, I'm not going to cut Jerry," he chuckles. "That would be a ridiculously stupid strategic move considering he's one of our best players, and we wouldn't have won last season without him."

"So what are you going to do?" Diana asks, her shoulders lowering.

"No need to worry," he says, flicking back to the answer page and ticking off marks. "They all know what the punishment is, and he wouldn't have started dating you unless he was ready to face it."

"What is it?"

"Not something I need to worry his girlfriend with, is what it is," Gilbert murmurs, evidently checked out of the conversation.

Diana huffs. "Anne, can I talk to you in private real quick?"

"One moment," Anne draws out as she ties off the braids. "Okay let's go!" She latches her tattered green Cuthbert Farm cap onto Gilbert's curly studying head as she leaves. He watches her as she does.

Chapter Text

As soon as the two girls sit down in an empty train booth, far enough away from Gilbert, Anne grabs Diana's hands and beams, shaking them up and down with each emphasis. "My best friend and my brother!" She exclaims happily. "My best friend and my brother!"

"Yeah yeah, okay okay, you don't need to go full Ross Geller on me," Diana says, despite her mouth slanting happily anyway. "What you do need to do," she emphasises, blotting the glint in her dark eyes, "is convince Gilbert not to go full Captain Blythe on Jerry!"

Anne chuckles, her brow dipping in confusion. "What?"

"You don't think it's cruel?" Diana lowers her voice. "The rules he makes for them?"

Anne averts her gaze, eyes still as the country landscape flicks by. "Well, I don't know," she mumbles. "He must have good reason for the rules... they obviously work, don't they?"

Diana gapes. Throws Anne hands back at her. "I can't believe you! What about when you want to date him?"

Scoffing, Anne leans back in her chair and grins, but Diana continues anyway.

"Would you be happy breaking up with him before season every year? You wouldn't! You know you wouldn't! You'd argue with him like crazy and he'd change the rules for you." Anne rolls her eyes in disbelief, mouth curved with amusement. "All I'm asking," Diana favours, "is that you get him to change the rules for Jerry and I."

Anne is still shaking her head. "Okay," she chuckles, "first of all: I do not want to date him-"

"Anne!" Diana barks out a laugh, just as amused. "You already are!"

Anne gasps, offended. "I so am not!"

"You so are too!"

"Am not!"

"Are too!"

"Am not!"

"When are you going to tell him you love him?" The playful sparkle in Diana's eyes is replaced with unrelenting steel.

"God, it's not like that Di," Anne groans, slumping against her seat, exhausted by the topic already. "It's not a whole 'love confession, first kiss, boyfriend/girlfriend' thing," she whispers. "He's my best friend, and I love him, and he knows and just because we're teeter-tottering between friends and lovers sometimes-" she adds at Diana's victorious smile "-doesn't mean we need to topple all the way to the lovers side, and date!"

"That is so not what dating is."

"Is too." Anne quirks up one side of her mouth.

"I am not doing that with you again," Diana points before a smile blossoms upon her face. "Because you admit it! You have feelings for Gilbert."

"Fine," Anne relents, leaning forward in her seat. "Sometimes." A private smile. "Lately! It's the photo thing," she sighs, burying her face in her hands. "It's so hard not to when he's-" she resurfaces, floundering for articulation "-objectively, of course- you know..."

Diana arches an eyebrow, a corner of her dainty mouth.

"The hottest guy in the world!" Anne emphasises in a strong whisper.

Diana laughs before 'oh'ing sympathetically at Anne's red-cheeked wilting. "Oh, look at you. The only girl in all of Avonlea who could ever be disgusted by him turns out to lust after him most of all! Who would have thought?"

"He's still insufferable," Anne grumbles half-heartedly, sitting back in her seat.

"You can't even tirade against him anymore," Diana notes wistfully.

"I have other skills!" Anne defends herself, her eyes wider than her grin.

"Bet Gilbert would know about those," Diana sniggers.

She darts forward to push at Diana's shoulder. "Do not!" She laughs. "We haven't done anything, for your information."

A dent forms above Diana's brow. "So how does he know you love him then? If you haven't told him or shown him, I mean."

"Well... I haven't shown him because that would cross a line, and I haven't told him because once we start defining lines, we can't toe them without consequence anymore." Anne grimaces. "If that makes sense?"

"It doesn't," Diana says, "but neither do you two so it's rather fitting."

"We do make sense. Just maybe not to you." Anne shrugs with one shoulder, her lips turning up at one edge. "God!" She laughs, her expression tripling in size as she tucks a red curl behind her ear. "Here I am - just found out that you've been dating my brother for months, and we're talking about Gil and I!"

Diana rolls her eyes, smiling. "Look, I'll tell you all about it when we get home, but you can't tell anyone. If we keep it contained, maybe Gilbert won't have to make such a cruel scene to prove his ridiculous point," she grumbles.

"I am nothing if not an excellent secret-keeper." Anne makes a mime of zipping her lips and throwing away the key.

Diana offers a token smile but says, "Can I ask you a favour?"

"Anything, Di."

"Please convince Gilbert to go easy on Jerry? Please!" She emphasises when Anne rolls her eyes.

"For the last time, I don't have any say in how he captains!"

"You so do, Anne!" Diana leans forward eagerly. "You're the only one he listens to!"

"That's not true."

"Tell me about your assignment again," Diana dares.

Anne sighs, forced to acknowledge the truth of it. "This is different. Besides, how bad could this so called 'punishment' be?"

Diana sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. "Look," she gestures, "he may be endlessly sweet with you, Anne, but he's a bloody ruthless Captain when he wants to be, and I don't want Jerry on the receiving end of it."

"He's not ruthless," Anne laughs.

