Aces Away

Corsair Adventures (Invite Only)

^{Timestamp: 6:15am
Location: Oceana House, top balcony
Introducing: Zenith Arison
Featuring: Grayson Kaplan and Piper Vanderbilt}

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Zenith had snuck out of his room so as not to wake his new roommates about fifteen minutes before sunrise, creeping gently down the foot of the bunk beds and being respectful enough to not jump down childishly like he usually does. He’s sure Gray would be proud of his thoughtfulness. What Gray would not be proud of was the empty bunk beds across the darkened room. Piper was fine, probably asleep somewhere else in the house as she is wont to do. That other guy though, the loudmouth with more privilege than sense, Jonas, never came home last night. Last year, Calico Jack’s heavy handed pours almost had Zenith be the person that didn’t make it home, but Gray had hauled him over his shoulder and put him to bed like he was used to such routine, saving him his spot in the program. It looks like whatever the Valmont heir had said to Grayson pissed him off as much as Zen’s own conversation with the privileged prick, because Gray didn’t help him like he’d helped Zen.

Good riddance. Zen came from money too, so did Piper and a few other CAPpers, and neither of them were senseless enough to act the way Jonas had last night, it was downright embarrassing.

Padding barefoot down the hall to the common balcony that faced the eastern horizon, and mindful of his previously inebriated state from the night before, the second season Air Activities Guide leaned heavily against the sturdy metal railing that proudly surrounded the open space. Typically, he’d be sitting on this railing, but this morning? Maybe once his balance had been fully regained. He rested his forehead against the cool surface for a moment, doing a few small stretches to limber up while he waited for the beautiful mass of flaring plasma that greeted him to create each new day.

It always seemed to be a contest between him and Gray on who could get up earliest, which was incredibly fun last year when they were roomed together because Zen made it a part of his morning routine to get a prank in before Gray woke up if the younger was lucky enough to be up before him. It was surprisingly rare, as apparently Gray has been getting up before dawn for most of his life, between training from his brother and the Captain himself and living with some old bubbe with a morning routine of playing swing records as high as the speakers would allow, the older man woke up before the sun on instinct. Zen still needs his phone to vibrate his alarm to wake him, even after getting up this early his whole life.

Just like always, Gray had gotten up before him, as evident by the cup of coffee that suddenly appeared in Zen’s peripheral when he finally lifted his head up. That means he’s already gone around the compound cleaning up after everyone’s drunken stumbling last night as well. If the way to the balcony hadn’t been so dark, Zen was sure he would have seen pristine common areas and little stacks of personal items stacked outside their owner’s rooms, all ready for the arrival of the Captain or their guests.

“You’re a godsend~!” Zenith groaned, following the cup as it was pulled away and frowning when a small cup of water took its place, Gray switching them out as he turned around. “Noooooooo!” He made grabby hands at the withheld caffeination. How was he to enjoy another radiant rising of the sun without his sugar and cream filled hot bean juice?

“Water first, then coffee,” Gray commanded, face stern as he stared Zenith down. “And drink the water slowly, don’t need you throwin’ up.”

“You’re a devil.”

“And a godsend? Man I’m really playing both sides,” Gray rolled his eyes at his former roomie, making sure Zen took the water from him before turning back towards the side table he’d set his drink tray on, intending to grab his own coffee that he’d set there.

Only to blink when it was missing.

“Pipes, seriously? You don’t even like coffee,” The oldest grumbled as he found his mug caged behind perfectly manicured nails. A dark lipped cheshire grin met him in response before she tilted the lip of the mug and took a sip, the smile stretching further when Zen managed to nab his mug out of Gray’s light grip, procuring the only other cup of coffee on the balcony. “You’re both manaces.”

“I like orange juice even less,” The blonde stewardess of the Thunderbird replied, nodding toward the cup of said juice that Gray had brought up for her. Zen smirked at her when she winked at him and without any words they both reached out and clinked their mugs together in cheers, taking a long sip in sync. “And calling me a menace is practically a compliment, you know.”

“Yeah yeah, whatever. And the water? I brought you water too. Two drinks that weren’t mine.”

“I stayed hydrated last night,” The girl responded, reaching down beside the lounger she had slept in last night to reveal an almost empty water bottle. Zenith didn’t even try and stifle the laugh at the look on Gray’s face, just managing to pull away from his mug before he sprayed the liquid everywhere.

“I hate you both.” Gray turned around immediately after that statement, heading back inside to grab himself a new mug, ignoring the laughing and goading behind him.

“I know you love me or I wouldn’t be here!” Zenith whisper-shouted after the closing door, not wanting to wake anyone inside up. Once Gray was gone, Zen released a good natured laugh. “Poor fuck, such a patient Den Mother. Can’t wait for the first time I make him go volcano.”

“His explosions on you are legendary. It’s honestly impressive you can get him to that point.”

Zenith laughed, leaning back over the railing, elbows propped up so he could continue holding his coffee. “Thanks, it’s a gift. Still proud of the time I goaded him into a wrestling match and he suplexed me onto the couch. Glad to this day that the Captain sprung extra for comfortable furniture, too.” Zen grinned out at the horizon as the sky began its change. “I don’t have siblings, but I imagine Gray is like what a brother would be like for me.”

“Awwww, how sweet,” Piper grinned behind him before finally swinging her legs over and planting her feet on the concrete, pushing herself up and joining him at the railing after a quick stretch. They stood there in comfortable silence, sipping their coffees until Gray made his way back up just as the top of the sun crested the horizon, casting gold across the sky and scattering shadows against clouds as the landscape tinted deep purple.

This was Zenith’s favorite part of the day, the livening effect of the sun’s ray’s breaking through the last vestiges of night, alerting wildlife and domestic alike that it’s their time to shine along with it. The only other time he loved as much was dusk, when silence settled for day life and the animals and insects of the night began their calls. Once the sun had fully broken past the horizon and the mourning doves began to coo, Zen broke the silence.

“So…circling back to ‘menaces’...Jonas Valmont, huh?”

“Little prick.”

“Agreed. He hit on me as though it was a gift to me, ick.”

“Ick,” Zenith agreed seriously while Gray’s frown got just a tick deeper. “I noticed he never came back from Jack’s last night.”

“Wasn’t my job to give him directions a fifth time just to be ignored,” Gray tacked on mulishly, taking a sip of his coffee that was definitely still too hot if his sudden grimace was anything to go by. “He called me a peasant last night, you believe that shit?”

“Pfft, you are a peasant, but it’s okay, old man.”

“Bite me, silver spoon.”

“Yeesh, I don’t know, you may not be up on your shots- ahahaoww,” The firm slap upside the back of his head had him laughing and reaching up to protect the spot from more abuse, never losing the shit eating grin he directed Gray’s way.

“Respect your elders you little bastard,” Gray demanded, playfully swatting at his shoulder now that he was protecting the back of his head.

“Now now boys, we were having a conversation,” Piper’s amused voice broke through the swatting match that had begun between the two men. “Do we think Mr. Valmont will be returning for the opening ceremony?”

“God! I hope not.”

“I hope he does. No, really, I do,” Gray promised when he saw the incredulous looks sent his way. “But I hope he’s late, so I can toss him in the car to go home myself.”

“Ah, that makes more sense.” Zenith had really thought for a second that Gray had lost his mind, but it turns out he was just being vindictive. That was territory Zen knew how to traverse. “You guys want to make bets on when he shows?”

“My father told me never to make bets I might lose, and Gray already has him showing up late and getting kicked out,” Piper shrugged, tossing her blonde waves over her shoulder after shaking her head. “I will, however, buy you a drink next time we go to Jack’s if you do end up getting to kick him out, Gray.”

“Ooh, double prize, I’m here for it.”

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼CAP☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•

^{Timestamp: 9:10am}

Zenith looked out at the scenery from the balcony of the Oceana House, sat on the rail with a light grip for support, shoes and socks already tossed off and heels hooked back into the metal railing for extra balance. Leaning forward, the second year CAPper was already missing the sunrise he’d watched this morning despite the beautiful clear skies before him. After Captain Bones had finished his speech, everyone had been released, and Zen watched a smug Gray grin at Piper as the crowd of programees dispersed, knowing he was owed a free drink at Jack’s. The blonde woman had rolled her eyes and nodded good naturedly, and everyone had gone their separate ways to play the waiting game until their first guest of the season was officially announced.

Or at least, he thought they’d all gone their separate ways, but it was a small house for the amount of people living in it.

“If you leave your socks all over the place this year I will literally strangle you with one.”

“Jesus, dude!” Zen nearly jumped out of his skin, his balance only held in place by Gray’s sudden steadying grip on his shoulders. The smirk on Gray’s face when Zen looked over his shoulder at him told him that the older man was satisfied with the reaction to his entrance. “Rude, you’re rude.”

“I don’t leave my dirty socks wherever I drop them. That’s rude,” The den mother countered with a scoff, crossing his arms after helping Zen swing back around and get his feet on the balcony concrete once more.

“I’m putting them back on, ya happy?” Zen snarked at the man, bending down to get his socks and boots back on.

“I’ll be happy when you finally learn what your hamper’s for. If you’re looking for your socks from last night, by the way, I threw them in there this morning from where I found them under the common room couch. When were you even in the common room long enough between Jack’s and your bed for you to have taken them off?”

“Honestly? Couldn’t tell you. It’s kind of fuzzy past you telling me to get home and sleep it off.”

“I told you not to get in a drinking contest with Piper, but no one ever listens to me.”

“Sorry, dad, I’ll be better next time. MMMMmmmmmmmm no, no I won’t, that was a lie. I’ll be worse, just for you.” Zenith promised with a cheeky grin. “That’s for requesting someone else as a roommate this year.”

“Aw, don’t be sour, son,” Gray played along with a long suffering sigh. “I’ve been rooming with a new Greenie each round since my second season here, it was nothing personal. Plus, he may be a General Guide now, but I think this Koa kid is going to be the successor to my guide position, so he needs extra attention.”

“No no, you hate me, I get it.”

“Oh yeah,” Gray rolled his eyes. “Can’t stand you, I threatened to quit if we were roomed together again, that what you wanna hear?”

“Alas, the truth hurts, yet resonates the most.” Zen put the back of his hand to his forehead and feinted a swoon, smirking when Gray instinctively reached out to catch him.

“You are so fucking dramatic,” Gray admonished, trying not to let his own lips quirk upward.

“If anyone was dramatic today, it was Jonas,” Zen denied, smiling as Gray laughed. “If he didn’t irritate me so much, I’d have said it would be better for him to be a part of the program to grow into a better person. All the traveling and new experiences and whatnot.”

“Mm,” Gray agreed with a hum and a nod of his head. “‘Travel is fatal to prejuidce, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.’ Mark Twain. He definitely could have used it, but unfortunately we are a customer facing program and if he were to act like that in front of guests…well, it’s better to nip it in the bud.”

“Yeah, that’s fair too, I don’t need him losing me any tips or bringing our ratings down,” Zen relented, patting Gray solidly on the back before stuffing his hands in his pockets and heading back down into the house. “This is a house of professionals, after all.”

“Zenith Shani Arison what the hell did you just put on my back,” Grayson called after the retreating gremlin, huffing out at the responding laugh and trying- and failing- to reach his hand past his shoulder blade to the middle of his back where Zen had left a nice shiny sticker that proclaimed I like big BUCKS and I cannot lie over a picture of a few crumpled dollars. In smaller letters at the bottom it said I just don’t have any of my own. Zen wasn’t worried. Gray will go crying to Kori and she’ll rip it off for him because they have to be presentable and she is extremely stern about the company’s image. Is Zen sick of their will-they/won’t-they bullshit and doing stupid little things to make them get closer? Maybe. Did he think it would work? Not after apparently seven years of the same sexual tension between those two, but he could try, and he got to annoy Gray in the process.

He did love a win/win situation.

Corsair Adventures (Invite Only)

MAIN:

Grayson

Grayson Asher Kaplan

FC: Charlie Rowe



^{Color: 00674F}

___________________________________________________________________

AKA: Gray, Kappy(Car Scene)

Age: 24, turning 25 (Jun.08.2000)

Position: Senior Ground Travel Guide, Car Scene (Nightlife), Captain Bones' Bosun/Deck Boss.

Nationality: American

Home: Brightmoor, Michigan

Education: GED

Returning Crew Member: Yay, 7th and final year

Experience: As a former street racer and "underground mechanic", Gray has connections and knowledge of both high end dealerships and organized street races in most Corsair Adventure-Adjacent cities. His proficiency in riding motorcycles with inexperienced passengers and leading experienced riders in tours makes it a popular option. He has first aid and survival/emergency training. All that thrown in with 15 years of boating experience and training from current and former members of the Coast Guard, Gray has his little corner of the program squared away.

Personal Statement: "The oldest of old hats, I'm here to do my job as usual for Mr. Bones and perform to the best of my ability. I look out for the greenies and Kori and anyone else that needs it. Is it weird to be filling out an older brother roll when I've only ever been the younger? Sure, but it hasn't stopped me these past few years. My goal upon fulfilling my final year of the program is to join the Corsair corporation, I've known it was going to be my career path since my second year in the program. I owe Mr. Bones as much as I do my brother and Bubbe Roseman, I'd be in prison without the three of them.

I swear to god though if we get another greenie that doesn't know how or care to clean up after themselves I'm crashin' out. 'Least a cell would stay tidy."

Extra:

• Font: Chopshop
• Has an older brother, Jason(FC: Ben Barnes), 10 years his senior that is a Commander in the Coast Guard, and was trained by Bones. Jason gave him the number to Mr. Bones that first got him into the program.
• Substitute personal driver for the Runnels.
• May or may not have a crush on Bones' daughter, Kori, who he's known since entering the program.
• Helps the local granny, Bubbe Roseman, back home who houses at-risk teens- like he used to be- so looking after a rowdy bunch is nothing new to him. He also sends money home to her when he can afford to and lives there in the off season.

Zenith

Zenith Shani Arison

FC: Tyler Dichiara



^{Color: ff6900}

___________________________________________________________________

AKA: Zen, Skyguy

Age: 21

Position: Air Activities Guide

Nationality: Triple: Israeli, American, and New Zealander citizenships.

Home: DeLand, Florida and Queenstown, New Zealand (The Skydiving Capital and Adventure Capital of the World respectively.)

Education: Highschool diploma, experienced most of his education through online enrollment.

Returning Crew Member: Yay, 2nd year

Experience: Zen spent half his life, if not more, in the sky already. A member of the rare group of Skyborns- someone who was born mid-flight on a plane- Zen was born for both the sky and his career in it. He spent his childhood with his wanderlust-filled, adrenaline seeking parents who spent their seemingly endless funds traipsing around the world with their child held close. The second he turned 18 he became a certified Skydiving Instructor and became a stand-in instructor in both his hometowns while keeping most of his schedule open for himself. Quickly after, he gained his Para and Hang Gliding certifications, both for solo and tandem, followed soon by Bungee Jumping. With his parents finally settling down and not taking nearly as many trips, Zen quickly found himself getting bored with the basic instructor life, and even with his favorite activities. When scouted to be the next Sky Activities Guide for Corsair Adventures, he jumped at the chance at something new.

Personal Statement: "If it's in the air, if it's in the sky, then I'm your guy. I think I'm gonna stick here for the long haul and see where it gets me! I had a lot of options before, but having this program on the resume will basically get me in anywhere. Do I need to work? No. Do I work hard? Well...I do my job! Besides, sometimes the guy has gotta be the one to bring the fun, and from what I saw last year, it's rarely Gray, so I'm happy to fill the role.

What? No, I'm not responsible for some of Callie's glitter makeup ending up on his washrag, must've been a drunken mishap."

Extra:

• Font: Skytree
• Transman, likely won't come up too much. Was easily accepted by his parents and was happy with the gender neutral name he was given at birth so never changed it.
• Came out young enough that he started blockers and then T when he was ready.
• Has far too much fun in dangerously high areas.
• Often found sitting on the balcony railing at the compound if he isn't around others.
• Designs his own stickers, usually used for the sake of good natured pranks.

Recurring Sides:

Piper

Piper Rose Vanderbilt

FC: Kelli Berglund



^{Color: ff2d60}

___________________________________________________________________

AKA: Pipes, Rosie

Age: 23

Position: Private Flight Attendant on the Thunderbird. Social Media

Nationality: American

Home: Technically: Edenridge, Massachusetts. Realistically, she hangs around the home base compound in Fort Lauderdale for every season.

Education: Highschool, 1 Year accelerated course at the Airline Academy

Returning Crew Member: Yay, returning for fourth year

Experience: FAA Certified, grew up with access to a private jet and now she attends on them.

Personal Statement: "I'm just here to get the tea from the rest of the crew heading to and from their jobs and occasionally hobnob with guests that know my family name. I'm in it for the travel!"

Extra:

• Font: Sweet November
• Mostly only seen on the jet and at the compound
• Former trust fund baby, she set out for semi-financial independence. She still calls home and occasionally visits her family, but is seen at the compound year-round.
• Tiktok influencer known for her entertaining flight attendant stories and skits. Constantly credits Corsair company and crew in her videos.

BHHS: Limitless

^{Timestamp: Between 5:30 and 5:50pm
Location: Gymnasium
Sully Harper and Levi Green-Locke
@Aces Away and @Smarty0114}

____________________________________________________________________



____________________________________________________________________

When Sully had explicitly stated to the homecoming committee- even going so far as to leave a sticky note- that they were not to climb on top of certain builds he made for the dance, even to decorate, the boy had had a passing moment of hope that they would listen. It was faint, but despite his earlier words to Oli, it was still there. As he looked at the pile of wood and broken hinges that used to be one piece, he observed that faint hope get dashed to dust and could feel something close to irritation gripping at his sternum. Following directions really wasn’t that hard, was it? Do not lean means do not lean, do not climb means do not climb. It was really really simple, but apparently not simple enough for most of these students’ common sense. Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad if whoever had broken it hadn’t shoved it off to the side under another piece of the set as if to hide their deed.

“Honestly…” Sully sighed before heading out of the room and making his way to the maintenance closet where he kept his tools, determined to fix it before the dance began despite being in his nice clothes. It’s not like he cared if he got some wrinkles, and there wasn’t much in the process of the repair that could stain his shirt. Grabbing his toolbox, he made his way back to the gym and to his downed project, taking a moment to remove his black vest and hang it up, as well as roll up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and undo the top two buttons for breathability and better range of movement without risking ripping the fabric. Wasting no more time, Sully got to work in taking apart what needed separating and maintaining what he could, knowing that there was less than half an hour before the dance was meant to start and that this would be more of a rigging of the thing than a full, actual fix.

If he was being a little loud while fixing what someone else currently in the gym had broken and hidden, that was neither here nor there. He wasn’t a huge fan of dances, hadn’t really been into them since middle school when he had someone that gave him a reason to dress up and go, but at least he had something to occupy his hands and mind here until it actually started. He was really just here because he had to catch a ride to the Greens’ just like everyone else, and his ma had encouraged him to go out and have a fun time with his friends. The least he could do was try. As he began to get lost in his project, that irritation from earlier- much like most of his emotions nowadays- seemed to fade and disappear as quickly as wallets and shiny objects left anywhere in his uncle’s reach. His tense shoulders relaxed and his jaw unclenched despite him not having realized he’d been grinding his teeth. Damn, he’d forgotten to grab some jolly ranchers or lollipops on the way out, just like he’d forgotten his coffee this morning. Maybe it was time to double down on the memory exercises Jonah recommended he do, he really had been burning out a lot recently.

Levi was out of posters, and terribly bored. He had helped Simon (Or was it Steven?) set out snacks and a place for a line to form outside, and now he was left to drift, and wonder why his moms donated so much money to this school if students were just going to do all of the work? The moment he spotted Sully, he was leaned up against a wall, cool but not effortless. A smile spread across his face, and he began to walk over, overflowing with a, mostly unearned, confidence.