"Says the one who has him wrapped around their little finger!" Diana lowers her voice. "He's a puppy to you, Anne. He'd do anything to please you, so can't you just ask?"

Anne sighs, tapping her fingers on the armrest as she glances down the aisle to where Gilbert is cross-referencing between his laptop, textbook and workbook with his brow furrowed in concentration. Puppy is not how she'd describe someone so independent as he, and ruthless is not an adjective anyone would use for someone so thoughtful. Gilbert is an extremely admired and valued person in not only his cohort but their entire school, and yet she knows that he is so much more impressive for his littles than the bigs everyone loves him for.

The idea that he would do anything for her feels dangerous. As though Anne is slotting herself upon a pyramid scheme Gilbert is thought to be the top of. It's ridiculous, is what it is, but she'll humour it for Diana. "I'll ask," Anne says, "but you're so overestimating me, Di. He's his own person! I can't control him."

------

"She's controlling him!" Jimmy says through a mouthful of crisps, slouching on his butt-dimpled couch.

"Geez," Charlie mutters, brushing crumbs off his pants as he waits for a turn. "Say it, don't spray it."

"She's not controlling me," Gilbert says. He would've rolled his eyes if they weren't fixed on the blue glow of the TV as his fingers fiddle with the gaming controls.

"Yes, she is," the group choruses wearily.

"I reckon this whole assignment ploy is just her trying to seduce you," Moody chimes in, hugging a pillow.

"Yeah, right." Gilbert squints at the screen, grimacing as he leans to one side. "If that were her aim she'd have succeeded a long time ago."

The boys' eyebrows raise in sync as they meet each other's gazes.

"So the infallible Gilbert Blythe has a female weakness like the rest of us mere mortals," Jimmy muses through a shit-eating grin.

"She's not a weakness, she's a strength," he mutters, focused on the screen. "And she's not controlling me."

"So over this whole summer, she hasn't once tried to get you into bed?" Fred frowns, dubious, his eyes similarly fixed, his arms crossed.

"She has, but- whenever something is about to happen," Gilbert pauses as he focuses on the controls. "She just always breaks the moment somehow. Distracted, or makes a joke, or shoves that fucking camera in between us.”

“If that’s the case, you really should be worrying about these photos," Charlie comments.

“One thing at a time," Gilbert grits out as his screen reads 'GAME OVER'. He turns in his seat to face everyone. "Why are you laughing?”

“Oh come on," Fred snickers. "You practically banned girlfriends for the past three years because they were ‘too much of a distraction’. Look at you now, Holier-Than-Thou!”

"Ça rhyme!" Jerry exclaims through a mouthful of chips.

“I did not ban girlfriends." Gilbert rolls his eyes, chucking the controls to Jerry and taking his vacated place on the floor, against the couch.

“You scheduled so many training sessions we wouldn’t have time for them.”

“You wouldn’t let any girls on our bus.”

“You make us leave all parties by 11pm…”

“You know what? You are so right," Gilbert sighs, turning to face them all. "This season, you can all flounce around with as many girlfriends as you like. You can skip trainings because she has some important event you have to go to, or it’s date night, or you might get laid. And you can go to all the parties you want, get wasted, wake up with a hangover, a girl you don’t know and fuckloads of regret. Feel free to waste time on people you’re going to break up with in four month’s time that you should’ve spent with the team. Feel free to lose."

Game over, the screen beeps, as Jerry's frantic thumbing of the controls ends with a loud French curse.

Throughout his impassioned speech, Gilbert's gaze had landed on the back of Jerry's head, and his words had landed a little harsh. Jerry doesn't know he knows about Diana yet, and he'd like to keep it that way until he can approach it tactfully. So he belatedly opens his gaze up to the group and tacks on, "...everyone."

“It’s not that we don’t agree with you, Blythe," Moody explains as Fred chuckles at Gilbert's impassioned speech, and Jimmy snatches the controls from Jerry and gleefully shoves him from the beanbag. "It’s just that you might not agree with yourself when you’re dating Anne.”

Gilbert frowns, drawing his knees up into his chest. "It’s the off season," he protests. "It's not hypocritical if everyone's allowed to do whatever they want during the off season."

“It's not going to be the off season forever," Charlie adds.

Gilbert's brow furrows even further as he chews over his own logistics before he gives up with a roll of his eyes, reaching over to take Moody's pillow. "No use finding a solution to a problem I don't even have yet," he grumbles.

“Baynard, can't you just tell Anne to chin up and kiss the chump?” Jimmy asks, tongue sticking out as he ducks and serves imaginary obstacles.

"No!" Gilbert's eyes widen as he jerks his head from his knees. "Don't- don't tell her anything!" He begs Jerry, who's pretending to be immersed in Jimmy's expert playing.

"It's not like she doesn't already know," Charlie sniggers.

"Well, if she already knows," Gilbert emphasises, turning to face Charlie, "and she hasn't- hasn't... done anything then it's obvious she doesn't even feel that way about me," Gilbert says, his voice lowering as the sentence ends. "It's fine," he adds in a whisper, which only further serves the point that it isn't.

The boys share a wary look, sucking their cheeks in and raising their eyebrows.

"Just nudge her, Jerry," Moody whispers to him.

"Jerry, don't!" Gilbert exclaims.

Jerry puts his hands up in surrender. "You all should know by now that I stop participating in conversations as soon as they turn to seducing my sister."

"It's amore!" Jimmy yells from his beanbag.

"She's not your sister," Gilbert protests. "And it's not seduction," he continues, bitter at having his character questioned, "and I'm not a jerk!" He throws the pillow at Jerry who catches it before impact.

"Then Bash isn't your brother," Jerry retorts, his eyes narrow, "and yes, you are." He throws the pillow back, considerably harder than Gilbert had.