“I told them not to stand on your thingy,” he called out as he approached, heralding his own arrival like the vapid prince he so aspired to be. His words, at least, were true, to some extent. He certainly had warned the bumbling sophomores who’d broken the frame, though he hadn’t tried particularly hard to stop them. Still, who the fuck ignores a sticky note? “I’d rat them out for you, but I don’t keep track of underclassmen unless they provide a service.” He paused, taking a moment to assess Sully’s outfit before continuing, as though he hadn’t before he even walked over. “The vest is very chic.Ça te va bien.”

“I don’t know what that means, but thanks,” Sully responded as he screwed the last hinge back in place and then got to work on giving the thing a little more sturdiness with a few well placed box nails into a piece of support wood he’d forgone in the previous build. Levi’s presence was unexpected, as Sully had been so focused on fixing the decorative installation before him, but it wasn’t like the guy wasn’t allowed to come around while Sully was working. He’d been doing this almost his whole life, he knew how to implement safety with his tools when people got too close. Levi would be fine. “I don’t care enough to do anything to them anymore, anyway,” He finally responded to the tall boy’s comment about the underclassmen, driving the final nail home and bending down to grab the fabric that would drape over the wooden structure. When he straightened back up he tossed the fabric over and straightened it out, took a moment to be proud of his work, and then grabbed the very vest Levi had commented on and threw it back on with little care for being gentle. He then turned around to face Levi, eyes cast down as he raised his hands to redo the top two shirt buttons he had undone in order to work. With those done, he shook out his sleeves until they were at his wrists again and finally looked at the blonde before him, now attempting to button his cuffs without looking as he fully acknowledged the boy in front of him. “See? It’s fixed, no reason to be upset if I can fix it,” Once his cuff was buttoned, he took a second to push his hair out of his face and look at the other’s outfit, figuring he should return the earlier compliment. “You look nice, man. Fancy. The turtleneck in this weather is insane though.”

“Beauty is pain, pain is beauty,” Levi said, cocking his head. He wasn’t sure what it was inside of him, that made the chase so thrilling, he just knew that he enjoyed it. Maybe that’s why he so often found himself in bed with people like Monarch. They made him work for it. That all felt very unGreenly of him, though, and he did not like to dwell on it. Instead, he focused on this strange boy in front of him, one who didn’t seem to grasp the concept of revenge. It made him seem naive, and Levi liked that. Despite himself, he liked those who resisted cruelty when he could not. It intrigued him. “You’re very nice.” Levi didn’t say the word with judgement or malice, but it felt alien on his tongue. “How’d you survive four years here? Just doing chores for everybody?”

Sully wasn’t sure that risking heat stroke was really worth it for the sake of looking nice, especially because Levi never looked anything but well dressed whenever Sully was around the theater kids, but it’s not like it was his place to play the mom friend to the guy. He wasn’t going to tell him to try and stay cool or to make sure to drink water. Not only was Sully not really like that, but even if he was, he didn’t know Levi like that. When Levi called him nice in a tone Sully had no ability to identify, kind of like trying to understand the way Levi looked at him, the woodworker tilted his head to the side as he let Levi see his confusion to the following question. How did he survive four years in highschool? Doesn’t everybody? A small frown on his face, especially when the comment about doing chores for people reminded him of his little realization on the Morning Show yesterday, Sully bent down to pick up his toolbox and then nodded to the bleachers to indicate to Levi that he was going to sit. Taking a seat and keeping his toolbox by his feet, Sully looked up at Levi and finally formed a reply.

“Doin’ these chores are a part of my scholarship, dude. Otherwise, unless someone really needs the help, I work on commission. Besides, How am I nice? I just don’t wanna hurt anyone for no reason, and the structure gettin’ fixed means that there’s no reason. It’d’ve been different if it was damaged beyond repair,” His fingers searched for interaction and he reached down to take the screwdriver back out of the box in order to fiddle with it, turning it rapidly between the digits. He sighed and rubbed at his tired eyes. It’s been an hour since his last cigarette and at least two hours since his last coffee, as he’d gotten distracted before leaving by uploading his and Oli’s GRWM and then made the fool’s move of forgetting his thermos. He wonders why both times Levi has come around him recently, he suddenly starts craving nicotine more than usual. Still, the surviving comment was bothering him, but he wasn’t sure why, so instead he answered with, “I don’t know what you mean by survivin’ school, honestly. I drink a shit ton of coffee and smoke like half a pack a day.” More than that, on bad days. “I do my job in the mornin’, do the odd jobs durin’ my free intervals, and I usually got at least one person I know in class willin’ to wake me up if I fall asleep. What’s there to survive? It’s school. It’s a place we’ve gotta be, and then it’s over,” The screwdriver never faltered between his fingers until he started feeling a strain from the now more drastic angle of their interaction. “Also, are you gonna sit? This starin’ up from a seated position thing kinda hurts my neck.”

Levi smirked. Sully spoke to him like he couldn’t possibly care less about who he was, and he didn’t know why, but he found it strangely endearing. He figured that must be a sign of something broken inside of his well-insured brain. What exactly was the point of chasing a dog that doesn’t want you, and never will?

That was probably a question better left for Monarch, or a late-night, doom scroll induced, Google search. “What’s there to survive? Very, ‘hakuna matata’ of you,” Levi said as he took a seat next to Sully, half teasing, half impressed. “I mean it’s not just school though, right? Not here at least.” Levi stared out over the dance floor. For the Greens, at least, that much was true. Nothing was ever as simple as it appeared on the surface. “If it was, would you be building sets so you could go here?”

“When I first applied here I had different ideas,” Sully answered, for once remaining vague on the matter. He’d applied early, before his accident, and gotten his acceptance letter while recovering. At that point, he didn’t care about going but his old ideas still made enough sense to him so he persisted. His online popularity had picked up during that time as well and BHHS offered more programs and classes that retained his ever fleeting interest. “Now it’s just because good grades here gets you a better chance at wherever you’re goin’ next compared to the school I would’ve gone to if I stayed local.” A shrug met the end of his sentence and he looked at the boy now seated beside him. Once again, Levi was taking time out of his day to find Sully off to the side and talk to him and once again Sully felt like something was happening that he couldn’t quite grasp. He hadn’t even had a chance to ask anyone anything about Levi either, having not seen people like Jonah and Monarch who always seem to know what to say, and having forgotten to so much as mention it to his mother, uncle, or Oli in the time since yesterday morning. Levi always seemed like he was looking for something with his gaze, and Sully wasn’t really sure what it was he had to offer that had landed the boy’s eyes on him.

“If it ain’t just school then what is it? Don’t say somethin’ silly either, like war or a jungle. I’ve watched Mean Girls with my ma, already seen that analogy.”

Levi grinned, as though he spent all his time just waiting for boys like Sully to ask him to wax poetic about the highs and lows of American high-school. In a way, he supposed that was exactly what he did. “It’s a foundation.” The tall boy paused, carefully crafting his point in his mind. “Whether we like it or not, all this bullshit matters. The test scores determine where you get to go and try to make a name for yourself, those of us with important names will undoubtedly have our scandals here dragged out and ogled at the moment we get too big for our britches, and we’ll all be stitching up the war wounds for years. We like to act like it’s not a big deal but that’s only true if you’re good at forgetting things.”

“I'm great at forgettin’ things, ask anyone.” It wasn't quite an argument, but it also wasn't quite a joke either, Sully just didn't really have much to say in response to Levi's assessment of school's role in their development. Well, not much aside from ‘Sounds like that sucks for you’ which, while something he would easily say to the likes of Oli or the gearheads, was not as quick to fly past what minimal decency filter he still had. “You still ended up comparin’ it to war when you said stitchin’ up war wounds. Couldn't help yourself, could ya? It's really that deep when your last name is big time, huh?”

Sully propped his elbow against his crossed knee and slumped forward, chin dropping into his waiting palm as he went back to staring blankly out into the gym. He dropped the screwdriver back into his toolbox with a light clanking noise.

“Guess I do get perks from bein’ a no-name outside of the internet. No one talks about me or my scandals or my past, not that I really have scandals.” A brief pause, and then, “Huh. Do I need scandals? Is it like, a necessary part of the highschool experience that I'm missin’ out on?” He was a bit stuck on that now, his mind latching onto the one thing with ease and not willing to let it go. Levi talked about everything like they were absolutely expected. Like they were certainty. It made Sully miss the time when he himself was so sure of everything, instead of the Sully he was now that struggled with some basic concepts that he once understood. He couldn't tell if the feeling swirling around his heart was a craving of envy or nostalgia, the two tended to feel the same after the past few years of wondering after what others grasped so easily.

“I’ve never thought so, but they can be fun, and fun is almost never a bad thing.” Levi said, with a halfhearted shrug. He couldn’t help but fidget with the button on his jacket, and the crease of his pants, oddly self conscious beneath his mask of privileged confidence. Would he tell Naomi and the girls about this new fascination? He supposed not, if he hadn’t already. Why then? This boy made him introspective. He wasn’t totally sure he hated it. “I’m not saying it’s hard to be rich. I’m saying it’s hard to be seventeen.” His eyes traced Sully’s jaw, and his bottom lip found it’s way between his teeth. “And I guess I’m also saying that you are a miraculously, unbothered, individual. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Not…like that,” Sully answered truthfully with a slow blink, eyes tracing all the different ways Levi fidgeted and pretended not to, from his hands to his lip that he was biting like Rye or little Danny Boaz do. “I’m usually told I need to pay more attention, more than that I’m unbothered,” The builder took off one of the fidget rings Oli had adorned him with earlier, the one where the second band spins around the first like a well oiled bearing, and tossed it into the other boy’s hand once he saw an opening in the jittery motion. He mumbled, “I’m gonna need that back at some point, a friend gave it to me,” before returning to his thoughts. Levi wasn’t wrong, in fact he was completely right in saying it’s hard to be seventeen. Sully was just also of the belief that it was hard being any age, not just teenaged. “And I guess I ain’t really unbothered…It’s more like it’s hard to hold onto it once I actually feel it, you know? Fleetin’, or whatever it is,” Sully waved his hand out at the bustle of activity that made up the rest of the gym outside their corner, encompassing their classmates. “I dunno, maybe not bein’ able to be too emotional is a good thing, if always feelin’ nervous or overwhelmed is the other option. Don’t think I could do too much if I was always worried about things my friends or followers did or said. Then again, maybe it’s the people you surround yourself with, ‘cause I didn’t get much choice in who became my friend, not that I’m complainin’, ‘cause I don’t worry ‘bout any of that with them.”

Levi stayed quiet for a second, unsure if he was filled with envy or pity for his newest fixation. Perhaps it was a bit of both. He’d always felt too big for his skin, like the anger and melancholy would rip him open from the inside out if he let it. A part of him wished for the serenity that Sully seemed to find so effortlessly. Another part, a wiser, less heeded part, knew that the anger, and the melancholy, and everything in between, was what you were supposed to enjoy. Happy ever afters were for children. “Maybe,” he said, gently spinning Sully’s ring as it rested on the tip of his index finger. “I’ve never been anything other than emotional, so I guess I wouldn’t know. I suppose it would keep me from waxing poetic about the meaning of life.” He sighed and looked between Sully and the growing crowd of attendees filtering into the auditorium. “You’re coming to Ethan’s party, right?”

“Eh, but then you wouldn’t be you, huh? I’m the second version of myself.” Sully shrugged, fingertips rubbing methodically across the plastic of the bleachers on either side of him. He huffed out a laugh at Levi’s question, starting to realize that despite being family, these cousins must not talk to each other very much. As someone from a family of three people and well…just that, Sully found himself feeling a little bad for the Green kids and the rift he was finally seeing between them. If Sully had siblings or cousins going to the same school, he probably would have already talked to them about Levi approaching him yesterday, and Sully assumed along that vein of thought that Levi knew Ethan had been befriending him for a minute now. It seemed they were both approaching him without knowing about the other though, and Sully wasn’t really sure what to do with that, or if there even was anything to do with it. Standing up from the bleacher and stretching his arms above his head as more people filtered in early, Sully figured he’d just try not to make a mess socially like he had a habit of doing, while having no clue as to how he was going to do that, either.

“Yeah, I’ll be there, I’ve got my DS in my locker so I gotta remember to grab it before we all head out,” True to his comment from yesterday, Sully planned on playing with his handheld gaming device and being relatively high the whole night. “I’m probably gonna be in the chiller areas most of the night, if you were plannin’ on lookin’ for me or somethin’?” Sully assumed that since Levi had asked in the first place it was because he was going to seek him out, just as he has twice already, he cocked his head at the blonde from his now standing position and bent down to pick up his toolbox so he could walk it back to the maintenance closet in the last few minutes before the dance officially started. “I’ll get the ring back from you at the party, then, keep it for now.”

“So you weren’t proposing?” Levi joked. “Probably for the best. My moms would expect an absurd dowry.” He smirked and crossed his arms behind his back. He’d forgotten what a crush felt like, and the returning sensation was a strange one. He needed someone to slap some sense into him. “I’ll see you later then. Ring and all.”

The hell’s a dowry? Sully wondered as he gave a small laugh at the part of the tall boy’s joke that he understood. “I look forward to it,” He replied to Levi’s parting words before blinking in surprise when he realized that he meant it. Weird. “Yeah, I do. Huh. Alright, see ya later, dude. Make use of the ring until then, and have fun.”

Sully exited the gym with his toolbox in hand and his head tilted to the side, free hand reaching into the toolbox as he went to fish out the battered box of cigarettes hidden within. There was still about ten minutes until the dance really started, and he was feeling a bit jittery after his chat with Levi, so he figured it was time to feed the craving once again rearing its head.

Back in the gym, off to the side of the bleachers the boys had been sitting on and hidden by the shadows caused by cloth draped structures and colorful overhead lights, Monarch leaned back against the wall with narrowed eyes as she took in everything she’d just observed of Sully and Levi’s interaction. She knew she had planned to pass this whole debacle on to Jonah, and maybe she still would, but he wasn’t here yet and several things about the boys’ conversation and body language had the probabilities and theories shifting and adjusting at a rapid pace within her mind.

She had miscalculated before.

This was interesting.

BHHS: Limitless

^{Timestamp: Early Saturday morning
Location: Donaghue home
Sin and Monarch}

____________________________________________________________________

____________________________________________________________________

“NOOooo_ooooo…” The messy haired blonde whined as the sheets were pulled away from her face and she was forced to experience the blinding light of California’s morning sun. Fuck this place actually being sunny all the time, she missed the gray skies of Gravette where half the time on the south side you couldn’t even tell the time of day by looking up. Sin lethargically attempted to pull the sheets back up over her face, but whatever devil had entered her humble abode to torment her was determined to keep her in the world of the awake and living. “Someone turn off the sun, it’s bedtime.”

“Sin it’s eight am, that’s the end’a bedtime,” Came the amused voice of her petite friend, who was dutifully holding the sheets away from her blind grabbing.

“For a fuckin’ loser maybe, I plan to sleep ‘til noon at least.”

“Then it’s a sad thing that’cha said you’d to give me a ride to school.”

“It’s Saturday,” Sin bitched before rolling over, curling in on herself instead of stretching out. “Whyyyyyy?”

“‘Cause you said you would and you’re a woman’a your word,” Monarch giggled, sitting on the edge of her friend’s bed and studiously not reacting when her heel hit the bottle of alcohol that had been half rolled under the bed. When it clinked against an empty glass jar, Monarch sighed. “Were you doin’ that weird thing where you ate a slice’a pickled jalapeno after every sip’a fireball? You’re gonna destroy your stomach linin’.”

“It’s good and it lights a fire in my soul,” Sin defended, still curled up and facing away from the braided girl as if it would keep Monarch from dragging her out of bed if the martial artist really wanted to. At Monarch’s quiet scoff, Sin finally opened one eye just to glare over her shoulder at her friend. “Keeps me warm at night.”

“So can blankets, and they ain’t gonna give you weird dreams.”

“I have blankets, and I like my weird dreams.”

“Okay, keep your odd little comfort vice,” Monarch relented with an eyeroll before standing up and turning to look at the lump of hangover that was her biker friend, crossing her arms after spending a moment to get her braids into a loose ponytail. She’d need it out of the way for the next part. “But get outta bed and gimme a ride or I’m pullin’ out the nickname.”

The stillness of the body on the bed changed as Sin stared Monarch down with a single eye, both eye color and gaze steely with warning. “You wouldn’t.”

“I would,” Monarch countered. “I got pieces to take outta the Kiln, after all. Don’t make me use it.”

“I’ll set you on fire, Arch.”

“I know where your extinguisher is. Daisy.”

“Ewww stooooppppp,” Sin flopped back onto her back and covered her face with her eyes while Monarch blinked innocently despite the defensive stance she’d taken.

“Stop what, Daisy? I didn’t name you,” Monarch knocked away the pillow thrown at her with ease, a goading smile reaching her face as she saw Sin had sat up in order to haul the soft weapon with proper force. She bounced on her toes before taking another step back, eyeing the girl on the bed and waiting for her to pounce as she always did. Sin was too easy to rile up sometimes, especially for being the aunt to the three boys that she is, but Monarch also supposed that, for herself, as the youngest of five she had an unfair advantage when it came to their dynamic. Monarch could rile anyone up with enough information on them, after all, and Sin was one of her closest people, so she knew damn near everything about the girl. For instance, Sin’s middle name translated to Daisy and, well, let’s just say the nicknames that came from it were too flowery for the biker princess. “Hey, actually, you chainsmoke with the best of ‘em, yeah? Howsabout I change it to Daisy-chain and-”

Her sentence cut off as Sin launched herself at Monarch with a scream of irritation that meant it was time to wrestle, and the two tumbled to the floor with Monarch controlling the momentum and roll to make sure she ended up on top. Sin was a fighter, if not a brawler. She liked to play fight and wrestle and was overall a fairly physical and active girl, and had had a whole motorcycle club’s worth of people to play attack and tackle at random back in Gravette. She and Decky would occasionally toss on some gloves and go at it when Sin was actually feeling violent, but most of the time she just needed something like this in order to relax. She needed a quick, no stakes tussle that got out the chaotic impulse so she could go about her day, and Monarch never had a problem with being her opponent at these times. Hell, she could usually tell before Sin could that the metalworker needed it by watching the way her shoulders tensed or some other crazy analytic shit that she was terrifyingly good at. Sin stopped questioning it years ago. The next several minutes were lost to thuds and thunks of scuffling as the two girls roughhoused, eventually ending when Monarch got bored and employed her well earned BJJ skills as well, leading to a frantic tap-out on Sin’s part when she realized her dangerous friend had coiled her deceptively strong arm around her neck and was about to squeeze. She didn’t think Monarch would actually hurt her or lose herself in a little squabble match like what they do, but she was also not interested in getting choked out by the little butterfly today.

“Fine!” She relented as she let the entirety of her body weight smush the girl currently koala clung to her back while Monarch released her hold, letting Sin’s dead weight stay there until she realized the blonde still wasn’t moving and shoved her off. A breathless laugh escaped the biker as she flopped to the side and Monarch stood up. “I’ll take you to the damn school.”

“Awwww Sin! You’re the best, thanks!”

“Fuck you too. Now get out so I can get dressed.”

🏍️🦋

When Sin exited her room a few minutes later, she found Monarch sweeping up the shattered glass and ceramic in the kitchen. Frowning but not telling her to stop, Sin grabbed the Advil and bottle of water that Monarch had left on the counter for her next to two slices of toast, downing the pills and following them with half the water in one go. She then began to munch on the toast with very little enthusiasm. She didn’t have a headache but it’s always better safe than sorry after she spent a night drinking like her nephew Molotov. Most of the mess had been from her fight with Rian before he’d left yesterday, she had a bad habit of swiping things off the nearest surface when she was pissed but trying not to get physical with the actual person, but the rest was from when she’d called her family last night and found out Francis wouldn’t be joining the call. Apparently, the patched members of Dullahan MC locked themselves up in the club’s meeting room and were in it for the long haul, Francis and Rian included despite the fact that both of them technically left the club. And she still had no idea why Rian took her key, but Francis’ involvement meant Fiona’s key was needed too. Which means Sin should have fuckin’ been there too. She’d spent time talking to her nephews while simmering beneath the surface, and as soon as she’d hung up it all boiled over and she’d taken it out on her late dinner.

The sound of debris hitting the bottom of the trashcan brought her out of her thoughts as Monarch got rid of the last of the objects in the dustbin before putting the cleaning appliances back away between the fridge and the wall.

“Didn’t I tell you to come sleep over on nights like that?” Monarch asked with zero judgment in her tone while Sin stared at her with no shame in her tired eyes.

“Didn’t I tell you I don’t think about it as it’s happenin’?” She responded as Monarch frowned at her. “What? What’s that look?”

“I think you should come to the dance with me.”

“Good one,” Sin all but barked out a laugh, slapping the countertop for emphasis while Monarch continued to stare at her, unmoving in the middle of the kitchen she’d just cleaned. Sin’s mocking smile dropped. “You’re not fuckin’ serious,” No response met her, Monarch’s arms loose at her sides and head tilted to the right. Monarch knew she only planned on showing up in time to hitch a ride to the party! “Arch, you can’t be serious!”

“It’ll be good for you, bein' here won’t.” Monarch continued to stare at Sin, having been watching the deflated way in which she acted compared to how she normally is. She didn’t like when Sin got like this any more than she liked seeing Trixie exude fear yesterday. Sin was like a blown fuse sometimes, damaging herself with erratic discharge of her own energy and burning out from the inside. Things stopped working right, like their dynamics and even Sin’s ability to mold her metalwork to her desires. With nowhere for her to indulge in her more combustive stress relief, Sin became frazzled and tired. Back in Gravette when she got like this, she and Decky would disappear on binges together until someone, usually Sin’s brother in law Francis, hunted them down and dragged Sin back to reality. Francis wasn’t even in this state, right now, so it was on Monarch, and she could already tell that she’d crashed and burned.

It was her turn to be met with silence as Sin stood up and headed for the door to the garage, grabbing her jacket off the hook on the way and disappearing behind a slammed door to get the bike ready. Monarch sighed in exasperation at her failure, knowing she had to do something to get Sin to go to the dance and be surrounded by her friends and by distractions. The temperamental blonde would hear nothing more of it from her petite friend, however, and Monarch knew if she tried to talk about it on the ride to the school, Sin would just turn the volume up over her voice. The slight scrunching of her nose was the only sign of her displeasure as she whipped out her phone to text a certain partner in crime of hers.

To: Would You Like To Play A Game?
Sin needs to go to the dance and she won’t hear it from me
I’m enlisting you
Should I send her to the garage or your house after she drops me off?

From: Would You Like To Play A Game?
House.
And easy enough. She’ll be there.
I’ll take her as my date ;)

“Monarch, come on!”

“Comin’!” The meddler stuffed her phone into her pocket and did one last check of the now clean kitchen before grabbing Sin’s half finished water bottle and second slice of toast before running to the garage, making sure to lock up behind her.

^{Timestamp: Late Saturday morning
Location: Boaz-Goldstein home
Sin, Decky, Jonah@LovelyComplex, and the family}

Sin pulled into the driveway and revved once to announce her arrival to the household, parking her bike right next to Decky’s and dismounting smoothly only to raise an eyebrow when she could feel the warmth still radiating off of the boy’s motorcycle. Where the hell had he been so early, the Garage or something? He must have gotten here not long before her, so at least he was probably up. She walked in the front door easily enough, so either Decky left it unlocked- extremely unlikely- or Jonah unlocked it in preparation for her showing up. The house was already fairly loud despite it not even being noon yet, activity fluttering in each room she could see.

In the living room, the Boaz brothers’ cousin, Zion, was fretting over his homecoming clothes to his father Eiran and almost crying over trying to match the outfit to the two different color themes his girlfriends chose. “Your mother is better at this. Maybe I should’ve left and gotten the corsages and that…flower pin… instead of her. Why are these dances so expensive? Did you know I went to the mall yesterday after work and suits cost way too much! The Mermaid Closet had a sale but… it intimidated me. Not the sale. The store. This is why we have Bennet Lovejoy Classic blouses. Very nice, very classy. Tailored to your body, thanks to Junie. You know I just realized, you will look like cotton candy.”

“I sell cotton candy,” The young candyman stressed, looking seconds from pulling out his hair. “But I don’t know if I wanna look like it!”

Their uncle Zophim, or Zo, was stress cooking a veritable breakfast buffet in the kitchen, mind likely still in the bedroom with his due-any-day wife. Hopefully he doesn’t catch the eggs on fire like last time, even Sin had been equal parts impressed and concerned by that. At the dining room table, which really was just a table settled halfway between the kitchen and the living room, sat her friend nodding off against his propped up arm, half a slice of sourdough toast making a desperate effort to not fall from his mouth. Across from him was Hirsch, who was frowning fiercely at whatever he was reading in a file with the Garage’s logo stamped on it. Dude never stopped working and always looked as exhausted as his younger brother, she didn’t know that bruise-dark under eyes could be a family trait until those two.

“Hi Sin!”

The biker girl jumped slightly as the youngest in the house appeared beside her, likely having come out of the room off to the side that had been turned into the Boaz brothers’ bedroom when they moved in. Danny beamed up at her, but she could see that he was also laughing at the fact that he had gotten the drop on her. The little shit. His hair was messy like Decky’s and he smelled vaguely of gasoline, so it was safe to assume that whatever had Decky out so early in the morning, his little brother was involved.

“Hey brat,” She nudged him gently before leaning down and stage whispering to the young boy. “You have no idea how much I wanna swipe Deck’s arm support out from under ‘im.”

“Do it an’ die, Donaghue,” Decky mumbled, eyes still closed but toast back to his plate instead of dangling between his teeth. He sighed as Zophim turned around and shoveled more eggs onto his plate, the older man then adding more to Hirsch’s as well. The twenty one year old ate mechanically, as though it was an automatic action as his sharp eyes never left the words and numbers on the page before him. “This is my fault for sittin’ at the table, this is my third servin’ already.”

“Jesus,” Sin laughed nervously, looking at the unkempt mess that was Zophim Boaz. How that sweet man was the younger brother to Decky and Danny’s monster of a father, she’d never know. Same goes for their mother Alana and her brothers, the Goldstein boys. Decky and Danny really had the misfortune of being born to the worst from both sides, so Sin was glad that they were thriving now that they were with healthy family members. They even fed them, hell, overfed them sometimes, and given the amount of past malnourishment… the Boaz brothers needed every morsel they could take in at any given time.

“Are you hungry, Sin? I’ve got plenty!” Zo called, waving his spatula invitingly. “I’ve got…I’ve got too much and Eiran’s too busy bein’ a dad to eat.”

Before she could respond, Danny tugged on her sleeve.

“Uncle Jonah’s waitin’ in his room for ya.”

“Thanks kiddo,” Sin ruffled the boy’s hair as he set her back on track, keeping her from getting wrapped up in the chaos of the household. It’s always a little extra wild when both Devorah, Eiran’s wife, and Zo’s wife, Juniper, aren’t there. Those two women really must be superhuman to be wrangling three adult men and four teenage boys at any given time. Returning her sights to the desperately offered plate of food, Sin stepped into the kitchen and took it out of Zo’s hands with a quick thanks and a shoulder pat before stealing Decky’s fork and heading out and down the hall towards Jonah’s room, smirking at the baffled anger she heard from her friend behind her. When she reached the youngest uncle’s room, she used her elbow to knock on the doorframe while shoveling some eggs in her mouth. That toast from Monarch earlier really hadn’t been enough, and Zo was a good cook when he was actually tending to the food.

“No matter how many times I tell you, you still bring food to my room,” Jonah drawled at his desk, his drowsy gaze glued to his laptop as he wrote an extra credit essay for his AP Statistics class. The objective was to present a statistical argument. Statistics can make an argument persuasive but only if used accurately. Numbers could create more problems if it’s simply to make a compelling argument and not to present the truth. Percentage was meaningless if the reader didn’t understand the context nor have a base percentage to reasonably compare to. His topic was: "The influence of parenting styles on child behavior.” Something that resonated deeply with him, due to his lack of parents. His brothers took on the role his mother and father should’ve had. Because of his own personal feelings on any subject matter regarding parenthood, Jonah needed to be intent and deliberate with his structure to avoid any bias swaying the direction his paper went.

Pressing save in his word document, he turned his chair around to face the girl of the hour. Sinead Donaghue. With his elbow resting on his arm rest, Jonah placed his chin on his palm and observed his peer as she welcomed herself into his room once she heard his response. “How’s our poster hothead girl doing?” He flatly inquired.

“Who wants to know?” Sin asked nonchalantly between bites, still standing because even she wasn’t crazy enough to try and eat food on Jonah’s bed despite bringing it into his room. Damn what other people said about her, she was sane enough to know her limits and how intensely she could toe the line per person. Mostly. Usually. Look, everyone makes mistakes sometimes, what matters is how you bounce back from them, right? Sin always bounces back. “You better not’ve called me over just to ask me that, man, or even the addition of Zo feedin’ me breakfast won’t save you. Monarch said you had a job for me but didn’t say if it was Garage or commission work,” the abrasive girl prodded, pointing her fork at him accusingly. “An’ don’t think I didn’t notice you gettin’ a hold’a me through her instead’a just textin’, the fuck is that about?”

She didn’t care to be as observant as most of her friends, but even she paid attention to their normal patterns and actions and Monarch admitting Jonah had asked her to pass along a message, regardless of if he knew she was waking Sin up that morning, wasn’t really either of their styles. Monarch also wasn’t that sloppy, so the whole ruse had been intentionally bad enough for Sin to catch onto while remaining vague enough that she’d decided to just figure it out at the source instead of stay there pestering the petite pain in her ass. Shoveling the rest of the plate in her mouth, Sin set the empty item down on the free spot on Jonah’s desk before finally sitting on his bed and leaning back on her palms to grin at the boy.

“Do I get to play with fire or will this be borin’?”

“Depends how you play your cards. The night could end in fire and blood,” Jonah spoke figuratively. While convincing Sin to go to the dance wasn’t his job, Monarch politely asked him and he wanted to keep their friendship on good terms. The happier his girls were, the better they performed during his game nights. Sin, in his opinion, was hardly a challenge. Stubborn, yes, but if you understood how her mind worked, it really didn’t take much effort to get her to do what you wanted. A girl who did what she wanted and most of the time, didn’t give a flying fuck about much, but certainly gave a fuck about her chosen family and that in itself was enough leverage to sway her in his favor.

He knew underneath all that heat, she was desperate and wanted to belong. Needed grounding so her fire didn’t turn into an inferno. Liked her freedom but was searching for a cage with open doors to call home. A free bird who adored her friends and family more than anything in the world, especially the validation they provided her, assuring her that she was a good person. Worth time, effort and love. To him, Sin was an open book. Everything that she was, was there. All you needed to do was watch and listen. Pay attention because the reality of Sin was on the surface. She wasn’t known for being discreet and he loved that for her.

Grabbing three darts off his desk, Jonah tossed one to his board, over Sin’s head, who was now sitting on his bed and probed, “So I hear you’re not going to the dance.” The dart rapidly flew and in seconds it hit the red circle.

Bullseye.

“Why’s that?”

“Why’re you surprised?” Sin blinked back, once again answering his question with one of her own while remaining unflinching as the dart flew closely over her head. Why was she suddenly getting harped on about this stupid fuckin’ dance? The mercurial motorhead lamented the fact that she had to wake up this morning to deal with her puppet master friends testing how well they could string her up. She was sure it was in good faith, which is why she was annoyed and not pissed, but that didn’t mean she was making it easy. Jonah and Monarch always did love challenges, and it seemed that today she was one of them. Flopping back onto his bed and spreading her arms out after having mimed snipping strings from her arms, she stared at Jonah’s ceiling, tracking the next dart that tore through the air above her with ease. Another bullseye, just off to the side of the other. Funny, from this position, if the thud of the next dart dislodged either of them she might have a shiny new piercing. Deciding to test her family’s ever deteriorating irish luck, Sin remained where she was while continuing the conversation.

“Who wants to be wasted an’ sweaty in a packed school gym when they’re boutta be blasted and tryin’a hook up at a party right after?” She glanced down towards where Jonah still sat in his desk chair. “If the dance’s your angle, baby unc’, I’d change it.”

“My nephew is going,” Jonah stated, his tone never wavering high or low. He rolled the last dart in between his fingers. “For a girl, he’s going. When have you seen him ever go to a school dance, hm? I’m surprised you’re not taking the opportunity to tease him and spike the punch. I bet Poppy would love pictures.”

“He’s what,” Sin exclaimed in glee and disbelief, shooting up from her position with no small amount of enthusiasm. “And the sonuvabitch didn’t tell me? I’m gonna give him another fuckin’ scar,” The last one had been an accident when they were younger and was not talked about in length ever since, but it was definitely a bonding experience. This one would be intentional and petty and Decky would just have to deal with it. Was that jackass really finally making a move on JJ and he didn’t even think to shoot her a text? The nerve of some people. “Jonah this changes everythin’. Fuck just spikin’ the punch, that shit’ll be jungle juice in the first fifteen minutes so I got more time to watch this shitshow unfold. An’ Poppy!” And Charlie, god, Sin suddenly couldn’t wait to start taking photos and videos. The two friends from back home that completed their quartet growing up would eat Decky alive over this, and Sin would be the one to throw him under the bus. It was what he deserved for not calling her the second his dumb ass finally realized he’d been fuckin’ pining like a school girl for JJ since the first time he mentioned meeting her.

“I’m gonna make a whole collage. I’m gonna immortalize it in a custom made metal frame so spiky he can’t pick it up to tear any’a the photos out.”

It was too easy. Monarch should give him a prize. Or feed him. He wasn’t too picky.

Jonah flung the last dart to his wall but instead of going toward the dartboard, it went soaring to his calendar. Whatever date it fell on would decide his next game night. He aimed it at the last week of October. A Halloween themed Casino night could be fun. “And what will you wear?” He asked, not one to gloat about his success. She was already too excited for him to go back in the conversation. The wind was blowing in his favor but it could change. With Sin, things could always change.

Forward and onward Jonah went, keeping her attention on the objective: attending the dance. “I’d kill to see you wear your leather dress tonight. I bet you’d be the only one wearing that kind of fabric to the ‘red carpet’. It’s certainly a statement. A hot one at that.”

Sin could practically see Monarch rubbing her evil little hands together when she found out Jonah had hooked and reeled her in so easily. Whatever, she could tease the tiny terror about the fact that she hadn’t been the one able to do it. She should have given her the right incentive, she should have known better. Tsk tsk. When Jonah interrupted her thoughts by asking about her wardrobe, she froze and grimaced. She hated dressing up for shit and now she had less than six hours to be ready for an event that she hadn’t even wanted to go to five minutes ago.

“Damn, I forgot there was even a theme,” Sin mumbled, no reaction to his final dart’s change of course nor much care for if it held any meaning. She did know it was intentional, as Jonah never missed, especially not by that margin. When he mentioned the only nice dress she had, the blonde balked at the suggestion. “The dress I wear to The Dolla Lounge?” It certainly was a hot little number, which was why she tended to wear it out. “I better get laid if I’m wearin’ my good clothes,” She thought about it and knew that Jonah’s suggestion was her only option. Most of her clothes were covered in grease, oils, and burn holes and occasionally littered with metal shavings, the only clothes she had in good condition were her club clothes and that dress was probably the only one that would get past any chaperone with a hard on for the dress code. Glaring playfully at Jonah, knowing that she had tied the strings around her own joints after cutting them off so readily earlier, Sin accepted her fate but still had to ask. “How’d she get’cha in on this? You don’t usually fuck with me as much as you do the others.” The ‘that I know of’ went unsaid but not unheard between the two teens in the room.

Jonah smirked. Standing up from his office chair, he strode toward her and to his door, which was his silent way of saying: you can leave now. “Maybe it’s your turn to convince her of something.” There was no amusement in giving out easy answers. Sin was a smart girl, she’d come to her own conclusions eventually or burn down anything that got in her way to get to her destination. “Decky could use an alarm clock. He was out late, spending his night with the Green brothers.”

“The fuck does that mean?” Sin whined, only standing up when Jonah mentioned Decky again but stopping short of the door at Jonah’s next comment and whirling back around to stare at him with wide eyes. “Spendin’ his night?!” She asked in slight alarm, almost raising her voice before remembering the subject in question was right down the open hall. Regardless of ambient noise, Decky had ears like a bat sometimes. Decky never spent the night anywhere that wasn’t either with the gearheads or the family, and unless it was planned he never did it without Danny either. Sin could feel smoke coming out of her ears as the gears in her mind ground to a halt, remembering Danny smelling like a motorcycle ride and stale weed. Holy shit. She could feel a protective heat surging in her chest at the thought of her boys over the houses of one of the richest kids at school and seeing how exhausted Decky was at the table. Danny seemed happy enough, giddy even, but still…

“Danny was there too?” She asked for confirmation, suddenly regretting her lack of worry over not caring about being in the loop. Maybe it was time for another bake ‘n’ dish session with little Danny so she could get a full update. Her nephew Conan would lose his shit if she let his best friend get hurt in any form because she wasn’t paying enough attention, and she’d promised him- promised, you never do that on Gravette’s southside- that she would take care of him as needed and tell him if he needed to come down here for an emergency visit. How many times she’s restrained herself from abusing that option just to get her family down here for a visit, for herself, she couldn’t even count. “All’a y’all were chill with that? The Greens havin’ your nephews for the night? Decky hasn’t exactly called those two friends yet.”

Jonah raised an eyebrow, crossing his arms at her irritating question. “I trust them. It might be unfamiliar territory but those two can handle themselves. You know that better than any of us. And, come on, Sin, do you really think any of us can sway Decky one way or another once he’s made up his mind?” His nephew was for all intents and purposes as stubborn as they come and it took a lot of work to get him used to the city life. Let alone a school like Beverly Hills High. This, honestly, was a huge step up for him and Jonah couldn’t be more proud. “Hirsch gave me the general summary. Decky and Sully made a deal with Ethan which required them to spend some time at one of many Green McMansions. I guess things went so well that Ethan went back out to pick up Danny. I haven’t talked to Danny yet though about his night since I’ve been barely home myself. For once, you might get the scoop before me.”

“She will!” Danny popped up once again by Sin’s elbow, laughing as the short haired girl let out a heated curse and locking eyes with his uncle as he latched onto her arm. “It’s okay uncle Jonah, she’s just worried ‘bout us ‘cause she’s made promises,” Danny said, having heard Sin’s question and seen the older boy’s fairly well hidden irritation as he’d left auntie Juniper’s room across the hall. Of course he knew about her deal with one of his best friends. He was sure if Poppy had been the one to move out here, she would have had just as similar a promise extracted from her by his other best friend, her little sister Ana. At least Topanga probably wouldn’t have asked anyone to keep an eye on him. Probably. “Right Sin?”

“Don’t blink at me like some innocent kid, Lil’ Boa,” Sin grumbled petulantly as he kept his arms coiled around her own and practically hung there. “You weren’t even s’posed to know about that.”

“Conan can’t keep anythin’ from me ta save his life, ya know that,” The boy countered, shifting his weight off of his tip toes so that she was forced to bend down a bit. Taking advantage of her sudden change in balance, Danny began his way down the hall with her arm still in his grasp, causing Sin to splutter but follow after the boy helplessly. She threw a look over her shoulder to Jonah, but immediately saw she had no allies in that hall. Remembering that she had just agreed to go to the fuckin’ dance and all she had was a motorcycle because her old and battered jeep was currently being worked on at the Garage, she called out to him.