"Point taken," Gilbert sighs, as he ducks the pillow.

"Ow! What the hell, man?" Charlie grumbles, chucking the pillow projectile to the dark corner of the room.

"I'm sorry," Gilbert lowers his voice to Jerry, turning back to the screen to see if Jimmy will beat his own high score.

But he physically can't keep it in. Turning back to Jerry, he whispers, "But you should know I would never treat Anne with anything but utmost-"

"Mon Dieu, Blythe!" Jerry kicks at Gilbert's shoulder. "I know! Everyone knows! But just because I'd rather she end up with you than anyone else doesn't mean I wanna hear about how it happens!"

Gilbert's shoulders lower, but still he grumbles, "If it happens..."

------

Anne often helped Gilbert with his lab assignments, and so was comfortable enough in the sterilised, white and steel environment of their school labs. Excitement, however, is much more Anne's tendency, and excitement is exactly what the campus darkroom provides as she works - with Gilbert assisting, of course - on a different facet of her photography assignment.

The two beams of safe-lights above their wet benches seep red into every corner it can reach, and dark shadows into all it can't. It makes things heavy, and hot. Though - that could just be because it's the apex of summer and they aren't allowed to open the windows and allow the sunlight to ruin all the photographs. The highly concentrated perfume smell of chemicals rises as they work, necks bent studiously over the wash tubs as they transition the prints from dev to stop to fix to faucet.

Anne pegs the first film to the line above them, her fingers cold and stained with the chemicals Gilbert had helped her formulate. "My first negative!" She exclaims, smiling up at it happily. "Would you look at that?"

Gilbert raises an eyebrow, not looking up from where he's preparing another print. "I'd rather not, thank you."

Anne slides her eyes from the monochrome print of Gilbert's laughing side-profile, and sighs, leaning against the bench, head tilted as she smiles hopefully. "You could at least pretend to be excited..."

"It's too hot to be excited," he grumbles, frowning in concentration at his working hands.

"Hell is the only place too hot to be excited," Anne returns.

"Then this room is hotter than Hell," Gilbert quips back, lifting the next negative from the enlarger with the tongs and placing it in the stop bath. "You wanna do that?" He murmurs, as he moves around Anne to the sink.

Anne steps to the side and gently swishes the liquid over the white film. "Hotter than Hell. We should write a song called that," she laughs softly.

Gilbert taps the tongs on the steel bench in a rhythm as though sizzling a snare.

"What is that?" Anne laughs, pausing her work.

"It's instrumentation," Gilbert explains, his grin growing wider. "Bash banned me from singing. 'You don't sing worth a dam,'" he imitates with a Trinidadian accent.

"Well, your instrumentation is entirely void of rhythm," Anne chuckles, shaking her head as she turns back to move the film to the next tray. "Maybe dancing isn't your only weakness." She bumps her hip against his, teasingly, her eyes glittering despite the darkness of the room.

Gilbert's gaze sneaks around to observe her as she works, the wispy reds falling from her messy bun and matching the red that coats the room like a visual translation of the heat that rises in the lab, in his cheeks. He doesn't confirm her statement, for fear of giving anything else away. No, she's right... dancing is not his only weakness.

He drags his gaze away from her, and they settle into a rhythm of printing and washing and tonging and pegging the prints onto the steel cable above. Photos of Belle the horse, of the wrinkles in Matthew's hands, of Green Gables' silhouette, of a collarbone peeking out of a wrinkled shirt Gilbert knows to be his. She's an expert at the details, yet she never seems to capture the big picture, does she?

It hurts him. He overexercises so he can blame the ache in his chest on exertion and exhaustion, on determination and drive, instead of his own unrequited desire for her to be his. The sight of her so passionate, so skilled, so Anne and yet blind to his devotion is more painful than the smash of ice against the bones of his face, and more unbearable than the heat of this room.

"Speaking of heat," Anne wheedles, "have I mentioned how smoking you look today?"

Gilbert can't help but crack a laugh, his eyes squinting with amusement as he glances at her. "What do you want, Carrots?" He chuckles.

"No, I'm serious!" Anne exclaims, leaning her hip against the bench, tongs poised curiously. "How on earth do you not have a girlfriend?"

Gilbert rolls his eyes and smiles quietly to hide his roaring frustration as he swishes the liquid over a print of a stark tennis court, hatched shadows of the net sharp on the concrete.

"When you do," Anne continues, stepping to the side as Gilbert lifts the print to the next tray, "will you break up with her during the season?" She eyes his expression warily, but his focus is on his work.

"When I do," Gilbert answers casually, "I don't plan to break up with her at all." He shifts his gaze subtly to her in hope of some sort of visible reaction, but she simply furrows her brow delicately and walks to release the negative from the enlarger.

"Gil?" The name slips from her lips.

"Mm?"

"Won't you go easy on Jer?"

Gilbert blinks. Once again, not where he was expecting this conversation to go.

"It's love," Anne emphasises, turning to him as the timer ticks. "It's not the flimsy things that the rule was made for."

Resigned to the turn of discussion, Gilbert sighs. "Jerry? With Diana? It's never going to work, and the only reason it started was exposure, and the only reason it's continued is because Diana's kink is having secrets and defying her parents."

Anne scoffs, her mouth wide as she turns back to the enlarger, pressing her eye against the viewfinder and scrolling the grain focuser. "Incredible," she mutters. "Just incredible."

"Hey, I'm not judging," Gilbert says airily, moving print from tray to tray. "I'm just observing from a strategic point of view. It's a Captain's job to know what's going to happen before it does."

"No," Anne intones from her task. "I meant it sincerely. You should be a mind doctor, not a body doctor."

"That's why it's such a shame I'm fantastic at both," Gilbert says, sighing woefully. "Mind doctors everywhere will mourn the loss of such a talent the day I receive my degree."