“I hope you know this has you playin’ chauffeur, baby unc’!” She whisper hissed back to him as Danny successfully got her to the end of the hall. Just before he dragged her around the corner towards the breakfast table, she scrunched up her nose and stuck her tongue out at her fellow senior, just because she could. It wasn’t like she didn’t know she’d been played, after all.

“Yeah, yeah, see you later,” Jonah said dismissively, grateful for his younger nephew’s save. Closing his bedroom door, he reached for his phone and texted Trouble.

To: Know-It-All
Done. She’ll be there.
Guess I’m DD.

From: Know-It-All
I owe you a meal 😄
See you at the dance!

Glancing up from his phone, his eyes went straight to his calendar to where his dart was. At the center of a zero. Wednesday, October 30th. Mischief Night. It seemed the fates had spoken; it was time for him to start planning his next game night. He had a location in mind. When wasn’t he ten steps ahead of the game? Looking back at his phone though, he thought about his conversation with all those he chose to be part of his madness. In their own way, they worried about him. Maybe today he would shut off his brain and take a break. It wasn’t easy… but it was the least he could do. For all those that cared for him. Restless or not, he knew he should take his own advice that he preached to his nephews and friends all the time. Tonight he would enjoy being young.

To: Lady Luck
10/30
That’s our next one

Back in the living room and kitchen, Sin followed through on her earlier whim and swiped a snoozing Decky’s arm support out from under his cheek. She took a seat across from him and next to Hirsch while the ornery boy awoke with a startled “Fuck-!” as he just barely saved his face from getting intimately acquainted with the woodgrain. The second youngest uncle side eyed her but said nothing as Decky let out a slew of curses her way, she herself remaining unblinking in the face of it all.

“How was your lil’ slumber party with the Greens, Boa? Oh, and I heard you’re into dances now.”

Decky’s ranting stopped cold in its tracks under the heat of her stare, putting on his signature scowl to cover up the way he’d frozen. Sin’s gaze was unwavering across the table and Danny slid silently into his seat beside him as if acting like a buffer for the two aggressive teens. The ambient chatter and cooking noises seemed to slow and quiet down around them as the staring contest continued.

“It was unplanned on my part,” Decky admitted, finally cutting his eyes away after Hirsch sighed in irritation and closed his work folders, picking up the newspaper from the center of the table while raising his eyebrow at his nephew. He was glad they were being children, even if just by way of being childish, but really? At the breakfast table while he was working? Danny smiling innocently beside him honestly didn’t really help the matter. “I thought we were just goin’ ta talk about Ethan’s party-”

“Ethan’s?” Not Green’s, Ethan’s. Decky was definitely calling the dude Green the past couple of days when grumbling about the boy’s previous approach to him, and now it was Ethan?

“-But dude thought it was a sleepover an’ even disappeared ta pick Danny up without tellin’ me,” Sin raised her own eyebrow in surprise. Decky noticed. “I know!”

“Volume!” Zophim fretted quietly while shoveling another full serving onto Decky’s plate. The middle of the three Boaz’s looked a bit green around the gills as he stared down what had to be his sixth serving and respectfully shoved the plate over to Danny who dug in with gusto after making sure there was a clear divide made of hot sauce between the eggs and the hashbrowns. “Pepper is sleepin’, she needs her rest.”

“Pot. Kettle,” Hirsch mumbled into his coffee just before Zophim swiped it out of his hand, ignoring the glare of the boy he helped raise as he refilled his cup with a fresh batch and returned it to his waiting grasp. “Maybe put down the pans and go take a nap yourself.”

“I will when you will,” Zo sung, turning back to the stove to start his next round only to find himself out of ingredients. “Dammit.” At least everyone in the house had had a plate, he’d made Eiran and Zion each grab one before they disappeared into the boy’s room during Decky and Sin’s staring contest.

“Just sit down, Zo,” Hirsch sighed. With nothing else for distraction, the older man complied and took a seat to Decky’s left, across from Danny.

“I know,” Decky repeated, quieter this time but no less stress behind the tone as he got back on track, ignoring his uncles’ banter. “But everythin’ about that place had me thrown off an’ I barely knew how ta react.”

“Ya threatened ta beat Ethan’s ass if he ever picked me up again without your permission,” Danny butted in.

“Yeah but then I said thank ya, right? I was respectful an’ shit.”

“Okay, so you an’ Sully are gettin’ adopted by another rich kid, heard,” Sin cut off, uncrossing her arms and leaning forward on the table, Hirsch blindly moving his coffee mug out of the way of her incoming elbow. She was much more interested in the second part of her taunt, she would get all the Green info from Danny later. “I also heard somethin’ ‘bout you goin’ to the dance. That wasn’t our plan yesterday mornin’.”

The scowl was back. “Is that what Jonah was talkin’ with ya for?” The gearhead looked like he’d just sucked a lemon as he glared in the direction of Jonah’s room down the hall. What a meddlesome bastard. Taking in the look of glee on Danny’s face, Decky realized that he was surrounded by meddlesome bastards and he had only himself to blame. Fuckin’ typical. “I ain't talkin’ ‘bout this,” Decky lifted his own cup of coffee to his lips.

“Oh? Fine,” She grinned as he looked at her warily over the rim of his mug, knowing she doesn’t relent so easily without reason. “You ain’t gotta tell me shit, Decks, ‘cause I’m gonna be at the dance to see it.”

The spit take Decky did as he practically choked on his coffee left no survivors. Danny let out a startled laugh while Zo flung himself away once the first bits of liquid hit him, already heading for the paper towels and lysol wipes beneath the kitchen sink. Hirsch had used his newspaper as protection for his work files, so the poor sap was staring blankly ahead as coffee dripped from his face, no emotions visible as he stewed silently in place. Sin, for her part, was about as drenched as Hirsch was but taking it much better. In fact, she was laughing her ass off at the slack jawed look on her best friend’s face.

“You’re what?”

“I know,” Sin teased, mimicking Decky from earlier, the shit eating grin never leaving her face as chaos once again stirred in the Boaz-Goldstein household.

“You’re welcome,” Jonah chuckled, appearing in the kitchen, dressed to leave the house.

"I ain't thankin' ya for shit," His nephew bit out at him with horror still apparent on his face.

“Zo, your wife needs you. She sounds like she’s in pain. I’ll get her latest craving so you can be there for her.” Soaking up the comedic sight, he pulled out his phone and took a picture. A moment that will last forever. A coffee shower. “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in vanilla ice cream and pizza topped with jalapeños and banana peppers,” he revealed, finding pregnant women fascinating. He pocketed his phone and moved around the table, the spotlight on him.

“Spice runs in the family,” Jonah continued, humoring himself, as he grabbed a paper towel and licked it. Playfully, he wiped Hirsch’s cheek, just like his brother and the rest of the family had done so in the past. The second youngest jerked away from the motion with a scowl that showed spice wasn’t the only thing to run in the family. While Jonah deliberately annoyed his brother, his gaze went from Sin to Decky. He couldn’t help himself. He loved seeing his nephew get flustered. It was so easy to do. “You know who also likes Flamin’ Hot Cheetos?” Jonah teased.

“I can clean myself,” Hirsch attempted and failed to bat his younger brother’s hand away while Zo disappeared down the hall to his wife. Apparently, her nickname of Pepper was never more accurate than this moment, given the woman’s cravings. When the paper towel got the last of the schmutz off of Hirsch’s face, he poked his brother in the side and kicked out his own chair, getting up with a sigh and grabbing his pristine files from beneath the newspaper. “I’m headed to the Garage. Decky, good luck with your crush.”

“Uncle Hershey!” Decky responded in betrayal as the collected man patted him on the head as he passed, smacking at his hands in much the same way that Hirsch had smacked at Jonah’s not a minute ago. He got no response as the twenty one year old disappeared.

“So, JJ likes Flamin’ Hots, huh?” Sin asked innocently, snatching the partially used paper towel out of Jonah’s hand to clean herself up.

“Stop,” The demand was more of a plea given the person he directed it at, and everyone left in the room knew it. Unrepentant, Sin stared her best friend down and held a hand out to Danny, who dropped five dollars in her hand without question. It was a bet they’d made a while ago, that she could make Decky squirm without saying a single dirty thing about him and JJ. By the way he was shifting in his seat and not meeting her eye, both bet participants knew she’d won. Decky looked over at his uncle, not even a question on his mind for how the other boy even knew that. JJ had literally been eating the snack at the pep rally yesterday afternoon. “And stop makin’ bets with my brother ‘bout my love life.”

The color drained from his face as the room at large registered his words and you could suddenly hear a pin drop in the silence.

“Love life, huh?” Sin goaded, a mercilessly playful look on her face.

“What? Sin, you don’t think you can find love tonight? Maybe you’ll find a hot mami and you’ll drop to your knees for her,” Jonah redirected his attention from one person to the next, not knowing how on the nose he was. What he did know was if he didn’t leave soon, Junie may lose her shit but he was having too much fun.

Sin’s teasing train sputtered to a stop as Jonah turned the tables on her, sending her thoughts back to last night and her moment with Tally hidden away in Mr. Fell’s classroom. There was no way he knew about that. No one had seen them, had they? Not like they were hiding it or anything, sneaking around was just part of the fun, but the things Jonah had just joked on had been totally private so he had to have made a lucky guess. Laughing nervously at the boy as Danny narrowed his eyes and tilted his head at her, Sin got up and shoved Jonah toward the door.

“Me? Find love with all’a my exes packed like sardines in the same room? As if,” She tried not to think about Tally as she turned away from Jonah at the front door and back towards the Boaz brothers at the table, narrowing her own eyes and pursing her lips while pointing at little Danny to tell him to keep his damn mouth shut. She would not be answering whatever questions the diminutive detective had for her after that little slip up. Danny’s gaze didn’t let up, but his lips remained sealed. Her finger moved onto Decky. “You, we were teasin’ you and I wanna get back to that.”

“But you’re losin’ allies and ground,” Decky countered with a vindictive grin.

“Fuck you.”

“Thought we weren’t talkin’ ‘bout love lives.”

Sin’s brain short circuited.

“Gross, Decky.”

“I can’t believe you just walked me to the door like a dog,” Jonah grumbled, opening the door, a bit baffled at what Sin had done. Looking back, over his shoulder, he offered to the remaining souls in the kitchen, “Text me if you need anything. Be good, kids. No sex talk in front of my Right Hand,” he clicked his tongue and winked at Danny. Rather than wait for a response, Jonah made his exit, knowing time was of the essence. His phone vibrated like crazy. Text messages from Zo. His shopping list was getting longer.

Another staring match went down between the two remaining seniors in the kitchen while Danny got up to take his plate to the sink. The sound of the faucet running as the younger boy began to wash all the dishes left in the wake of this morning’s breakfast mayhem was the only thing filling the sudden silence. Sighing as the contest continued behind his back, Danny finally spoke up after a solid minute and a half.

“You guys,” He whined, shifting from foot to foot as he set the pan aside to dry. “This is annoyin’. I can feel y’all starin’ without even seein’ it.”

Sin and Decky had both tilted their heads in Danny’s direction when he broke their concentration, but it was Decky who spoke first.

“Truce.”

“That wasn’t a question.”

“Truce, Sin.”

“Fine,” She relented, sticking her tongue out at Decky. “Go take a fuckin’ nap before you pass out at the party tonight and waste all that good faith you earned with Green.” She headed over to the sink while Decky scoffed behind her but got up and headed to his and Danny’s room nonetheless. Sin hip checked little Danny to the side when he put his latest dish down, relegating him to drying duty while she went elbow deep into the dirty dishes with reckless abandon. “Alright kiddo, I wanted to have a bake ‘n’ dish, but it looks like it’s dish ‘n’ dish today. Gimme the debrief.”

BHHS: Limitless

^{Timestamp: Just after the game
Location: Ceramics Classroom
Monarch and Jonah
@Aces Away and @LovelyComplex}

____________________________________________________________________





____________________________________________________________________

Monarch rode her skateboard down the school corridor on her way to her meeting point with Jonah, having been picked up and dropped back off by her brother Pharaoh, who brought her to his IT firm where she also worked for him so that she could retrieve the files kept safe and secure there. Luckily, as Dash is a friend of Rye’s, Monarch already had her eye on him and by extension, Toury and her Tantalizers. The files in her book bag right now were less files on Dash and more on his antagonist, but she wouldn’t have had as thick of files on them if not for the involvement of the boy with a fighter’s heart and a professional billiards player’s skill set. Takeout food in one hand for Jonah and Toury’s later meeting, she kicked her board into her other hand and took her keys out as she came up to the ceramic’s classroom, the club member abusing her privileges and entering the darkened room to wait for Jonah. The kilns were humming with all the pieces that had been set into it after club had ended earlier, and Monarch would be back in the morning to unload the pieces once they’d completed their cooling period. For now, the noises and secluded area were the prime choice for clandestine meetings between people that are only supposed to know each other through Jonah’s cousin Decky.

When the door opened near silently, Monarch didn’t bother to turn around from where she was checking on one of her vases drying on the rack, knowing Jonah’s entrance and gait by heart.

“Five minutes late ain’t like you,” She spoke up more as an observation than a judgment. “Did the game run long?”

“Let’s go with that,” Jonah answered, not wanting to give her the details of the conflict that transpired as a result of the game. Monarch would find out soon enough. She always did. Out of his cheer uniform and wearing black jeans and a gray shirt, he approached her; his steps as faint as ever. For those like Monarch, who have been near Jonah enough to be able to pierce the veil and hear beyond the cloak, they could catch his presence. It wasn’t hard if you were paying attention. Jonah wasn’t trying to hide himself. While his movements were nimble and graceful, there was still noise. It was quieter than other noises in the room but it was still there.

Another noteworthy thing about Jonah, for those that pay attention, was he wore a chain pocket watch. The chain hung from his pant’s pocket while the antique watch itself was hidden inside. There weren’t many students who wore pocket watches. He was one of the few people that did. For one reason or another, Jonah was attached to it. There was likely a story behind it. He hadn’t told anyone the story though, not even his brothers. One day he came home with a watch, he was in fifth grade at the time, and for months he annoyed Eiran to get it repaired. It took Eiran a year to finally get the watch to someone that specializes in older makes and since then, Jonah continues to carry it on his person, like a token of luck. “Thanks for meeting me,” Jonah hummed, bringing his gaze to the vase that had her attention. The vase that had her craftsmanship written all over it. “I know how busy you are.”

“‘One always has time enough, if one will apply it well.’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,” Monarch responded blankly with her head tilted as she took note of and filed away him sidestepping her question about the game. The chameleon girl had been busy her whole life, so having the flexibility to carve thirty minutes to an hour of freetime into her schedule was something she learned long before she became one of the most effective information brokers at BH. Finally turning away from her art piece and towards the other person in the room, Monarch hopped up onto the nearest table after resting her board against it and sat atop the surface with her legs crossed beneath her, swinging her bag around to rest in her lap. “You are lucky my brother was willin’a play chauffeur and even take me to a drive through, though, especially since I still gotta get that program finished for him by midnight. That’s for y’all later, by the way,” She nodded her head at the bag of food she had set down earlier. “You say I’m busy, but at least you're my last stop for the night.”

“You shouldn’t have,” Jonah teased, acknowledging the greasy food she got for him and Toury. If there was one thing that he knew: Tourmaline Phoenix could eat. Many times where they’d idly chatter, she found in her possession his snacks he packed for the day. Coming with food as an offering was never a bad start to a deal when it came to the blonde bombshell Tantalizer. Poised and refined, Jonah casually leaned up against the table across from her and started their conversation with a question, as per their usual protocol when they met up. He was a charming boy even if he humbly never focused on his looks. Monarch knew though that Jonah trained himself to be a gentleman to counter the stereotypes and assumptions against his family. Being mysterious and cool was part of who he was at this point. As the saying goes, fake it till you make it. He wasn’t faking it anymore. “Were my theories right?”

While Jonah didn’t know who Dash's bully was, he had an idea of a handful of people who would use the frail boy for their amusement, pleasure and gain. Using the process of elimination, there were three people in particular that Dash had a weird fascination with and those three had a reputation of being the most outdated kids of their year. Typical bullies because they weren’t taught healthier ways to manage and cope, blaming others instead of their parents and themselves for their shortcomings. “I have no doubt Toury will make use of this with murder on her mind.” Kidding. A smile creeped up on his face. He couldn’t wait to see what Toury would do with this information. He was sure with anger and time she would break something. If not the bully’s bones then his spirit and heart. The Tantalizing Trio were not girls you wanted to get on the wrong side with. Even worse so than the Hive and the Triple Crowns. They didn’t have as many limitations as the other cliques and weren’t afraid of the consequences, which means if they wanted to raise hell, they would, getting everyone in the crossfire with little to no fucks to give. “She’s protective over her brother.”

Monarch’s head tilted once more, falling in the other direction as she nodded to the clever boy’s words and took in the smile that he hadn’t tried to restrain. “Your theories usually are correct, so I doubt you’re surprised,” She finally offered while unzipping her backpack and pulling out a hardcopy of her files to hand over to him. “Toury’s rage on this may even be helpful to us in the long run, given Dash’s antagonist.” She stared silently at the mastermind as he scanned quickly over the first of many pages of information. There was everything from the boy’s class schedule to his relationship insecurities in that file, it wasn’t really something you could go over thoroughly in such a short time. When she figured he’d absorbed enough in his glance that she could give him the rundown, she spoke up again.

“Malcolm Richardson the Third,” She rolled her eyes, amazed that the boy didn’t even have a name unique to himself within his family and was still so arrogant. “Rich boy, son of a prestigious litigator, member'a the football and baseball teams, hobby boxer. Not very good, but quite violent,” She looked over her frames up at Jonah from where she was still sitting on the desk. “It’s the boxin’ that’s doin’ it, he’s got Dash convinced it’s trainin’,” Monarch’s words were colored just so with distaste, the martial artist upset that any fighting form was being abused to harm the innocent or unknowing. She watched Jonah as she always did, eyes keenly aware of every movement he made and reading just as much from his body language and facial features as she did from his words. “Friends with Theo Van Cise and Ronnell Ashby.”

She didn’t bother covering the irate look that flashed across her face for the briefest moment at the mention of Ronnell before it returned to her stoic expression as she gave more information. She’d been there at the bash when Decky had received a text and shot off towards the bedrooms like a bat out of hell, had been there alongside Sin ushering Rye from the room and into AJ’s arms while the two of them stood guard at the door. Had been there to hear Ronnell reveal his mother’s maiden name, and she knew the danger that followed it. She supposed that she should be grateful that like minded people find each other and stick together. Like fish in a barrel, and she was already an amazing shot as it was. Still…

“Girlfriend is Anna-Marie Stokes, cheerleader, former friends with Toury’s bestie Helen before a mostly-unknown fallin’ out,” Monarch had a few ideas based on the crumbs of information she managed to find, but she wasn’t one to speak fiction as fact. All she knew was that the girl could go right into the barrel with the other three. “This is likely Toury’s angle. They’ve been fightin’ a lot lately. I heard her tellin’ one'a the other cheerleaders in the hall yesterday that she thinks he might be cheatin’ on her since ‘He’s just been so distant! What, like I’m not enough?! It’s me!’” Monarch was no master at voice modulation and mimicry like Jonah was, but she could easily adapt the spoiled rotten tone and pitch of a privileged brat that wasn’t happy the world wasn’t licking her boots for once. She dealt with enough of them on a daily basis. Her facial expressions and body movements changed as well, the chameleon girl embodying the role in its entirety all the way to the pouting lip and angry scrunching around her eyes. Just as quickly as she’d become another person, Monarch was back in the spot, hands resting lightly on her backpack and expression once more smooth as treated stone.