"The day the white coats turned black." Anne matches his dramatic and melancholic murmur, and they cracks of smiles splinter across their faces before they break into laughter.

Anne drops her head against the magnifier in mirth, red on red on red on red. Finally, she removes the blank film from the enlarger, and moves to stand beside Gilbert, swishing red liquid over the red surface. "Gil, seriously," she says, looking up at him. "Let him off the hook just this once."

Gilbert's eyes flick between Anne's, his brow dented with disconnect between his and Anne's wishes. Does it matter so much to her? To himself?

A grin spreads across Anne's face, breaking the seriousness of the moment between the two best friends. She brushes the edge of his jaw with her wet thumb, playful, teasing his 'Serious Face'. But to Gilbert, it isn't a game anymore.

She softened a small smile out of him, but his brow remains tense. "Look," he says softly, "it's not like I enjoy punishing my friends. But it's about being fair. What about the rest of the team? If I don't punish Jerry, how is that fair to everyone else?"

"They don't have to know," Anne wheedles. "It's not their business. And besides, if you keep it just between you and Jerry then you can be all-" Anne musters up a voice deep with gravitas "'I've let you off the hook for the sake of love'-"

"No."

"-and he'll be so grateful," Anne enthuses in her regular voice, "that he'll want to make it up to you, and he'll train harder than ever!"

A moment of silence, underlaid only by the swish of liquid over the last print as Gilbert focuses on his task instead of Anne's implicit question.

"Please?" Anne cocks her head into his view, her sleeve unknowningly dipping into the chemical solution as she leans across the wet bench.

Gilbert stops avoiding her gaze, and looks up at her from under his brow then back down to her stained lab coat cuff.

"For me?" Anne employs a big cheesy grin.

Gilbert sighs, his shoulders lowering as he turns away from the bench, and gently moves Anne's arms from the chemicals. He rolls Anne's cuffs up her forearms, one at a time - gentle and methodical.

Anne watches his eyes the whole time, and only when he finishes does he answer, moving back to the task at hand and pegging the final print to the line. "Fine," he allows. "But only because he's your brother."

Anne's eyes open wide, shocked with her success. "Oh my god, it worked," she breathes.

"What was that?" Gilbert asks.

"N-"

"Nothing?" Gilbert interrupts, suspicion glinting his eyes.

"No-o," Anne stalls. "I was going to say... Nnnnnepotism!"

One side of Gilbert's mouth quirks up in amusement.

"It's," Anne sighs, "my favourite kind of ism?"

Gilbert chuckles, shaking his head fondly.

"You know what they say about nepotism," she continues, hopping up onto the wet bench.

"What, Anne-girl?"

She tuts, swinging her legs. "It's the best," she says stupidly, a thread of a laugh sewn in.

"That's impossible." Gilbert moves in front of her, his hands on her kneecaps. "That spot is already taken," he says sweetly before booping her nose.

"Aw," Anne kicks her legs coquettishly into him. "By me?"

"Nope." He steps back. "By me. Obviously."

Anne rolls her eyes. "Obviously."

------

Anne finishes the last of her notes on the dark room experience for her assignment, and closes her laptop lid to reveal Gilbert - sitting cross legged on the wet bench, same as her - and tapping away on his phone.

"Naughty," Anne teases, kicking his leg gently. "What are you doing on your phone during school, Mr?"

"I'm texting Diana," he replies, unable to help a smile at her antics.

"Why are you texting Diana?"

"I have many conditions about this ridiculous thing that you persuaded me to allow them to do."

An orb of light glows in Anne's chest at his lenience, and she locks her chin over his shoulder, kneeling behind him. She had intended to read the text but now that she's so close to him, she finds she can't focus so much on words.

The heat of her best friend seeping into her front, visualised in the dark red colouring every inch of his skin and clothing, has triggered a kaleidoscope of butterflies to flutter and tumble in her stomach. The scent of him certainly doesn't do anything to solidify her feelings for him. No, they are a warm mush as of this moment.

And she finds she doesn't mind as much as she thought she would.

Gilbert has stopped typing, and maybe that's what powers Anne's courage. Or maybe it's just her comfort with him that allows her fingers to slide down to his forearm, cool and light as a raindrop. She traces his veins, prompting Gilbert's arms and hands to open for her.

His gaze is fixed on where they're touching, his heart frozen in his chest as Anne's elegant fingers slide onto his roughened palm, gliding over the creases and calluses from long days on the farm and long nights on the ice. He twines their fingers together, pressing his palm to hers, and she sighs against his neck, closing her eyes, burrowing herself further into his pulse, his warmth, his familiarity.

She's sure he can feel her heart beating against his back, but... weirdly enough, she's not scared, she's not worried, it's just easy.

"Thank you," she whispers into his ear, rubbing her thumb over the back of his hand. "They're going to be so happy."

Gilbert turns his head to face her and her blue eyes and perfect nose are right there. The shutter click! of him turning his phone off is deafeningly loud in the silence of their breath, and they chuckle at the noise, dipping their heads until their foreheads touch. For some reason, it's that point of contact that slashes a metallic cut across their hearts. Maybe because it's finally the moment where their gaze notices each other's lips.

Gilbert matches his heartrate - quick, quick, quick - brushing his nose against his best friend's to state his intentions without having to. In his mind, Anne rises off her heels and squeezes his hand, and traps the hot, dry, red summer air between them with a soft kiss- no, a rough kiss- no, a long, deep kiss...

In reality, no iteration of his fantasies occurs, because the school bell rings, scolding them for waiting too long as they always have. The shrill burst of sound caused Anne to pull her hand and head from Gilbert as though he were more scalding than this room.

She chuckles - nervous, apologetic, unsure. Gilbert doesn't laugh at all. He wipes his face of any disappointment with his hands.

"Were you going to kiss me?" Anne asks, and Gilbert lifts his head, raising his eyebrows at Anne stating it so casually, so explicitly when he thought they'd been trying this whole time to keep it tacit.

He inhales a deep breath to recoup, and decides - why not? "Yep," he says, swivelling on the bench to face her so he can kiss her forehead. "Mwah! Now get out of here, Carrots."

Anne's blush is apparent even in the dark red of the room, and Gilbert feels a surge of pride and excitement at knowing that she may finally be in the same page as him. "No," she says, "I've got my next class in here. You get out of here!" She shoves him off the bench, and they laugh as he clumsily falls off and regains his balance, not without knocking over the pile of plastic trays.

"Oh the grace!" Anne exclaims. "The beauty!"

"Oh I know," he sneers, wrinkling his nose at her as he restocks the trays. "If I had a single graceful bone in my body I would've been a figure skater, not an ice hockey player."

Anne bursts out laughing, and he joins in, only to be cut short by an irritated knocking on the door.

Gilbert sighs, glancing furtively towards the red door to check if it has a window like the other classrooms. It doesn't. The class waiting outside can't see anything. "Well... Slate-ya-later, fire girl."

"Skate away, water boy," Anne returns, hopping down from the bench and gathering her notebooks and laptop up in her arms

When she turns back, Gilbert ducks down and presses his lips gently against her warm cheek.

Anne freezes, but his touch is gone before she can even process it. That wasn't the chaste, joking kiss they use on each other's hands and foreheads. That was soft and sweet and lingering and-

Gilbert chuckles after waiting a few seconds. "Okay. See you, Anne-girl."

She leans back to kick his ankle with a familiar tap. "Yeah, whatever. See you," she manages, woozy and dazed and trying not to show.

The door clicks open behind her, and students file past and around her, chatting and laughing and complaining about the heat but Anne is frozen. Except for one hand she lifts to her burning cheek, and the heart in her chest that is racing.

Chapter Text

Anne cannot stop smiling as she walks to the Blythe Lacroix orchard later that week. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and her heart is giddy with joy to be finishing her assignment. The fact that she's conned Gilbert into sitting for a photoshoot is also contributing. And the fact that these platonic feelings for him are a little more intense and a little more physical than a week ago doesn't hurt either.

"Alright!" Anne announces, before exclaiming in pain as she stubs her sandaled toes on the slab of red sandstone keeping the back door propped open.

Bash rushes forward to help Anne set her portable lights and soft boxes on the floor, tutting apologies and sympathies.

"It's okay," Anne reassures him, chuckling woefully. "Lucky I'm here to see a doctor anyway."

A warm grin spreads over Bash's face. "Ah," he leans against the stairwell banister, crossing his arms over his chest. "Yes, he did say something about a little something that occurred the other day..."

Anne's eyes snap to focus on him, her lips fluttering a smile as her heart flutters a beat. "What did he say?"

"Anne!" Gilbert calls, sprinting up the back porch stairs behind her, skin browner and curls tighter than usual due to the sweating heat of the day. "What are we talking about?" He tugs off his gardening gloves, shoving them in the woven gardening basket hung on the perpetually open door's handle.

"Just about how the other day-" Bash smirks.

"Okay!" Gilbert exclaims, shrugging Anne's equipment onto one shoulder, and holding her hand with the other hand. "Let's get this thing done, eh?"

"I could've been talking about anything!" Bash protests.

"Yeah, well," Gilbert pauses on the stairs as Anne looks at the heat radiating from their two palms held fast together. "Your tone tells me it's something incriminating," he chuckles. "C'mon Anne."

"You're not even gonna have a shower? You're sweaty as a pig!" Bash yells out.

"I will," Gilbert says, indignant. "I just don't need her listening to you while I do."

Anne chuckles as Gilbert's bedroom door is shut behind them, happily greeted by the fresh air through his open windows. "What are you so scared about him telling me?"

Gilbert rolls his eyes with a smile as he shuffles about his room, grabbing a fresh shirt and towel. "Nothing you don't already know."

"Oh, so we're being cryptic today," she sighs, clambering onto his bed to sit cross-legged in the centre of it. "Shall I speak in riddles?"

Gilbert grins at her from the threshold. "Move anything you want; I'll only be a minute."

"Are you gonna wash your hair?" Anne yells out after he closes the bathroom door.

Gilbert laughs, reopening the door. "What?"

"It will look better. In the photos. If you wash your hair," Anne quietens, trying not to let her gaze lift to where he runs his hands self-consciously through the black curls. She fails.

He pushes off from the doorframe. "'Kay. It'll take another two minutes though."

"Take your time," Anne calls out as the water starts running, hopping off the bed to start setting up her lights. "I'm a patient being."

"Tell that to Mrs Lynde."

She pauses, scoffing a laugh. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"You know, that time when you called me like seven times to ask if Mrs Lynde had released the call sheet for the Christmas Panto? You were not a patient being, then."

"Okay," Anne protests, sitting down in front of the bathroom door. "I only called you three times."

"Three times is excessive, Anne-girl."

"You're excessive," she mutters back.

"You brought lights on tripods!"

"How did you hear that?" Anne calls back, turning as though to find him pressed up against the other side of the door. "And besides - they're called soft boxes!"

"They're called excessive."

The shower turns off, and Anne blushes at the image of him it brings to her mind. "How are you already finished?" She asks, to take her mind off of her showering best friend, only to fall backwards into his legs as the door swings open.

"Why are you sitting there?" He chuckles, stretching a white shirt over his head, before gently nudging her out of his path with his knee.

"That was like two minutes!" She exclaims, holding her hands out for Gilbert to pull her up.