“It’s likely that if it’s made out to be her idea, Stokes can be pushed towards Toury and encouraged to request her services. Hell, she’s desperate and angry enough right now that Toury could probably be bold and just offer to test him and she’d take it. I’d say eighty six percent success rate on that, though. He’s equally as likely to fail that test, give or take a few percent.”

Pensively, Jonah listened to his friend go off. To have a human computer on his side heightened his own percentage of success, seeing how she was destined to become an information broker. For as long as Jonah knew Monarch, and that was since his nephews moved from Gravette to LA, he could see how smart and gifted she was. A little Einstein, a conniving weasel, and an arsenal of power because of her skill set. If she truly wanted to, she could nuke this whole school and change the entire hierarchy with a snap of her fingers, and perhaps with Joey’s hacking skills. This was the digital age so while blackmail could get you far, spreading it like wildfire through social media or holding your computer hostage could guarantee you past the finish line. Jonah was lucky to have both Monarch and Joey on his side.

With all these talented individuals that could be easily weaponized to cause mass destruction at BHHS, Jonah wasn’t trying to rule anything. He could care less about the politics, the gossip and the drama. What he cared most about was his network and making sure once he moved his tassel from the right to the left, he knew exactly where he was going and how he would provide for his family. He also cared about spending time with his friends, while he was still young, like watching wrestling with Joey, who marked out over the immersive story, or teasing Athena and her blooming crush on a certain football player that cost the game. “You’re scary, you know that?” Jonah half-joked. There was a lot of truth behind his words. Monarch shouldn’t be this good at knowing things, having a vast web of intelligence sources, like a spider, but here she was with documents that told him the whole life story of Dash’s bully and those associated with him. “People are lucky you’re not here for your own personal gain or they’d be, plainly put, fucked.” All Monarch wanted to do was protect those that couldn’t protect themselves and if that meant going out of her way to dig deep, stalk, catch the details and use discretion with a strong code of ethics, then Monarch would do just that.

The responding grin, sharp as the one she'd given Sin earlier and twice as dark, could certainly have you thinking otherwise. You didn't grow up as a Trip-S Legacy and join the gang before your double digits without learning how to hide your predatory aura. But acting like a little rabbit never once meant she actually became the prey. It did mean she had a soft spot for those unfortunate enough to actually be prey, and that most often she preferred to keep her meddling behind the scenes. It was why she stayed out of student council outside of taking photos for them. Monarch had no thirst for power outside of information, had been content in her position in the Trip-S and found her specialties transferred rather easily when she got to LA, if only with less violence. It was fine, she had several outlets for when her darker impulses decided to crash against her ironclad restraint and stalwart will.

"Why do you think I like to keep busy?"

Jonah returned the smile. That was response enough to her question. Well trained and tight-lipped, Monarch was remarkably tenacious, efficient and organized. A proper businesswoman. Jonah respected that. Respected her. His respect wasn’t easily earned. The girl that stood beside him as an equal found her place as one his close confidants and he’d make sure their friendship wasn’t one sided. It was a give and take transactional relationship and if the girl ever needed advice or assistance, she knew who to call. “How are you?” Jonah asked, breaking the brief silence between them by reminding her that she was human underneath all that sound knowledge, logical reasoning and result-based motivation.

“I’m fine,” Monarch responded instantly with a blink, not surprised by Jonah’s change in topic but unsure how to answer it even with it not being the first time he’s asked her such a thing. Monarch was always fine, especially in comparison to the people she most closely surrounded herself with. She had her fun when she wanted to, stellar grades, plenty of options and avenues ahead of her for her life, a loving and supportive family unit that all still lived in the same area, and great friends. Sure, she didn’t know which of the multiple paths available to her she wanted to take and she occasionally spirals over the thought of taking a gap year to keep working at Pharaoh’s company, or if she wants to go to any college at all despite all her Early Action. Sure, she’s occasionally contemplated getting a GED and just ditching highschool entirely and starting something like a P.I. business that could put Jessica Jones to shame, but when those silly thoughts pop up she manages. She skates, she hangs out with Sin and Katie, she finds Addie and they have some fun, or occasionally she finds Levi to watch him squirm and struggle to maintain a power balance that he never had a chance with in the first place. She decompresses the ways she knows.

So yeah, she appreciated Jonah reaching out, but there weren't any pressing matters of hers that she felt needed to be brought to attention. In fact, aside from the fact that it was mostly to help Trixie through whatever happened to her, Monarch even got to be tactile with someone outside her flings and close friends. As someone who loved touch but often restrained herself once her inner circle wasn’t involved, it was nice. She wasn’t about to mention that she was gathering information on whatever had made the other petite girl open to that casual comfort in the first place. There was no reason to, this catch would be hers if she had anything to say about it. He was her friend, though, regardless of if others were aware of that fact, so she could give him something. “I even got to have a little harmless fun this mornin’.”

“Oh?” Jonah looked at his friend intrigued. “Monarch getting up to no good? Now that I need to hear more about.” There was a quick second where he glanced at the clock on the wall, above the door, making sure he wasn’t getting lost in this interaction and that he had time to spare to go from one meeting to the next. Like his friend said, he was a busy boy but that didn’t mean she didn’t deserve his attention and he would give it to her fully. Worst case, he’d text Toury he was running late. He was sure the girl would understand, even if question him that it wasn’t like him to be late. Just how Monarch did moments ago. “Let me guess, you had more than a cup of coffee to wake you up. Someone catch your eye, dear?”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” The skater waved her hand with a small smile. “But I may’ve introduced a newbie to shotgunnin’ to help her accept the smoke better and get her nerves to relax a bit. She’s a friend, but I don’t think she’d be able to handle my busy schedule any more than anyone else, y’know?” That was always the crux of it too, even if she did have any interest in someone and it was reciprocated back, being able to squeeze up to an hour of free time out of her schedule would never be enough. Sin’s relationships failed because she never changed who she was, and Monarch’s failed in different ways for the same reason. It didn’t mean Monarch didn’t have her fun, just that it never lasted unless it was people like Addie or Levi who understood and didn’t want to change the dynamics of their agreements. And at least with Levi, well, romance had nothing to do with it. She really liked Trixie, but she had a feeling it was more protective than picturesque. “She got high as fuck though, Sin and I got her to her car and I left her snacks an’ drinks between periods. Sin said I was gonna break someone someday, so you ain’t alone in your earlier scary sentiment.”

She looked at the clock on the wall by the door and decided she would stay in the classroom to finish the program for Pharaoh so she didn’t risk missing her deadline. She didn’t mind, the hum of the kilns was soothing in a way. They reminded her of the simpler times learning ceramics with her other brother King, who she admired deeply and owed much to. All her siblings were great, but they didn’t all go to prison because they got caught after having made sure she got away safe and unseen. She was glad he finally came home last month, the vase drying on the shelf that she’d been checking on earlier was to be a present for him, one of her best works yet.

“You know, just because you’re busy doesn’t mean you can’t have committed partners,” Jonah leaned off the table and joined Monarch’s side, lifting himself up to sit next to her. “You’d be surprised what you’d do when you find those you’re really into. Eiran and Zo are prime examples of men that have and will still move mountains, if it meant they’d get more time with their ladies. Hershey, well, he’s a special kind of special. I don’t know anything about his love life and you know what? I’m okay with that.” Jonah humored, giving a soft smile, if you can even call it that. He looked happy but his insomnia encircled his eyes like the rays of the sun and his lips could only curve high enough to make him look less dead, with some kind of buried emotion radiating from his soul. An emotion that showed this was a topic he thought about a lot, and perhaps wanted for himself.

He gave the girl his undivided attention. He behaved well older than his age, just like her, but for someone as perceptive as Monarch, there definitely was melancholy behind his fatigue. Being an uncle did wonders to the boy. “You’re too young to assume that there’s no one out there that would either match your energy or understand your priorities. You're a busy girl, I get it,” Jonah stated, understanding where she was coming from but also seeing where she needed to improve on. “But like I tell my nephews, you are a kid. You’re not in Kansas anymore,” he joked rather flatly, comparing Oregon to The Wizard of Oz. “Leave some space in your busy schedule to enjoy your senior year and make memories, just like you did this morning by getting your friend stoned out of her goddamn mind.”

When Jonah sat next to Monarch, her whole body tilted on a little sibling’s reflex and she dropped her head onto her friend’s shoulder as he spoke, letting herself close her eyes for a second as well while she listened to him. It also gave the tired boy a chance to tilt his own head onto hers if he wished to close his own eyes for a moment. His speech wasn’t anything she hadn’t heard before from her own siblings, aside of course from the personal references to Jonah’s two brothers and brother-in-law, but it was nice to know he cared enough to not only tell her to be a child, but to even know she would have partners instead of the singular. While she can’t recall with her impressive memory ever talking to Jonah himself about her being polyamorous, it seemed- by no surprise at all- that he was already well aware. It wasn’t often that you got any real information about Monarch if it wasn’t out of her own mouth, so she was proud of him for knowing regardless of how he came across the information. Probably little Danny running his little mouth, honestly, and she could never be upset with that kid, especially for something that likely came about from a normal talk with his favorite uncle.

“I don’t think anyone would be prepared for Hirsch’s partner, whoever they are and however they’d identify. I have a feelin’ he’d get with someone real similar to him,” Were she anyone else, the thought would have had a shiver of fear running down her spine. Hirsch was an information gatherer and broker very similar to the way Monarch was, with no need or care to have the same rapidly fluctuating system of personas that she employed. He was extremely straightforward and, much like his little brother, constantly overtired as well. He stalked through the garage like a contemplating poltergeist looking for his next target, and only when he’d zeroed in did you even realize he was standing right next to you with his hands in his pockets and that blank look on his face. Kudos to Eiran, Zo, and their wives for raising the two young geniuses as well as they did while raising Zion as well with equal love and attention. She actually saw many parallels in the Boaz-Goldstein unit to her own two Boaz boys, including the prodigal younger raised by the disenfranchised and heavily determined older.

If she believed in fate, she would say that Decky, Danny, and Sin finding the boys’ uncles living just a few streets away from her in her new home would have definitely been it. It brought to her people from her past that knew who she was underneath the final mask, and brought the boys to safety. It introduced her to Jonah, who she now had both a strong business relationship with and a more surprising shadow friendship with, which later made her a trusted member of The House. Before the other Gravettites came to Cali, Monarch had been floating through the school system and clubs with zero real connections outside of informant and target for a whole year already, and was quickly becoming just a cocoon with no gracefully painted wings to show for it. They hadn’t even been very close back in Gravette aside from Decky and Monarch being siblings by bond in the Trip-S, but all three new arrivals had latched onto her and reminded her of who she was and that that part of her didn’t need to disappear just because she was somewhere where most people wouldn’t understand it. She’d thought she had found a dear friend group in them alone, but then she’d started working with Jonah, and she found friends that weren’t just accepting of her but like her in their minds. Maybe Jonah and she would have crossed paths and figured it all out themselves, but Monarch liked to think there was something special about the way Danny had first pulled her into the office space of the Garage and sat her down in front of his uncle, a game of chess already set up to begin between them. Jonah hadn’t even said anything, eyes already on the board, so Monarch simply blinked silently and made the first move with her white piece while Danny bounced excitedly at her back and watched.

“You’re right,” Monarch finally admitted in a quiet breath, letting her eyelids flutter back open after the moment of comfort. She glanced at the clock. They had a little more time. “But that begs the question, Jonah, what about you?”

“Depends if I come across someone that intrigues me enough to invest,” Jonah, closed eyes, answered in a way that only he would, as if he saw relationships like a business transaction. It was unintentional but due to his inability to have romantic and sexual feelings in a predictable manner, it was how he best understood the connection between people. The bonds he shared. He did have crushes from time to time but they were few and far in between. His crushes when they did suddenly appear out of the blue weren’t enough to inspire him to go feral like some of his peers. That didn’t mean he couldn’t go feral, it just took him a long time to get there. At present he had a casual relationship with Cael and the more he got to know the bouncy boy, the more in tune Jonah found himself with what they had. They didn’t have sex often, it was strongly dependent if Jonah was in the mood or not, but when they did, it was when Jonah’s desires were heightened and when he was willing to show a repressed side of his. What made Cael a nice choice as a lover was he was a chatterbox which allowed Jonah a glimpse into his soul. Learning the body was easy, learning the heart was an entirely different beast.

Early on Jonah knew he was gay. A kiss with a girl in fifth grade was more than enough for him to understand that he just wasn’t that into girls. As he approached highschool, he realized he wasn’t as horny as everyone else. To most middle schoolers they’d see that as being defected. For him, it was something for him to research and understand. Sophomore year he got with a boy his senior and he understood that it wasn’t that he couldn’t feel, because when he did, it came rather sporadically and intensely, he just needed to be interested in the person, what they had to offer, and more importantly, their soul. As well as he did know himself, there was a small chance he hadn’t found the one to keep his attention. If that person existed he couldn’t wait to find them.

Opening his eyes, looking ahead, he explained, “While I don’t need someone to commit to, I have thought about it and do entertain the possibility of having someone obligated to love me not because they have to but because they choose to. There’s nights I have a lot on my mind but no one I’m willing to reach out to. That part of me I’m saving for whoever has the key to my boredom.” Jonah smiled to himself, thinking about the probability of him finding someone sooner rather than later. The odds weren’t in his favor. “So I don’t need a relationship. I’m not actively looking. But if it comes along, wanting to play games with me? How can I refuse?” Jonah smirked, showing his not so wholesome desire to have someone he could toy with. Someone that deserved to be played with and brought to their knees. Someone he’d best and get them to never look away. Someone that belonged to him.

“Actually, talk’a games reminds me,” Monarch spoke up, a similar smirk on her face as she thought of one such person. She sat up from Jonah and turned on the desk to face him with a calculating glint in her eyes. “I have a bit’a free information for you, since I have quite a bit on my plate right now and you might be more invested.”

Monarch knew Sully fairly well, and she was as fond of him as the rest of those that hung around Dom’s were, but Jonah had more stake in the upcoming game being played. The poor streamer was in for a very chaotic senior year at the rate he was going at, having caught the eye and interest of two Greens for two very different reasons in such a short span of time. Sully wasn’t like Monarch or Jonah, he wasn’t going to understand or care enough to learn the games Levi was playing with him, and thus didn’t understand that the rich boy was toying with his obsession and idea of Sully and not actually seeing the boy himself. He’d let himself be played like a fiddle for lack of deeper interest or focus alone. That’s where friends like Monarch, and more importantly Jonah, came in.

“I got this from one’a my little Flutters this mornin’,” She pulled a picture up from the message on her phone, the contact simply a butterfly emoji. She had several contacts like that. Flutters were what she called her little flies on the wall, her information network of wallflowers and forgettable faces. Those that have fallen through the cracks of the social hierarchy were always overlooked and ignored, and the people that walked these halls like ghosts until someone actually locked eyes with them were her greatest strength for the rapid information gathering required for this highschool. The picture was a little zoomed and obviously taken from around a corner, but anyone that knew the figures in the screen would have no problem seeing what was happening. Sully’s back was facing the camera, but the dingey hat he wore was unmistakable. Simultaneously leaned against the locker and looming over the shorter boy was Levi Green-Locke, a cheshire grin on his face as he spoke to Sully.

Levi was such a dumbass. She’d already warned him during their past few hookups that fucking with Sully was a bad idea, but she supposed she had been right in calling the privileged blonde a masochist. And Jonah didn’t need to know about her dalliances with the boy she saw as little more than a brat in the bedroom, it wasn’t just Levi that didn’t want to hear it from anyone if news of their little power play got out. Regardless, she’d done her part and he’d ignored her very generous warning and guidance, not that she personally cared in the end. So she could step back and let Jonah play. She had no doubt Sully would come out of it fine, especially if Jonah chose to insert himself into the game Levi was playing with him.

“It seems Levi’s made a move and decided to start a game with your little puzzle buddy. Apparently Sully was unintentionally givin’ Levi a run for his money for a minute,” She smirked, wishing her little informant had given her more on the actual conversation, wishing more to have been a fly on the wall herself for it. Sully’s dense reception and straightforward attitude could be both incredibly refreshing and amusing. “But Green-Locke finally reeled it in. They couldn’t follow the boys once they started movin’ ‘cause’a Levi’s Butler, but it looks like Sully thinks he’s makin’ a friend.”

“Instead he’s getting involved with someone that gets off to… poors, for lack of a better term,” Jonah speculated based on his observations and the little things he already knew about Naomi’s right hand bitch. “Thanks for that information. The last thing we need is for Sully to cause his mother emotional stress, to the point she’d want to pull him out.” Jonah sighed, hoping Darcie didn’t go from zero to one hundred solely because a rich boy wanted to toy with her son.

“Between you and me,” Jonah stated, gazing to the side toward his friend. Disclosing one of his more wholesome deals, he explained, “Miss Harper had a heart to heart with me awhile back. She trusts my character and enjoys how her son is with me, I guess.” While wholesome, this still weighed on the boy daily because Jonah, even if he was wiser than most of his peers, was still a kid and now had a charge. Out of the kindness of his heart, he made a promise to the mother. He couldn’t say no, not to someone that was actually good at her job. Darcie was a good mother and even gave some of her warmth to him when he needed a motherly touch that wasn’t from his sister-in-laws. “Something she told me in private was that our school puts her on edge. It isn’t built for people that Levi takes interest in. The poors. One thing led to another and now I watch my puzzle buddy, moving strings when necessary. Our school is fantastic for education purposes, social-wise though? That’s what she worries about. How can you blame her? Her son struggles on reading into obvious situations you and I would pick up as red flags immediately.”

“Oh, and speaking of red flags. Aren’t you friends with Trixie?” Jonah asked, decidedly redirecting the conversation, seeing how time was running out and he had a feeling Monarch would want to hear this. He could be basing this on a hunch but if he wasn’t mistaken Monarch and Trixie were friends, or they had a business relation going, and Monarch liked to protect her assets, especially the ones she cared about.

Monarch barely had a moment to process the little secret Jonah had divulged before suddenly Trixie’s name was falling from his lips. Her eyes narrowed and her head tilted to the side, teetering somewhere between inquisitive and friendly warning. She doubted he’d brought her up because of Monarch’s earlier name-redacted anecdote.

“I am, what do you have for me?”

“We lost the game,” Jonah started, pulling out his phone to show Monarch a recording. “A fight broke loose between Theo and Benji.” The video began with Theo head butting Benji and cursing, like a boy giving a tantrum. “It didn’t take long before Andre and Jem jumped in and thennnnn security came out.” Videos of this fight were trending on X. Andre rushed to break it up and instead of Benji backing down, he shoved Theo off him who had been beating the crap out of him from top and threw a nasty right hook to Van Cise’s jaw. “I was late to our meeting because I wanted to get the full story and boy is it a doozy. Baby Theo couldn’t handle an L and I mean this was a big L because it was the homecoming game.” The prying boy shrugged, indifferent of sports and if their school was leading the charts or not. “Classic, childish boy puts the blame entirely on someone else instead of holding accountability to how he fucked things up. Benji may have literally dropped the ball but Theo has shifted the team’s mindset, in the worst possible way, since he took over after Tyler left the team last year.”

Finally, he was at the part that would interest Monarch the most. Bringing up the volume, he played a small segment of the chaotic fight where Benji mentions Trixie. The person recording did get closer but their voices, even at their loud volume, were extremely faint. Monarch would have to listen closely to hear it apart from the crowd. He replayed that part once more before speaking again, “We already talked about Mayhew’s decline since his family’s scandal at our last meeting but in my opinion, he played well tonight up until the last play. Now I bring up Trixie because words were said that really got under her ex’s skin. I quote. I think I finally get why Trixie broke up with you. You’re a fucking psychopath. Unquote.” Jonah couldn’t help but be amused at the low blow. Truth be told, he was happy to see Benji sticking up for himself even if that jab was saucy. “You know what Theo said? Don’t you fucking dare bring my Bea into this. Kind of gross unless they’re dating again.”