He does so, commenting, "Water, soap, dry, why would that take more than two minutes?"

"You said you'd wash your hair."

"Did you not hear the soap part of my shower?"

"Did you only use one type of-" Anne rolls her eyes and turns away to her soft boxes. "Oh my god, you are such a boy!"

He laughs bending down to help. "Well, I wanted to get this done, so we can get out of this stinking heat and go get ice cream."

Anne swats his helping hands away. "Ice cream sounds sublime, but stop trying to help. Go sit on the bed and wait until I've finished setting up."

He does so, asking, "Why didn't you do this when I was in the shower?"

"Um, maybe because I was busy."

"What? Chatting?"

"No longer! Let's get to work." She blinks the studio light on.

Gilbert shrivels into himself. "Anne?"

"Yeah?"

He opens his mouth. Closes it. He can't get out of this without admitting that the reason he agreed was because he thought she was asking him to kiss her.

"Gil, what is it?" Her voice and eyes soften as she leans one leg on the foot of the bed. "You can tell me."

He tugs at her strawberry printed white cami. "Come closer," he settles for. "It's too awkward like that."

She smiles, and settles in front of him, placing her camera to the side. "I'm just gonna fix your hair a bit, mkay?"

"Mkay," he murmurs back, as she starts adjusting his curls. He drops his gaze so as not to stare at her, but when they fall on her chest directly in his line of sight, he flushes and sets his eyes firmly on the wall behind her.

Shit, he thinks. Is she getting hotter or is he just getting hornier? Why doesn't he photograph her instead? And it's so hot in this room. And how does she smell of strawberries? She did say she had planted a square of them in the plot Marilla had given her, and she had left a little basket of them, plump and shiny, on the kitchen table, so perhaps that explains that.

Anne hums in thought, wiping her fingers on her white shorts. She disappears into the bathroom and grabs Gilbert's towel before kneeling back in front of him, and beginning to dry his hair.

He sighs, unable to help it as his face falls forward against her stomach. He can feel her giggle as much as hear it, but- "By God, that feels amazing," he groans, closing his eyes as she massages his scalp.

Anne hums a tune that intertwines with the chatter of the summer birds outside, and the old-fashioned music that Hazel is playing far below as she hangs out the washing, and the gurgles of Delphine from her place inside the laundry basket.

Anne wipes the last few water droplets from the nape of Gilbert's neck, and prompts his head back up with a tilt of his chin. "All done," she says, as she leans over to drape the towel over his desk chair, and grab her camera. Fiddling with the settings, she asks, "What was it Bash was teasing you about earlier?"

"I'm sure you can figure it out," he answers quietly. Maybe it's the heat that makes him lethargic, or the comfort and safety of his warm room and the sounds of his contented family and the sight of his best friend that makes him easy, or even just desire that makes him bold, but he can't help the way he looks at her.

Her with her passion projects and misadventures that he always gets roped into. Her with her endless vocabulary, and range of emotions, and love for her friends and family. Her, who listens to him and helps him, and knows him well enough to do both better than almost anyone else. Her, whom he wishes for in almost every state of his being, who challenges him, and teases him, and comforts him, and stirs up every fondness and desire and playful quip.

His words cause Anne to look up from her camera at him. Her brow is creased with leftover concentration, her lip caught between her teeth, and Gilbert's heart swells at the sight of her baby braids, redder than the tiny strawberries on her top. Delicate cinnamon freckles dust her skin everywhere he looks, her eyes blue as the summer sky outside. How can she be everything including beautiful? He wants her so bad it aches, worse than ever.

Click!

That dent by her brow fixes there stubbornly as Anne bends her neck to look at the photo. Then - it smooths, just enough to betray her surprise. She lays down, head on his pillow, thumb clicking through the summer's photos.

Gilbert lays beside her, eyes following the wide range of styles documenting all their adventures, and the people and places they've shared them with. His heart thumps in his chest because he hadn't seen these photos before. So he hadn't realised what an obvious fool he'd been making of himself, looking at her like that and letting it be caught on camera. Those photos stick out like sore thumbs, embarrassing for him to look at, knowing his fondness for her was impossible to miss, and still she only calls him her best friend. His stomach squirms with vulnerability - if she has seen him like that so often, yet takes a step back from that new facet of their relationship each time he steps towards it, then she mustn't care for him the way he cares for her.

Yet, Gilbert doesn't turn away, because there was that moment, when she had pressed her red palm to his, and intertwined their red fingers, and he had felt her red whisper against his neck and heart beat against his red back. That moment, when they had danced in the sparkling twilight and he had caught her glance at his lips if only for a second. That moment when she had asked to photograph him, even though Diana would've readily agreed, and her reasoning was because he was beautiful.

He doesn't want to turn away - not when there's a chance she might care for him as he does her.

That chance increases as Anne flicks through the photos, because though she frowns deeper at each where photo Gilbert looks off-centre towards her, his eyes soft and overflowing and warm as chocolate... real Gilbert sees too that amongst all those moments, she had taken photos of him. Photos that allow him to see himself as she does. Photos that he didn't notice her taking half the time. Photos of the dimples in his cheeks, of the determination in his jaw as he serves a tennis ball, of Delly on his hip, of his poised pen against his textbooks, of the splash of his cannonball and a hundred more besides.

Gilbert turns his gaze from the camera, settling on Anne's face, waiting for her to accept that what she's seeing is what's been there all along, and is what's here now more than ever.

A quiet "oh," escapes her, as she lands on that first photo of him laid in the grass by the Lake of Shining Waters, his grin so wide she can practically hear his laughter bubbling from his chest. The glasses she gave him for Christmas nestled in his curls, glinting vivid summer sky blue and forest leaf green, and his eyes - happy happy happy with her. "Maybe not as soon as I should've," she breathes, her tone almost upset with apology.