“They’re not,” Monarch said coldly, face completely blank as she tracked the movement on the screen. Any sign of the relaxed friend was gone, in its place was the human computer that set people on edge with her gaze as she calculated several scenarios at once. There were very few people that knew enough about Trixie to put her in the state she was in this morning. And Jonah wasn’t one to make assumptions, so… “Why would you think that over some possessive wording?”

“They left the bathroom together this morning,” Jonah said flatly. Her reaction and shift in demeanor alone was enough for Jonah to tell that he hit a chord. It wasn’t an easy thing to do with Monarch nor did he do it intentionally. But similar to her, he understood knowledge was power. This may not have been gossip he expected to get a reaction but now that he did, Jonah knew it would only benefit him in the long run. He directed one of the more dangerous students at this school toward his competitor. Theodore Van Cise. A boy that was monetizing on the local underground fighting market. If Monarch allowed her emotion to take the wheel, that was one less thing for her friend to worry about. “I talked to one of the younger kids in the Morning Show. Jenna, the strawberry blonde. She accidentally spilled her coffee on Trixie. I was checking on Sully before I went to my locker. My locker so happens to be right by the bathroom she went to. I didn’t know she was there until both she and Theo came out of it. So yeah. That’s why I think that.”

“Hm,” Monarch intoned as she finally looked away from the ended video, idly putting to mind that she needed to have a conversation with her little Flutter about informing her about the whole day’s events and not just Sully. She spilled coffee on Trixie and witnessed what triggered the state Monarch had found the girl in? Jenna was supposed to be her Media mole, not just Sully support, so she absolutely should have told Monarch everything about Trixie and Theo. “They ain’t datin’,” She reiterated but did not expand upon, well used to withholding information as she saw fit.

Fucking Theo, the racist every-phobic peacock with a puppetmaster complex. Monarch did her best to avoid any shit from the Stratton twins and here life goes putting their cousin directly in her sights instead. But now, with this final piece in place, Monarch saw a much clearer picture of what happened with Trixie this morning. Not that everything other than Theo’s involvement wasn’t already formed, but Monarch was a creature of information and more was always better. She had her own file on the boy, but much like his friends Malcom and Ronnell it got bigger the moment her friends were involved. Like how Decky was one of the fighters on Theo’s roster. Not the champion of it like he had been as a pre-teen in their own back home since he was more of a street fighter type than MMA, and he used this one mostly to vent the last of his misplaced aggression that he couldn’t get out with his equally as poor daily coping mechanisms. She’d have to do something special for him to make up for his future loss of income once Theo was done for. Humming thoughtfully, Monarch’s head tilted to the left as she looked fixedly at the boy who had given her information that would likely lead to some of her best work yet. It might take a while, but certainly not all the way until graduation. Yeah. She could take the lead on this one for him.

“I smell blood in the water, Jonah.”

BHHS: Limitless

_{TIMESTAMP: During Smoke on the Water
After Chill Pill}

_{@Aces Away @Hey Im Jordan @LovelyComplex}
____________________________________________________________________








____________________________________________________________________

Henry Green found himself couch locked.

This didn’t happen often, but he had known Decky needed to get stoned from the moment he saw the kid. The guy looked like he was about five seconds away from genuinely tweaking just playing the drums to Enter Sandman, and anyone who didn’t get into it when playing the drums to Enter Sandman needed some fucking THC in them, stat. After they’d ripped a few bowls through the ol’ Stündenglass, Henry had suggested they chill out and watch TV until the twins returned.

Andy returned only briefly to tell Henry he was going to meet Amy at the game that evening, and after he’d walked away Henry took every ounce of self control and will power he had to not mention to Sully and Decky how happy he was that Andy was probably not going to die a virgin. Ethan? Ethan had either fallen in while taking a dump, or he was fucking one of the maids again. Henry couldn’t be sure, but with Ethan he found himself barely concerned. He liked that Andy had checked in.

For the past… amount of time, he and Sully and Decky had been watching YouTube videos. Specifically? They were watching kitchen gadget review videos, with Henry absently adding whichever ones got good reviews to an Amazon cart. Henry lifted a hand and pointed at the screen, “check this shit out. Salad Chopper. Dude, definitely five stars. How could they fuck this up?” He asked the question, turning his head to look at the other two. It chopped salad. How hard could it be?

“...Shit ain’t even…it ain’t even a blade,” Decky argued stiltedly with the man, glaring at the flat triangle of plastic attached to a handle. He was getting the hang of Henry’s guessing game, the man shouting out the rating he expected for each item that has come up so far. His estimations were almost hilariously incorrect, and as the man on screen smashed the vegetables into the bottom of the bowl, it seemed the trend would continue. “It’s gotta be like…not even a star at all, right?”

“He’s just usin’ a knife now and it’s more effective, it’s gotta be- oh wait he’s breakin’ it down,” Sully loved the parts when the design expert in the video doodled out his own ideas for improvement, and aside from little comments here and there, had been more locked into the videos than both Decky and Henry combined. He hadn’t even realized Andy had left left until the pause between auto-plays.

“Don’t put that it your cart, man,” Decky continued after realizing Sully had left the conversation as quickly as joining it. He waved his hand and dropped his head to the back of the couch. “This shit is just meant ta bleed impulse buyers and trend chaser dry for the sake’a havin’ the newest commodity,” He glanced at the man’s phone to make sure he hadn’t added the shitty little item and his faded gaze landed on the number at the bottom of the open digital cart. “Fuckin’ christ, ya…are ya just gettin’ everythin’ we’ve been watchin’? Whaddya even need that shit for?”

“Dude have you seen the size of this place? Why not if he can?”

“That ain’t no valid fuckin’ argument,” Decky shot back, letting his head fall back once more and staring at the ceiling, still in complete awe of just how easily some people could throw their money away. “I could actually get approved for my house loan if I could casually rock up with the amount in that fuckin’ cart.”

“You wouldn’t need a loan if you had that amount on hand,” Sully argued, eyes still glued to the screen and empty coffee cup in hand as it has been for who knows how long, fingers almost completely still in a manner uncharacteristic of him. He hadn’t had to hit the insane gravity bong device nearly as much as Decky had, hadn’t inhaled nearly as deeply, and still he was higher than Decky. He did not begrudge the drug-addled boy his tolerance levels, he could only imagine how excessive the other’s habits were to need as much as he did to even feel anything anymore. Or how expensive. He looked back for a brief moment when the other gearhead scoffed at him. “It got a two outta five, by the way.”

“For fuckin’ what?” Decky moaned in confusion, throwing his hands up in the air and already forgetting the conversation about money in favor of hate reacting. “It couldn’t cut fuckin’ anythin’, dude!” His arms fell back to his side in childish dismay.

“Don’t shoot the messenger, I ain’t the one that rated it,” Sully defended, finally giving into the now distant impulse from his body and standing up to go get more coffee from the likely now cold pot Ethan had brought down. When he reached for the metal kettle and pour the liquid into his cup, he was surprised to see steam coming out of it before realizing it was one of those fancy electric ones that kept the beverage warm until turned off, and you didn’t have to keep it on the coffee machine’s hotplate. He had to admit, he was a bit jealous of that little gadget more than anything else in the basement, including the whole ass fucking bowling lane in the back corner. Turning to thank the Green boy again for the coffee, Sully blinked as he took in the empty space on the couch he’d assumed the other boy had taken upon returning from the bathroom and been this whole time. “Dude, where’s Ethan?”

Ethan had journeyed back to Dom’s Garage to retrieve Danny Boaz and some clothes for both Decky and Sully. He proceeded to stop at Sunshine Diner to once again annoy Sully’s mother, but this time to let her know that her son would be sleeping over his place. Before he left, she gave him food to take with him which had the usual orders of all those that were at his crib. Sully’s mother was a goddess of greasy diner food and it was crazy how much she remembered. His dad’s order had its own brown bag with many containers. His old man could eat and it was clear Miss Darcie knew that. With one more block to go before he’d finally return to his family’s guest house, Ethan tapped his thumbs on the wheel to the music quietly coming out of his car speaker (C’est La Vie by Yung Gravy, bbno$, Rich Brian). Glancing over at the boy sitting beside him, Ethan noted the similarities Danny shared with his older brother like the naturally nice, healthy hair, even with limited grooming, and the soft facial structure. The main difference he saw was the acute sharpness in the younger boy’s eyes. Reminded him of his aunt, Hailey, but if she was kind. “Danny boy, real talk. Is your brother always a grumpy fuck?”

Danny blinked from where he’d been staring blankly out the window with his head bobbing to the beat and turned to his brother’s new- almost certainly reluctant on Decky’s side- friend. He seemed cool enough, and uncle Hirsch had said it was fine to go with him since he’d finished all his homework. Not without several whispered threats on his youngest nephew’s safety to the tall teen, from what Danny had seen when he came back with their duffle bag and Hershey was standing just a little too close to the rich boy with too neutral of an expression. It had probably started as simple as ‘make sure he’s wearing his seatbelt’ and devolved from there. But still, he was trusted enough that Danny was allowed alone with him and Decky and Sully were sleeping over his house! He must be okay to talk to.

“Decky’s only grumpy ‘cause he’s sad too,” Danny revealed honestly, unable to look the older boy in the eyes as he spoke. He didn’t really like people’s eyes, especially new people. “Most’a the people we love are still back home and he only left for me.” Danny thought of his own best friends, Ana and Conan, who he chatted with constantly but rarely got to actually see. Deck had so many more friends his age than Danny ever did, because all of Decky's friends had happily dragged Danny along with them as well. “Wouldn’t ya be sad if ya were always missin’ people?”

Silence was the initial response. Ethan was taken aback by the honesty and genuinity from the younger Boaz boy. He thought of the question asked to him and the people that Ethan could immediately think of was his family and the Elite. This sudden thought made him realize that the three girls he was playing like the devil plays his fiddle with didn’t have his heart. Not in the way they deserved. Damn, those were thoughts he didn’t want to think about right now. Such an unexpected, sentimental question that forced Ethan to think more inward for once was not on his calendar for the day. He’d have to smoke more weed with his dad when he got back to bury it, like he always did. “Are you two going to move back after graduation?” Asking that question outloud made Ethan realize he had no idea where Decky was from. Damn, making new friends was not something he did in a while (aside from Sully, but Sully was different). “Where are you from again? Sorry, I really don’t know shit about you or your brother, so I’m just warning you if I say anything insensitive I’m just trying my best here.”

“Are we-? No,” Danny shook his head harshly, curls flying with the motion and a pinched look on his face. He went to bite his lip anxiously, but they were talking about Decky and Decky told him to chew gum instead, so he reached into his pocket and unwrapped one of the pieces from within, shoving it into his mouth as he thought of how to respond to the Senior. He didn’t realize that Ethan knew nothing about Decky. No wonder his big brother just came off as an asshole to him. “I-it ain’t that we never go back- uh, Gravette, Oregon by the way- but I don’t think either’a us could move back there,” He frowned, doing what uncle Jonah had taught him and shifting his thoughts from the bad memories slowly over to the better ones. Like the ones with everyone in the Trip-S when the brothers used to hide away in the gang’s dorms for weeks at a time with Sonny. “It’s a really bad place, and really bad stuff happened there. It’s why when our friend Poppy found our Uncles we moved out here to ‘em. We have friends back home send us a message when our parents disappear from town and that’s when we risk visitin’. Um, can we…” Decky always said to just ask if you were uncomfortable. “Sorry, it’s okay ya asked, but can we stop? I don’t wanna talk about it more.”

“Yeah, sure thing, kid,” Ethan answered, respectfully. There was a brief moment of silence as the Green golden boy continued to drive. His home was at a distance and his mind was stuck. Stuck on his brother and how things turned out for them. “Completely random, and feel free to tell me to shut up,” Ethan permitted, continuing to tap the wheel with his thumbs. “Do you ever want something out of your older brother? Like how do you wish he lived life? I don’t know if I’m making sense… I’m just curious how you two support each other, I guess.”

“Do I ever…you’re definitely a new friend.” After that, he was silent again as his mouth opened and closed several times while he thought about the question. Having been very close to zoning out before Ethan spoke up again, the question caught him just as off guard as the others had. The Freshman boy stared at Ethan’s profile, trying to figure out the angle. His calculative gaze followed every twitch down to the thumbs tapping against the wheel as he made his assumptions and reads. What he got was that that question wasn’t necessarily meant to be about his and Decky’s relationship. This was one younger brother reaching out to another. But, since he didn’t know anything about Ethan’s relationship with his sibling, it was still a guessing game on his part so all he had was his own truth for his replies.

“Decky raised me,” Danny finally answered, deciding that he could deal with Decky being upset with him for sharing things if it meant he got more good friends willing to understand him. To look past the attitude that was just as much protection as it was persona. It’s his fault for being so tight lipped while never setting the same restrictions on Danny. “Since I was born, since he was three, he raised me. It’s hard ta want somethin’ from someone who gave up his whole life ta give ya yours, y’know?” Danny let that sit for a second, grinding down on his gum and resisting the urge to blow a bubble as he watched the road rushing past them. “Want somethin’ for him, though? Absolutely. I want for ‘im ta realize it’s okay ta have a life’a his own, I want him ta realize he can have his own goals, not just exist ta help me achieve mine. I want for ‘im ta actually be happy. But he doesn’t know how and I can’t make him change the way he’s acted my whole life. I think a lotta his anger came from makin’ sure I could be a kid even if it meant he never was. He don’t know how ta interact with people his own age since he never really acted his own age. Doesn’t let himself enjoy the little things that kids do. Even with all he gave up for me, it’s rough for me too. It’s actually really frustratin’ and it’s hard ta make friends. But really, mostly I-”

Was this what therapy was like? He was feeling a little better after bringing his thoughts into the light. Danny had only ever told his best friends back home this. Danny had also never been alone with one of Decky’s friends that didn’t already know their history, at least some of it. He had wondered about that when Ethan came to pick him up, and decided that Decky did what he always does and made an offhand, sarcastic comment that got mistaken for an actual agreement. The dummy. That’s always gotten him into shit. Regardless, this was a new situation all around for the younger Boaz, and unlike his brother, he could be quite the talker if he got started.

“I want him ta stop thinkin’ he’s some burden on everyone that takes us in somehow.” Their parents had really done a number on him with that word. “Our relationship is fucked up though, or so we’ve been told, and shouldn’t be compared ta normal siblin’ relationships. We have ah…a pretty unhealthy codependency, case ya couldn’t tell by the fact that ya had ta come pick me up ta get him ta stay at your house tonight, yeah? Happens when ya spend your whole life locked up in the same room,” If he were his cousin Zion, he would have ended with a pair of jazzhands and a sing-song exclamation of ‘trauma~’, but he was not much for dramatics when on his own. Danny had a habit of minimizing his presence, not shouting it from the rooftops. Danny just stated things as fact and moved on, especially if he didnt want to dwell on it. “Ya know how aggravatin’ it can be ta see all the paths someone could be takin’ if they just looked up from helpin’ ya down your own? Ya can’t be your own person if you’re constantly lookin’ out for your brother, and while I love Decky and everythin’ he’s done, I want him ta be his own person and grow in ta himself.”

Giving the boy a quick glance over, Ethan smiled, “I can see that Decky, and you, have a unique upbringing just based on your brother’s reactions to everything that surrounds me and my family. I’m sure my background can be unique too, from your perspective. Not all rich people are under one big umbrella of stereotypes and not all low income families, from different ethnicities and neighborhoods, have the same way of thinking. My father, especially for a Green, runs his ship a bit differently than my aunts. I get it though. We brothers just want our bros to be happy. Self assured. On their own path. Their own person… away from us. I get it, for real,” Ethan sighed at the thought. As much as he was worried about Andy’s romance with Amy Kwon, at least she would help him grow and find himself, finally walking out of Ethan’s shadow to be his own man.

Finding himself even more intrigued and curious, Ethan inquired, “How about you?” Contemplative and attuned to the conversation, the senior put the focus on the younger boy, wanting to give Danny a safe space to freely talk as much or as little as he wanted to. “Apart from your brother, who is Danny Boaz and where does he see himself going?”

“I know, but It’s a really small town,” Danny emphasized, completely understanding the rich boy’s point while also having had little experience with it before moving to California. Gravette had a very stereotypical class division, and the line between rich and poor wasn’t just drawn, it was developed and maintained by the abandoned railroad tracks that physically split the North from the South. Wrong side of the tracks wasn’t just some saying in his hometown. Some people, like Sonny, never even crossed to the other side of the tracks unless absolutely required. However, Danny found himself liking Decky’s new friend who wanted to know more about not only his brother, but him as well. And okay, maybe talking about his brother was easier than talking about himself, maybe the simple question directed toward himself brought a blush to his face as he worked through the random shock of embarrassment that hit him as he thought of his answer.

“Oh! I, uh, I like books!” He admitted, quietly but trying. He couldn’t talk about anything he did with uncle Jonah, but he could talk about pretty much anything else he enjoyed, and books were a big one. “Our friends back home always send me some or recommend some,” Decky, Charlie, Poppy, they all used to read to him when he was younger and let him read to them as he aged. Sin was more for comics and manga, but that didn’t stop her from being a part of it even if she preferred watching anime and baking together with him. “I like ta bake, too, but only with one person, that’s our thing. Um…Oh! The school people thought I should skip a year, but I wanted to try to be a freshman, but all the work is borin’ so if they still think I can skip by the end’a this year then I’ll be a Junior next year instead. Decky was real proud’a that,” Danny’s blush was gone in favor of a grin when he remembered the way his brother had smiled at him and ruffled his hair when he’d heard the academic praise. “I like ta look at Sully’s homework more than my own when we’re studyin’ together, it looks more fun. Sometimes Monarch slips me little puzzles or ciphers ta play with ta keep my mind goin’. Everyone says I should be goin’ ta some nice college when I graduate.”

This was nice. Ethan found himself adoring Danny’s enthusiasm to express himself. In adversity, Decky’s little brother found little things he enjoyed and built a mentality that was resilient, adaptable and full of hope. Instead of looking back, he was looking ahead. Instead of looking in the mirror and seeing flaws, he saw his strengths and areas where he could improve. Instead of having an immense guard up, he was sizing Ethan up and allowing him a chance to build a bridge to him and his brother. That was nice to see. When Ethan was that age he was caught up with movies and AWE. Decky did good with raising this boy. It seemed he had the right tools and resources to live a fulfilled and happy life. Danny was a good kid.

“It’s a thing you can bake because you’re about to see your brother so baked.” Ethan joked (even though it was based on a truth). “He’s with a pro right now, my dad, and you’re gonna’ love him. He’s such a vibe. I strive to have all chill and no stress. Just like him. Somehow my dad has cracked the code.” Nodding to himself, not really elaborating on the many stresses of Ethan Green, the senior jock pulled into the driveway and grinned, “As my old man would say, mi casa is su casa.” Putting his car in park, he slapped his wheel excitedly and embraced his inner child, “Your brother is going to be so hyped you’re here.”

What pulled a laugh out of the younger Boaz was not the baking joke, but Ethan's comment about Decky being excited to see him. He had no doubt his brother would be happy to have him around. After, of course, he was calmed down from realizing Danny had been 'kidnapped' in a similar capacity to him and Sully, and that it was his fault for being a smart-ass instead of just telling someone no straight out like he’d so dutifully taught Danny to. He had his own words for Decky that would likely shut him down just as quickly as he got riled up, but Danny figured Ethan needed a bit of a reality check himself if he genuinely thought Decky would be happy that a near-stranger was entrusted with his baby brother’s safety and transport. He also hadn’t missed the way Ethan had worded his praise of his father. It was already pretty obvious that Ethan acted more chill than he was. Not that he wasn’t, but his questions to Danny alone indicated he had a lot going on in the background of his mind, if not at the forefront, which also seemed intentional. He’d seen Decky shove back plenty of things he didn’t want to think about at the time, he knew the look well.

“Your dad is tryin’a get Decky super high on just weed?” Danny asked incredulously as he hopped out of the car and looked at Ethan’s forehead instead of his eyes, having not seen his brother react to the vice in any capacity more than the relaxing of his muscles in years. Then, he noticed the area around him and spun on his heel in amazement, conversation forgotten. “Whoa, it’s so pretty out here! Look at all these plants,” His gaze fell on the gardening at the front of the house. “That’s so many colors!”

“Isn’t it dope?!” Ethan said enthusiastically, incredibly pleased at Danny’s reaction. Very unlike his brother and Sully. It was positive! “My parents had a vision… which basically was a getaway in Spain or just somewhere not here.” His father did what he wanted and that included decorating the guest house in a way where he would be at most peace (which included all of Ethan’s mama’s anime figurines). A place that was like a great escape where the Green company didn’t weigh on him and his family. A place very much his own. A place they called home.

A smirk appeared on Ethan’s face when he registered the weed comment. He led the way to the basement and confidently assured his little buddy, “Not just any weed…”

It was his dad’s weed.

____________________________________________________________________

“Dude, where’s Ethan?”

“Where’s the quality?” Danny heard his older brother reply to Sully’s question from where he was hidden behind Ethan’s frame in the doorway at the bottom of the stairs. They had just arrived when Sully’s voice hit them and Ethan stopped as if to announce himself, only to get cut off by Decky’s complaint. Danny had no idea what he was complaining about, but his brother had a downright childish whine to his voice that Danny only heard when he was relaxed enough to act as such, which was extremely rare. He snuck a peek past Ethan’s side and saw the top of his brother’s head tilted back on a comfy looking couch, his hair flopping over the backing and swaying as he shook his head defiantly. Next to him was the back of the head of who must be Ethan’s father, almost shoulder to shoulder with his brother with no sign of discomfort on Decky’s part. Damn. Maybe Mr. Green really did succeed in getting him super high. Color Danny impressed with these people. “Two outta five stars for something called a fuckin’ chopper that don’t do no fuckin’ choppin’. Market that shit as a goddamn play-doh knife and maybe two fuckin’ stars would be worth it-”

“Honestly the amount of times you fit the word fuck into a sentence should be studied.”

“Don’t snark me, Harper, the next product’s comin’ up.”

Danny stifled a giggle and stopped peeking, returning behind Ethan as he put together what he could from what he’d heard from his brother’s rant and seen on the tv screen beyond the couch. They were watching someone rate kitchen objects and appliances, and obviously his brother had some strong opinions on the decisions. Sonny wasn’t going to believe this, and Poppy and Charlie were going to love it. He couldn’t wait for the next video call home.

Sully looked up from his spot at the bar where he’d finished getting his coffee when he heard a faint noise at the doorway, only to raise an eyebrow at the taller boy standing in the doorway.

“Oh, there you are dude. Where have you been? It’s been like,” Sully blanked as he tried to think about the recent passage of time, features going slack as he attempted to sift through his already poor memory, now even more clouded by the herb he’d inhaled. A few seconds ticked by before he blinked and shook his head, giving up. “It’s been a long time…I think.”

“I brought a special delivery and before I’m given shit,” Ethan stepped to the side, revealing Danny, and spoke loud enough for Decky to hear. “It was me or my mom’s butler from the main house,” the jock explained, offering to take Danny’s bags from him to set it down somewhere safe before showing them to their bedrooms for the night. He had spent the carride thinking this through and realizing that Mordechai wouldn’t appreciate a stranger driving his brother around, so he HAD to explain himself. It was the right thing to do. “It would’ve NOT been worth the energy to stop my dad from getting you both high as fuck and I’m pretty sure all the jews in your garage would kill me if something happened to this boy. I thought this out the moment you said you wanted your brother here.”

“What the fuck?” Decky’s head had turned as Ethan spoke, but it had almost snapped completely backwards at the sight of his baby brother bashfully blinking at him as Ethan took their dufflebag from him, Danny’s fingers curling in a little wave to his older brother.. Any chill thoughts immediately left his mind as he registered why Ethan was pleading for his life. Or at least why he should be. With little thought to how it looked, Decky took the quickest path and scrambled directly over the back of the couch, only stumbling slightly as his stoned legs almost crumbled beneath him. He was in Danny’s bubble in seconds after that, checking him over while the boy himself rolled his eyes at the hovering but didn’t push him away, even when Decky was moving his face every which way and pushing his curls away from his forehead as if he would be hiding a wound there. “Boychik what the fuck, no- wait,” He rounded on Ethan, protective rage in his eyes. “Green what the fuck?”

Decky never claimed eloquence.

Danny’s hands grabbed his wrist and returned his focus to him, drawing it from Ethan. His brother was frowning at him in that pouty way that told him to stop and think about his actions. “He was tellin’ ya if ya would’a actually listened, Decky,” Danny admonished, sticking his tongue out when Decky scowled at him. Then, he blinked owlishly at Decky and stuck his bottom lip out. “Are ya sayin’ that he’s lyin’? Ya didn’t want me here?”

Manipulative brat.

Decky sighed, fist unclenching along with his jaw. “I didn’t say that, but I also didn’t say I wanted ya here I was just-”

“I mean you did say to call the garage and have him pack bags for us.”

“What, now your fuckin’ memory works?” Decky snapped as he turned to Sully, glaring at the other boy as Danny gripped his wrist tighter in reprimand. Sully stared Decky dead in the eye and then threw back the rest of his coffee. When he was finished, he continued to give Decky a blank look.

“Ouch.”

“Get fucked, Harper.”

“Decky!”

“I was bein’ fuckin’ sarcastic!” Decky exclaimed, getting back to the matter at hand. “It was sarcasm! Jesus what the fu-”

“Ya know better than ta use that type’a sarcasm around people with the means and whims,” Danny once again betrayed him. The bitchface he threw his younger brother was especially reserved for the boy, and it quickly morphed into a glare when he saw that his little brother’s eyes were shining with amusement. “We’ve talked about that. Encouragin' impulsive action.”

“You shut up.”

“Sounds like ya should have shut up yourself earlier.”

Henry could put up with a lot of distractions. Decky and Sully’s chatter was white noise that barely competed with the video he had playing on the TV. But, once Ethan showed back up, things went to shit. Sadly, that was something that happened a lot. Henry got it though. When he was Ethan’s age? He was the Green who made things go to sleep. After Decky’s younger brother told him to shut up, Henry jumped in.

“Decky, shut up. You’re harshing the vibes, dude. Think about how chill we just were! You keep yappin’ and you already missed damn near the whole herb chopper review! What if we need to chop herb?” Henry gestured toward the TV with a wave he knew would be ineffective. He turned away from the boys and back toward the TV. He sank back into it and grumbled, “I’m finishin’ my fuckin’ video. Kid’s already here. Stop being a baby. Hey, kid. What do you want to eat?”

He waved a hand toward the bar, “somebody get Decky another bowl.”

Decky stared at the back of the head of the man who just told him to shut up, mouth slightly agape. His brother was now laughing at him audibly instead of just with his eyes, swinging his arm back and forth from where he was still holding Decky’s wrist in a grounding manner. Was this whole fucking room against him? Jesus. When Henry asked Danny what he wanted to eat, his baby brother went quiet, prompting Decky to look back to him. Danny was now looking at the ground and making himself small, and Decky sighed at the display. Trusting adults was still a problem for both of them, but the second Danny was addressed by a new one he tried to disappear into the floor. He saw Sully moving out of the corner of his eye to fulfill Henry’s demand of another bowl, and forced himself to relax as much as he could, to stifle his trigger reactions and focus on his brother.

“Danny, it’s okay, he means it. Have ya eaten dinner?”

^”No…”

Decky was going to scream at his uncle for letting him leave without eating.

“So? What do ya want?” When Danny continued to fidget with his eyes on the ground, Decky looked to the ceiling for strength and pulled his little brother into a tight hug while addressing Henry. “He likes olive pizza.”

Henry could hear it in the air. The way the laughter snipped away the second he said something and the way Danny never actually (or just barely had) answered his question. He hopped to his feet and walked around the couch to the group of boys as he spoke. “Cool, pizza’s cool. One with olive. What about ice cream? Can’t have dinner without dessert. Chef can make a killer brownie, and he doesn’t go home for another two hours. We got time boys.” He looked down at Danny - the younger boy may not have seen it, but Henry hoped he could at least feel that he was talking directly to him. “Do you fuck with video games, Danny?” He paused, and cleared his throat.

“Do you like video games, Dan the man?” This little dude needed to relax just as badly as his brother did. Well… maybe almost that bad.

Decky didn’t even try to withhold the warning glare he sent the taller man as he neared, but turned just slightly so that Danny could peek out from his spot with his face pressed into his older brother’s chest. His little brother was tense but not shaking, so that was at least a sign that Danny had already done a bit of his own mental work on the ride in when it came to accepting the Green patriarch as safe. Danny did end up peeking up at the man, his grip around Decky’s middle tightening a bit. Decky took this as a cue to do his part in bringing Danny around by making Henry’s part easier for the suddenly frazzled boy, including completely ignoring the whole private chef thing.

“Ice cream.”

“I-” Danny shifted his face so his mouth wasn’t muffled. By the time his gaze had trailed up to Henry’s chin, it dropped back to his shoulder, never really reaching his face. He squeezed Decky tighter still, but his big brother did little more than grunt and adjust his own hold, dropping one hand onto Danny’s head and ruffling his soft curls encouragingly. “I like ice cream.”

“Video games.”

^{“No, not really. Sorry sir…”} Danny whispered, looking away from the man completely.

“Don’t apologize, tell ‘im what ya do like.” Danny nearly whined in complaint, his face red as he hid it against his brother’s chest once more. “Danny.”

“Ugh! Card games and brain teasers and riddles and puzzles!” Danny spit out in one anxious breath, barely pulling away from Decky to speak before trying to hide again. “Now stop!”

“Good job boychik,” Decky praised, leaving it at that as his brother had asked. He looked at Henry with a raised eyebrow, doing his best not to sound too protective or defensive when he said, “Well? That’s all you’re gettin’ at the moment.”

“Well, well, Danny Dan the mystery man, we do have something in common.” Henry’s words flowed with a rhythm, the rhyming way he’d said Danny’s name rolling off of his tongue in a sing-song voice. Henry beamed, and he could not help but make grand gestures with his hands — that was just how he talked, really — as he continued to speak, “I, too, am a card game enjoyer! I like Pokémon, Magic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and I do like poker, but Ethan don’t got hands in it, so he wouldn’t wanna play. Puzzles? Riddles? Brain teasers? … I got some Lego you can play with, but you’re in the wrong house for brain teasers. Sorry to say, but me and the lads smoke too much weed and Alicia takes too good care of us to let us feel dumb all the time.”

“Real,” Ethan responded, with his phone out and texting the chef, glad his dad jumped in to calm Decky’s storm. “What other toppings? I’m a meat lovers kind of boy.” He walked around everyone, giving the Boaz brothers room to breathe. He hoped ultimately they’d all decide to watch a movie. He had a long day.

Decky was the only one to notice Danny’s flinch at Henry’s sudden hand movement, but that was because he was literally holding the boy. Danny was much better at containing his physical reactions to things like that than Decky was, the older Boaz boy typically halfway to a defensive stance when he was caught by surprise. Had he not been focusing on Danny, he likely would have embarrassed himself. When Henry began to list off his interests, Decky quickly found himself tuning out while Danny stared at the man with wide eyes. When Ethan asked about other toppings, Decky shook his head at the other boy.

“I’ll just share with Danny, I don’t mind olives.” Danny frowned, distracted from Henry for a moment as he pulled away from Decky with a disagreeable frown while Decky glanced down at him in warning. Defiantly, Danny opened his mouth anyways.

“Ya hate olives ya liar.”

Decky’s glance became a glare. Before he had a chance to respond though, Henry was off on another one. Facepalming, he groaned out. “Jesus christ, Decky, are you lying? To your friends and your little brother? Bro, that’s just fucked up. If you hate olives why would you want pizza with olives?!” Henry demanded. From the over exaggeration of his words and motions, it was (hopefully) clear enough that Henry was being playful.

“Yeah Decky, why’re ya lyin’?” Danny caught on to Henry’s energy immediately. His voice was still quiet, but it was gaining confidence as he teased his older brother. This was exactly what he’d been talking to Ethan about in the car, his brother unwilling to do something as simple as ask for his own pizza topping and instead just willing to have whatever Danny wanted even if it made him sick was only a small glimpse of the bigger problem. “Sully’s gonna give a toppin’, why won’t you?”

“Why are ya bein’ such a gremlin all’a the sudden?” Decky sighed tiredly, decidedly not responding to Henry and keeping his head down to lock eyes with and glare at his baby brother, who grinned up at the embarrassed tint to his cheeks. He couldn’t believe his little brother just threw him to the fucking wolves like that. “Sully, what do ya want?”

“Pepperoni’s fine. What do you want?” Sully replied simply while motioning that the device was ready to deliver another hit for the gearhead. Decky glared at his friend who very easily volleyed back what was meant to be diversion.

“He likes bacon ‘cause he’s a bad jew,” Danny giggled as he was gently but deliberately shoved away from his brother as Decky beelined for the bowl, exchanging places with Sully who walked up in confusion.

“What was that about?” He looked down slightly, blinking as Danny latched onto his arm. “Hey little dude.”

“Oh, nothing. Decky’s just being a baby, that’s all. Seems like it’s kind of par for the course, huh, Danny?” He tossed a grin and a wink down to the youngest boy. “Oh, dude. Don’t forget dessert, what are you in the mood for? Brownies ala mode? We could get that and watch cartoons. Everybody likes cartoons.”

“Cartoons?” Danny asked shyly, only half hiding behind Sully. This time, when he looked to the elder Green, his gaze flickered briefly over the man’s entire face before flitting away again. Shifting from foot to foot, Danny hummed as he thought of Henry’s question. “What’s alamode?”

“Oh, man. It’s just warm fresh brownies with ice cream on top, it’s only the most delicious thing ever. We’re gonna get you some pizza. We’re gonna get you some brownies ala mode. And then? We’re watching We Bare Bears. A most excellent evening if I do say so myself. What do you think, brother man dude?” Henry beamed, and it was an undeniably welcoming smile.

“We what?” Danny asked askance, his features unknowingly morphing into a look very similar to the one Decky had given the older man when he’d first recommended the kitchen appliance videos. That was also a lot of designations thrown at him at the end there, and he had no idea how to respond to it. “It’s a show about naked bears?” Danny startled when Decky started cough-laughing from his seat at the bar, the smoke from his latest hit puffing out with each exhale. Danny stared at his older brother in surprise.

“Now that I gotta see.”

“You’re so weird.”

“But first? A movie with dinner. Decky, you go ahead and hit another one if you want. E? Did you put the order in? Your brother’s off at the game with his girl… not friend. Not girlfriend yet, for sure. But god I hope he pulls it off. Finally! My point is, pick out a movie, text the chef, and then we go to the couch. It is time, boys… to chill. You guys fuckin’ need it!” Henry said, pointing toward the couch.

“Andy’s what?!” Ethan called out in surprise. Falling to the couch in pure disbelief, yes having sent the order of pizzas and brownies and ice cream to the chef, Ethan was brought to the sudden realization that his older brother was becoming a man, probably at this very moment. Exbitionist style. Lawd, the Devil stole his brother’s soul and he couldn’t be prouder. “Damn, never thought he’d move that fast. First time under the bleachers? Wild. Oh a movie! We have two options. Risky Business, if you bitches haven’t seen it, it would be nice if you did before my…” Ethan stopped himself. He almost revealed to his dad that he was having a big bash tomorrow at the family vineyard with Risky Business as the theme. “It’s just a good movie, okay? Or Clerks. That’s just a must. So which is it going to be?”

Sully tilted his head when Ethan trailed off of one sentence that seemed to lead to him talking about his party, but he supposed the taller boy was still trying to be subtle despite Henry already calling out the whole situation earlier during the whole music game. “My uncle likes Clerks,” He offered, both for Ethan to know and for little Danny to help make a decision. He looked down at the little dude. “All I really know about Risky Business is that scene everyone knows with Tom Cruise in his underwear dancin’ to Bob Seger.”

“Well that’s…” Danny tilted his head right back at Sully’s description while his brother looked over and once again laughed at them from the counter. He could not believe Decky was acting like that from weed alone. Decky couldn’t help it though, he looked up just in time for Sully to do his little head tilt and to watch Danny follow soon after, and the sudden realization that he’d missed earlier, that Danny was clinging to Sully’s arm like a koala while Sully just let it happen, was cracking him up. Danny liked to study with him because he got to spend time with someone who just accepted his presence and didn’t dote or hover. Decky knew that, he just didn’t expect the comfort to extend outside the office so much that Danny would use Sully as a secondary anchor when Decky left him to float for a moment. It was hilarious how Sully literally didn’t do anything to ask for it and people just flocked to him. Sully may never really realize it since his relationship with most of the gearheads began through AJ’s interest and investment in him, but the streamer was definitely a social floater with his strongest ties being held down in four different groups.

The Thespians favored him despite him not being one mostly because of his job building their sets. The Media kids knew him as one of the three hosts of the Morning Show alongside Rye and DJ, while the Gamers got the more enthusiastic version of him from his streams, aside from Oli who likely knew Sully best. Lastly, the Gearheads got him for everything else that made him Sully. The dude’s obsession with flipping old junkers for fun more than for his videos, his trade knowledge, his faded moments, and his heart that would get ripped apart in their school if he let it. And he would let it, the dumbass.

Now, looking at Ethan, Decky realized this poor fuck was about to be added to another clique, and god help his fuckin’ soul because it was the Elite.

It was nice knowin’ ya, Sulls.

Deciding to move it all along, Decky rolled his eyes after finishing the last of the hit and blew out the smoke before deciding to give Ethan a hand.

“Let’s do Risky Business, Danny and I have seen Clerks a shitton,” He got up and deliberately made his way to the couch, Danny detaching from Sully to follow him. Taking a spot at the corner of the L shaped section, Danny settled in next to him while Sully settled at the foot of the longer cushion near Decky’s feet. He rolled his eyes at the obvious intent to go back for another coffee soon in the other boy’s positioning. How he still just slept whenever he needed to was a mystery. With his brother at his side and his nerves settled once more, Decky felt the high washing over him again as safety blanketed his senses for a moment. He almost called Ethan by his last name again when he spoke up to the boy, but saved it at the last minute before the sentence got to his lips. “Oh, Ethan,” Decky stared the rich boy dead in the eye. “If ya ever pick my baby brother up without my express permission again, I'll beat you're ass.” He held the gaze even as Danny poked him in the side and he finally let Ethan see the smile he'd been hiding.

“But thanks.”

BHHS: Limitless

^{Timestamp: 8:30pm
Location: Split, Sinclair and Shomer Households
Niles Sinclair and Rye Shomer
@LovelyComplex and @Aces Away}

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With his sisters video chatting with their boyfriend, trying to color coordinate and decide on their full ensemble to wear to homecoming, Niles Sinclair laid on the couch, giving himself distance from the music blasting out of their bedroom. On the coffee table was his work in progress chunky knitted blanket, halfway completed. On his chest was his phone. Contemplative and deep in thought, the doctor’s son stared up at the ceiling, replaying his morning, over and over again. 8:30 PM was approaching and he was regretting eating spaghetti dinner instead of taking a quick swim in his family’s pool to get his thoughts together.