"I knew you could do it," Gilbert teases, but the joke doesn't land. She's seen his vulnerabilities, but he doesn't feel scared anymore. Those photos she took of him are reassurance enough that he hasn't been alone in this stirring of emotions.

Closing his eyes, Gilbert dips his head to kiss her shoulder, softening it with a sigh as he slides his forearm over her waist, curling and uncurling his index finger over the sliver of her stomach just to feel her against his skin.

Anne's shoulders relax, and she doesn't even notice as she drifts her own fingers over his, gazing at the sun-glared screen and seeing only the reflection of his curls over her shoulder, a warmth spreading through her at the knowledge that he wants this, and that - perhaps more surprisingly - she really does too. She watches their reflection in the screen, as he latches his chin over her shoulder, looking at her the same way he did in so many of those photos. Her heart trills at the sight of them so closely looped together, eyes filled with love rather than playful exasperation, her best friend and his restless, greedy fingers.

She giggles and squirms as his hands explore her stomach and waist, just barely dipping into her shorts and making her hold her breath. Turning in his arms, she comes face to face with him and that look. It disappears under her hands as she covers his eyes, scared to see it without the defence of obliviousness. Worse though, is the spotlight it shines on his lips. Oh shit, Anne thinks giddily, this is happening.

Gilbert grins, chuckling. "What? What is it?"

His breath is louder as she pauses, as her weight shifts onto him, and he wonders what this game is, what she's going to do, when she's going to gift him back his sight. He's about to laugh again when her fingers slide into the curls at the back of his head, and her lips slide onto his, and his breath slides out completely with a whispered, "ohmygod."

Anne smiles against his lips in reply, and Gilbert doesn't waste another second. He curls his arm around her lower back with intent, cradling her head and rolling her gently back against his pillows as he kisses her deeper than she had, their hearts playing tug of war from inside their heaving chests as they touch, racing to satisfy the yearning those photos and their closeness had stoked in each of them. It's been a long time coming and they're certainly making up for it.

Their kisses are hotter than the summer air that surrounds them, evidenced by the panting as they push and pull each other closer, deeper, fuller. Electric nausea slashes their stomachs when their tongues touch, hesitantly at first, tracing this new intimacy for a slow-motioned moment, heat flaming across their cheeks.

Gilbert draws back from her, unable to believe his reality, and wanting to see her laid underneath him in his own bed, rosy-cheeked and wild-haired and so kiss-addled her gaze takes two seconds to focus back on him.

Anne's head falls back, her chest bouncing with laughter as she drags a hand down her face. "Wow," she chuckles, shaking her head before peeking back up at Gilbert.

He laughs too, falling back beside her. "Good wow?" He asks.

Anne rolls into him, draping him in an embrace as she nods. "Yeah, um- wow wow."

Gilbert hums in agreement as he curves himself around her again, letting their breath settle down.

"It is so hot," Anne comments a minute later, muffled by the curve of his shoulder.

"Who, me?" He asks groggily.

She chuckles, wrinkling her nose at him in a grin. "I meant the weather. Wanna go get an ice cream?"

Checking his watch over Anne's shoulder, Gilbert hesitates before asking casually, "You don't need your photos?"

Anne sighs as though he just asked her to hang out a load of washing. "No, I- I don't want to show them, you know, now that- that I see them."

A world weary breath expels from Gilbert. "Oh thank God," he relieves. "You were flicking through them, and I was like 'I am never going to be able to step foot in that school ever again,'" he finishes, laughing as Anne does. "But what will you submit as your assignment?"

"I have lots of other subject matter," she explains. "The world is full of inspiration and beauty, and Lord in His Greatness couldn't stop me photographing it!" She pauses. "Well, He probably could."

"Only if He tried really really hard, I bet," Gilbert chuckles, pulling back to look at her. "I'm glad about your assignment; you're a talented photographer, and you'll do so well with your project. Now how about that ice cream?"

"Mm, I changed my mind," Anne murmurs, shifting on top of him again. "I want to stay here with you." Her fingers twirl a curl between her fingers before she presses her lips to his again.

Glowing with happiness, Gilbert's mouth curves into a smile until it breaks the kiss. "Aw," he says. "You're so cute."

"That's not fair," Anne pouts. "You get hot and I get cute?"

"You get all of them and a thousand more besides," Gilbert says, not missing a beat as he rolls her back underneath him.

"That was really sappy," Anne giggles.

'Mm, I know, but it's true, so you have to accept it," Gilbert hums in a deep monotone stream before kissing her, leaning his weight on his hip as he cups the back of her neck.

It's not long before their heart rates are back to speeding, his hands tugging her carmine braids, her freckled hands cool and welcomed against his toned stomach, their breath hot and heavy as his body is on hers.

When Gilbert's kisses trail hurriedly from her mouth to her cheek, her pointed chin, the sensitive porcelain skin under her jaw, Anne manages to fix her gaze on his bedroom ceiling and pant out, "This... um, this doesn't change anything, right, Gil?"

Gilbert resurfaces into her vision, curls tugged into disarray and pupils dilated like a shark and focused on her mouth. "Nothing," he reassures her quickly, distracted by kissing her perfect pink lips. "Nothing but my serotonin levels." Another several kisses before he dissolves into a mischievous grin. "And I get to call you 'babe.'"

Anne scoffs out a laugh, pushing him off her with a palm against his chest. "No, you most definitely do not."

Gilbert laughs. "Can you imagine? Ba-abe," he taunts. "Babe," he says popping the 'b's. Wriggling his eyebrows he lowers his voice to Darth Vader level. "Baybeh."

"Shut up!" Anne shrieks with laughter, turning away from him in jest.

"Happily." The words are impressed into her mouth, and it's just as his teasing has been fogged from her mind that he can't help himself, continuing, "I am your fa-"

Anne snorts, causing the both of them to finish their bouts of laughter with tears in the corners of their eyes. They sigh, chuckles dying down as Anne rests in the nook of Gilbert's arm, playing with the worn bead bracelet Delphine made for him.

"I wanna kiss you again," he admits, his throat rolling with a troubled swallow, "but I can't stop talking to you."

"I love that this is us," Anne replies with a grin, shifting her head to look up at him.

The lazy tips of Gilbert's mouth tilt upwards. "Who said that we had to choose? That we had to be easy to explain? Can't help it if we just-" he sighs, searching for the word.

And he’s so pretty there that Anne holds up her camera and finds it for him.

Click!

Chapter Text

“What?" Gilbert asks, laughing a little at the sheer ridiculousness of the request.

"Let me photograph you," Anne repeats, kneeling up to tuck a curl behind his ear.

He ducks her attempt and leans back into the pillows on his bed, eyes twinkling, brow furrowed, grin wide with confusion at his friend's new behaviour. He narrows his eyes slightly, his grin fading, as though that will help him see reason hiding behind her wide, innocent eyes.

"It's for my school assignment, and I've been itching to photograph you," she says, sitting back down on her heels and fiddling with the controls on her camera.

Gilbert squirms, his cheeks flushing slightly. He's used to helping Anne set up lighting and composition, choosing which photo looks better when she's stared at them so long she can no longer see clearly, accompanying her on photography walks around Avonlea, but they've always been on the same side of the camera.

Anne's lower lip pouts slightly, her voice soft and persuasive. "Please!"

"I thought it was meant to be of flowers and cakes and the chickens and stuff," he stutters, trying to look anywhere but those big blue eyes, and pleading mouth and that awful camera.

"No, it can be anything," she says quickly, defensively, her soft mouth hanging open like a child's. "You don't have to model or anything, I don't really do photoshoots, but just- like- if I say so, will you pause and let me take some photos?"

Gilbert twists his mouth to the side as he runs a hand through his hair. "I don't know, Carrots, I'd feel so stupid-"

"Gil, please!"

He looks to her, and slowly, slowly exhales. She's the one who should be photographed. With her hair falling so softly over her sweet shoulders, the light skidding over the top of her freckled cheekbones, the round tip of her nose, the wet on her full, pouting bottom lip, her lashes so…

Click.

She'd raised the camera so slowly he hadn't noticed, and he does nothing now to make her delete the photo, nor does he agree to her taking it.

She only glimpses towards the photo for a split-second, wary to keep guard of his expression should it change, but all he does is swallow as her hair falls into a curtain over her face and she fiddles with the editing controls, doing whatever magic she does to all her photos. But this one doesn't take the ten minutes she usually spends… it only takes a second before she hands the camera over, tucking her hair back behind her ear with the other hand.
He takes it and looks down, not prepared for the hopeless devotion that radiates from the camera's screen like nuclear energy. He hadn't realised his love for her was so obvious, and gasps a little at his biggest secret splashed across her camera for her to stare at as long as she likes.

"No," he says, his voice thin and broken as he frowns and shakes his head. He clears his throat and deletes the photo, handing the camera back to her. "No," he says, louder, stabler.

"What- Gil… Why?" Her brow creases enough that she almost looks angry.

"Because!" He says, anger rising up into his cheeks in turn. "Because I don't want your… your friends and your teachers and everyone looking at photos like that! They're- they're private."

Her face clears then, almost sympathetic and he doesn't want her pity because if she pities him then she knows. Of course she knows, if that's the way he looks at her when he looks at her that way. Gilbert turns his face away, staring at the apple blossom orchard lining outside his window, ignoring her coaxing murmurs and apologetic nothings. He clenches his jaw, and he feels her fingers sliding up over the edge and into the curls at the back of his neck.

She turns his face her way and presses her mouth to his frown, hoping to soothe the crease between his brow.

He breathes into the kiss, dry and soft and hot until she parts his unparticipating lips with her tongue and he tastes the fullness of her, fumbling along before he can think. It's a pity kiss, he knows, but it's very quickly escalating into something not so pathetic. His nose squashes against the side of her cheek, and a metallic energy slashes his heart as he fists the soft fabric of her loose shirt, his hands sliding up to run over her breasts so much softer than he ever imagined.

He didn't want it to happen like this but he loves the sounds she makes - soft, and sweet like the rest of her, breathless and mewling as he tends. And he loves the feel of her settled in his lap, her hand deep in his hair, making a mess of more than just his mind. He loves how he can wrap his arms all the way around her tiny waist and make her mouth tremble when he traces up either side of her spine. He loves her mouth. He loves her mouth.

Anne leans her weight onto him and he rolls back onto the pillows, lifting his knee up between her legs so she may slide down further onto him.

Gilbert chuckles at her pleased face, his eyes squinted shut before he hears another click. His heart jumps in panic and betrayal at the sound and he looks up to find her fingers curled around that fucking camera. "H-hey," he starts, "I said no." He shoots up, dark eyes flashing with argument, but catches the bite of her lip, the curl of her mouth and the slide of her red hair over her collarbones as she tilts her head and hums a laugh.

He opens his mouth to demand she delete whatever intimate, kiss-mussed photo she just took but Anne locks her arms around his neck and pushes him back into the pillows with a fierce kiss that immediately turns his mind to mush. She pulls back, flicks her hair out of her eyes and smiles, cutting off his protest and ignoring the way he grabs her wrists to pull her off of him, whispering, "It's not for my assignment.” And suddenly the warmth of her mouth and the camera by his head on the pillow don't seem so objectionable.