His mind was stuck on first period, in the library. He had a deep-seated feeling he royally messed up. He didn’t know why but when he turned back, looking over his shoulder, to the almost closing doors and caught sight of Rye shaking in Helen Well’s arms, an unsettling storm erupted in his stomach. His heart sank. Niles knew his communication skills weren’t perfect. He wasn’t like his father or uncle who were charming and knew how to sell. He wasn’t like his cousin who spoke from his heart, never telling a lie, and felt with every fiber of his being. He wasn’t like his sisters, who could manipulate and use flattery to get them what they wanted. Niles was a reserved boy and when he felt, his immediate reaction was to avoid. Walk away, let it fester and deal with whatever he was going through on a rainy day.

It wasn’t healthy. He knew that. His therapist of five years was still working on him with that but it helped him cope, especially when it came to his grief. If he was honest with himself, Niles was having a hard time understanding what he was going through in general. When he immersed himself in the water, closed his eyes, and held his breath, the noise disappearing, he once thought about only the memory of his mother. No one had ever breached his mind, not even his two ex girlfriends, when he swam.

Now though?

Bringing his hand up to view, above his head, staring at the size of it, Niles reflected on the moment he intentionally placed it on Rye’s lower back, before pulling the boy close to him. The scent of hyacinths and sandalwood was becoming a core memory and something Sinclair couldn’t forget. His mother’s memory was fading and he found himself looking forward to a short boy that loved the color purple, had the cutest, little giggle, and was a ball of anxiety. He could feel just by being near Rye, and getting to know him, how much his tiny acquaintance embodied kindness, connection, and love. Niles never met someone that could make him feel this comfortable, easily understood and undoubtedly seen, as his classmate did. The genuine smile he couldn’t hide when he noticed the boy getting closer and closer to where he sat in the library, just to be near him. It was cute how dedicated Rye was, assuming Niles didn’t notice, spending days just to be at the table next to him to hopefully breach his walls. Niles noticed, of course he did. He was observant as hell and that day forced the dominoes to fall. No matter where they were, or how crowded the room was, Niles could see him. Niles always found him. Niles habitually found himself searching for him. It was honestly maddening.

Bringing his hand down, Niles grabbed his phone and checked the time. One minute until he promised to make the call. After sitting up, he unlocked his phone and opened Rye’s contact information. As his finger hovered over the video chat icon, Niles spent one last dreadful moment thinking about what he’d say. He could be totally off the mark and Rye hadn’t cried because of him but because of his cousin… the sudden thought of his cousin and Rye, being an item, made pressing the video chat icon even more daunting.

Why was he feeling like this?

If he kept closing up when AJ and Rye became a topic of discussion or he saw something he didn’t like, then he’d never grow. Niles became cold when he wasn’t happy and the last thing Rye deserved was to feel that kind of frost. The only offense Rye committed was wanting to be Niles’ friend and the doctor’s son had yet to decide if this was a good thing or bad thing yet. Kim, however, encouraged him and said branching out and socializing beyond his books and his best friends could do him some good. She was sure his mother would want him to make the most of his senior year. Grabbing the fleeting confidence he gathered by thinking of Kim’s encouraging words, he called Rye and waited.

The other boy did not pick up immediately, as much as he wanted to. Instead, he spent a nice short moment experiencing sheer panic before he bolstered up the courage to answer the call. Rye had gotten home shortly after dropping JJ back off at her moped and had plenty of time to work himself into a tizzy in the silence of his and his mother’s too large house. He had no idea why two people would ever need this much space, especially when his mother was sometimes gone for days on end, sleeping in the on-call room. He always turned on the speakers in the living room and blasted music loud enough to be heard wherever he managed to wander, just so that he didn’t feel so alone.

The music didn’t stop him from thinking about Niles’ inevitable call though, and any practice he’d done in his head over the past couple of hours was wiped completely from his mind like a shaken etch-a-sketch the second his jittery thumb hit accept and Niles’ face appeared before him.

“You were, like, super prompt. That’s impressive,” He praised as an opening line while imagining pushing his own dumb ass off of a cliff. He sounded so stupid, what was it about so much as the thought of Niles suddenly turning his typical sharp tongue and quick wit into as stumbling a mess as he was with his physical coordination? “I mean, hi! Sorry, I should have said hi first, that was rude.”

“Hi,” Niles responded back, less animated. His gaze softened at the sight of Rye. He found himself relaxing, all pre-jitters dissipating now that the moment was finally here. “I promised I’d call you…” Niles pensively answered, wondering to himself was it weird to follow through on promises or was Rye simply surrounded by people that didn’t prioritize him? He cleared his throat and leaned back. “It’s just how I am,” he began to explain. “My dad’s drilled punctuality into me since I was little. I mean his job depends on it but even outside of work, it’s a sign of respect. Your time is just as valuable as mine. If I’d made a commitment, the least I could do is show up for it.”

That was something Rye could understand, of course, what with their parents working at the same hospital alongside JJ’s stepmother. He should have known the other doctor’s boy would have the same respect for time as him, but the way Niles worded it had heat creeping up his neck and trying to betray him by reaching for his cheeks. “Well, thanks for that,” The blush won over as he gave back another stunted reply, and it took everything in him not to hide his face behind his hands, or maybe drop it flat onto his desk in embarrassment. Scratching anxiously at the back side of his neck, Rye looked up to the ceiling to gather strength, maybe miraculously find his brain cells floating up there, and tried again.

“Thank you for doing a video call even when you’re not a fan of them, it helps me out.”

“Because of your tinnitus, right? You brought it up two weeks ago,” Niles asked, making sure he was remembering correctly. He didn’t want to mistake his knowledge but that library talk consisted of music and for the briefest of moments, Rye did divulge into his hearing issues. Or at least that’s what he recalled. The only reason why he was doubting himself was because there might’ve been nights he woke up from having exceedingly vivid dreams and he didn’t want to mix reality with whatever was going on inside his head. He needed to make sure.

“Oh! I-yeah, I didn’t think you’d remember,” Rye responded, trying not to sound as breathless as the slightest bit of Niles’ attention made him feel. Two weeks ago, it had been such a quick mention. They’d been talking about music and Niles had asked if he was playing music in the earbuds that practically lived in Rye’s ears even when talking to others, and the boy had explained that it was to drown out the noise so that he could have the conversations with others without as much distraction and unprocessed words. Then, he’d shifted to asking Niles about his favorite music, for once feeling something teetering towards discomfort with the attention on him. He really figured it was a forgettable time for the other. “I just…I don’t hear as well as I let on. I like looking at your lips.” Rye’s eyes widened. “Reading your lips! Just! Reading lips in general is really helpful!”

Shut up shut up shut up ohmygod.

Niles tried his best to hold back his smile, fighting his cheeks from rising. That unexpectedly made him feel good. He knew what Rye was getting at but the mishap was adorable and he was getting more and more amused by the second. This was not why they were having the call though. He almost forgot the intention behind this date because he was having such a nice time, organically, with this boy, like he’d known him all his life. “I hope I have nice lips, if you’re constantly looking at them,” Niles teased, realizing he couldn’t help himself. Rye was so easy to play with. He needed to redirect before he killed Rye with embarrassment. They still had to talk about this morning. “I’m just poking fun, you’re cute when you get all flustered. I’m relieved because I thought I hurt your feelings. Did I?” Niles asked, running his hand through his hair taking a beat, before putting emphasis on his question, “Hurt your feelings?”

Flustered was an understatement for how Rye felt at the moment. He just knew that his whole face was red enough to show up even on the phone’s crappier front camera, and Niles calling him cute had even made it worse. How the hell was he supposed to talk to this boy? No one he’s ever been with has gotten under his skin this way, made him fall apart without so much as a touch. He knew he really liked Niles, but the taller brunette’s newfound willingness to tease Rye on this level was just showing the shorter that this is more than some infatuation or crush.

Oh, I’m fucked.

“No! You didn’t hurt my feelings!” Rye answered in too high of a tone after clearing his throat anxiously and shifting his eyes away from the screen. His finger found the edge of his wooden desk and he dug his thumbnail harshly against the routine worn and pitted surface, focusing on the pressure feeling and trying to ground himself. “What even made you think that?” He’d thought he’d waited until Niles had been out of sight to break down, so unless the swimmer was also psychic then Rye was really off his game.

Catching every gesture and infliction, like Rye looking away, Niles strategically patted the couch off screen. A little jingle could be heard and then suddenly his Belgian Tervuren hopped up onto the couch, pouncing on her father and licking his face. Niles began calming her down and directed her attention to the phone, “Sadie, say hi. This is my friend, Rye.” The dog wagged her tail excitably, as Niles stroked her back, continuing to calm her down. In seconds, she found herself snuggled on his lap. He hoped her presence would make things less intimidating for Rye. They weren’t alone, not completely. “She’s not usually allowed on the couch but my dad will live. My sisters are too distracted to come downstairs and use it as ammunition so,” Niles smiled down at his pet, kissing her forehead, still holding his phone throughout this. “We will be rebels, isn’t that right, Sadie Mae?” He whispered to his dog, cutesy.

“Where were we?” He adjusted his position, methodically petting his dog with his freehand. “Ah, yes. Why do I think I fucked up? I kept walking and having a bad feeling, so I turned back and saw you with Helen. By then, you were already in her arms and walking away.” There was no point in hiding the truth. Niles abruptly left, regretted it, and his regret was solidified when he saw something he likely wasn’t meant to see. Something he caused. “If it isn’t about me, great, but the last thing I want is for you to misunderstand me.”

“The best pups always get to break the rules,” Rye watched the entire scene with rapt attention, absolutely smitten with this new side of Niles that came out with his dog around. The dog herself was absolutely gorgeous and adorable, and coupled with the way Niles dutifully pet her while she laid against him it was a scene that Rye wanted to commit to memory and replay any time he felt low. He knew Niles was hot, he even knew Niles was sweet if he wanted to be, but knowing about a softer side and seeing it were two very different experiences. When Niles responded to his question, he found that while he was not at all happy with the answer, in fact he was extremely embarrassed, he didn’t feel the need to avoid the screen as much. He didn’t stop digging his thumbnail into the wood of his desk, but even the presence of the most amazing animal couldn’t alleviate all the anxious energy Gavriel Shomer generated on a daily basis.

“It wasn’t you,” Rye wanted to leave it at that, but he hasn’t been in therapy as long as he has without learning how to talk things out even when they bother or embarrass him, even if he thinks no one actually wants to hear an answer. “I just, um, I do a little more than overthink, y’know? Like, I really overthink, dude, the second a conversation is over, sometimes before it even ends,” Kind of like now. “I perceive shit weird and sometimes I can’t be talked out of whatever stupid thought process I latched onto until I’ve had a panic attack and get too exhausted to overthink. Fun right?” It was not fun. “But yeah, totally not you and totally the chemicals in my brain being funky or however that works,” Rye knew how it worked, in great detail, but he was sure Niles read the same psychology textbooks as him just as he’d caught him with the same medical books. Rye didn’t need to add anecdotes of his practical experience. “People like Helen and JJ are grounding though.”

Niles was silent, allowing Rye the space to express himself as freely as he wanted to. He knew he wasn’t entitled to any of the details but he was happy to hear that this was more than something he did. He wasn’t an idiot though. He still had that feeling in his gut, in his throat and in the back of his mind that because of his actions, he triggered Rye. He would need to do better in communicating, leaving no room for Rye to worry. It wouldn’t be easy, especially since Niles was trying to understand his own feelings on the matter and why he felt a hint of jealousy when it came to his cousin, but it was his job to try.

At least he was aware that his actions weighed heavily on the other boy. It was never his intention to put him through a panic attack but Niles knew, as much as he wanted to take a couple pages out of Kim’s book, he was innately selfish and there would be times he’d put himself first, no matter what. He’d hold himself accountable, just as Katie did, calling him out whenever he became an asshole and didn’t consider anyone but himself. That’s all he could do until he could change for the better. “I get that,” He acknowledged, looking away from Rye and down at his dog. “I’m not as put together as I act but I have those that remind me where I am. Kim, Katie, my baby girl Sadie.”

There was a pause as he thought of his next words. He didn’t let the silence linger. He apologized, “I am sorry. I know you say it has nothing to do with me but,” Niles looked up at the camera, resolute and serious on the matter, having already made up his mind. “I didn’t really end our conversation on a good note and that’s on me. I don’t know why… I just needed to walk away and I’m sorry I did that to you.”

“I…thanks,” Rye didn’t know what to say, had a habit of making jokes to break the tension when his friends tried to approach him with serious apologies because a lot of the time, for him, the simple act of the apology was enough to wipe the slate clean. Rye surrounded himself with people in constant pain that had a habit of lashing out as a first defense, he was well used to understanding the things others didn’t say, and despite there being small occasions where something he says really gets a reaction out of Niles, Rye still felt like he couldn’t get through to the almost surprisingly attentive boy. It was unlike any of his other relationships that he tended to navigate with much more ease from the start. But Niles was opening up to him, giving Rye a chance to get under his skin as he’d gotten under the Morning Show host’s.

“So, sorry if this really ruins the chill vibe, but I need to ask for future interactions,” Rye scratched at his neck again but did his best not to look away. He took a deep breath. “Should I like, not mention AJ around you? Is he a trigger for you or something? I- I thought you guys were on good terms but that’s sorta where I saw the shut down- what I perceived as the shutdown- happen. So like…god sorry I don’t know how to word this, this is so awkward. Is it- do you not like when I talk about him?”

Damn. Niles wasn’t as subtle as he’d hoped he would be. He didn’t even know why lately his cousin was annoying him. AJ was going through alot and still being stringed along by his ex, and knowing that Rye was a crutch for his cousin, made him tick, but that had nothing to do with Rye. That had everything to do with how he perceived the situation, not understanding why Rye would get caught up in that mess. How should he word this without sounding hurtful? “I would much rather you speak your mind.” He said firmly, not liking the idea of Rye actively filtering around him, as if he was a minefield. “If we’re going to be friends, I need to know you’re comfortable to talk to me about whatever and if there is something like this that comes up, we do exactly this. We talk through it.” He instructed, trying to avoid Rye taking the nuclear option that would make him actively mad. “My cousin… AJ.”

Niles took his hand off his dog to rub his face, really not wanting to sound insensitive. “We’re alright but I’m best friend’s with the twin of his ex. I try my best to stay out of his shit and it’s a lot, which I’m sure you know seeing how you…” He stopped himself, changing his train of thought quickly. “He’s good hearted but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that he’s drowning from a broken heart so I don’t want you— what I'm trying to say is be careful, okay?”

Rye did finally look away again when Niles halted himself mid sentence, well aware of what the other boy was going to say. Also now swirling around in his mind was Niles use of friends, as unintentionally damning as it likely was for him as he spoke it. Rye knew that’s what he was signing up for this morning when he agreed to see Niles at the party, but it still sobered him a bit and netted some of the butterflies that had been free roaming in his stomach. Niles definitely didn’t understand what was going on between him and AJ though. Rye was there for the other boy because of that broken heart, because those moments that they spent together was just as much Rye extending a life preserver to a drowning AJ as it was the gearhead doing the very same back. In a way, Rye could see how another version of himself, less secure in his relations, would be jealous in a twisted sort of way. At least AJ needed someone else to send him off the deep end. Rye just needed a quiet night alone at home.

Like tonight was going to be.

But people didn’t get it, and it wasn’t just his emotions and life here, it was intertwined with AJ’s and even though Niles was his cousin, Rye didn’t feel any more comfortable divulging more on the matter than he did with JJ. Shifting in his seat, Rye brought his hands to his lap and intertwined his fingers, tapping his thumbs together rapidly. Niles said he’d prefer if he spoke his mind. He hoped he meant it.

“I don’t do well alone. I know it’s not healthy to not know how to be comfortable with just yourself but I just get really fucky in the head really quick,” He glanced quickly at the screen, hesitating and smiling tightly when he saw Sadie had her head perked and tilted as she stared at the phone. He wondered if she could hear the tiny tremor in his tone. “AJ does not do well alone. I am…aware of his, ah, drowning and I promise I’m not acting like some ‘I can fix him’ girl. We are friends that seek comfort in each other and it just so happens that that comfort is…more in depth than most people are comfortable with.” He let out a strained laugh when he thought of the blonde that was often around the garage when he was. They’d had a pretty good relationship all this time but he hasn’t seen her as much since he and AJ started their thing. “God, Katie’s probably so sick of both of us right now.”

“Fortunately for you, both she and Jamie do not know about you, yet. As far as I’m aware, Jamie and AJ are back on their bullshit,” Niles was getting increasingly annoyed. He went back to petting his dog, trying to contain the seething anger he had over the situation. Regardless if he wanted to be involved or not, as long as he was attached to AJ and Katie, he’d hear something and he’d like to think he led a life with little to no drama. But his cousin, his fucking cousin, had a life full of it. “I’m glad you’re there for him but coming from someone who has known AJ since we were in diapers, there’s a lot about him that you have yet to unpack. He was born on the fast lane and when things slow down, and he actually has to think and feel, his addictive personality starts coming out. My uncle and aunt aren’t the best role models. Hell, my father has his own set of issues, which only escalated when my mom died. I know who you’re friends with, so I know you are aware of how an environment can impact someone. I just don’t want you to get burned and being around AJ will do just that. Trust me when I say that.”

Niles stopped himself, not realizing how easy it was for him to go off in front of this boy who barely knew him. He breathed in and out. He needed to find his center and inner peace. He needed to get over this. AJ wasn’t worth the agitation. He adjusted himself and sat up. “I’m sure you can take care of yourself, just know if you need me, I am a phone call away. Okay?”

“Guess it’s a good thing I train with the Junior Firefighters,” Rye instinctively joked, mostly to himself, at Niles’ comment about getting burned. However, the stray thought brought up a certain Junior Firefighter that had burned him and found himself going from tapping his thumbs together to digging his nails into his skin with a tight grip against the sudden shakes. Trying to focus back on the conversation at hand, Rye nodded stiltedly and glanced shrinkingly at the screen. “Thank you, for the offer and for being open. I appreciate the worry, I do. I know he and Jamie are doing their thing again, I’m not oblivious or anything, but like I said AJ and I are friends first, and friends are there for each other when they’re vulnerable.”

He could see the frustration that Niles had been trying to hold back as he spoke, and he didn’t want the boy to think he was arguing with him when he was just struggling to explain. Niles got some of it if the ‘I know who you’re friends with’ bit was anything to go by, but he didn’t know about the nights spent in bed with some of them, AJ included, where the dark allowed the damaged to divulge their demons with abandon. Rye knew more about AJ than Niles knew, and for the show host and King gearhead, that was a two way street. Rye was as careful as he could be while staying true to himself and making sure he didn’t collapse inward, into the black hole aching in his core since before he and his ma ever moved to California.

“Um, the offer. I will take you up on it if I need, I’m serious. I’m not too proud to admit when I need someone, in fact I’m usually pretty shameless about it.”

Except where it counts, apparently.

Niles’ storm was calmed at Rye’s last bit. He was taken aback from the genuine words of him being needed. Rye needed him. Why did that make him happy? “You might be right. AJ might be a trigger for me but that didn’t start until,” Niles looked away, diverting eye contact for the first time, bringing all his attention to his dog. “Until I started noticing you around him a lot.” Just saying that outloud made him embarrassed as fuck. He didn’t even know how his face was looking but all he knew was he did not like being this emotionally transparent. It was weird and quite frankly, not something he was used to.

As if something knew he needed saving, hoping he wasn’t blushing or anything, Niles’ phone alarm went off, signaling his bedtime approaching. Swim season was near which meant he had practice at 6:15 AM in the morning on Saturdays. Saturdays were optional but the last thing he wanted was to fall behind. The team relied heavily on him which meant he had to practice, practice, practice so they could go to state. Looking back at his phone, he minimized his chat with Rye to turn off his alarm before bringing the video back up, “I hope you do call me more. This was nice.” He scratched the back of Sadie’s ears, returning to the feelings he had before he made the call. Anxious and on edge. “I hate to be that guy but I have to get up early for swimming. If you do see me tomorrow, and have time, save me. I hate parties. I’m going to die.”

Rye laughed through the blush Niles’ words had once more brought to his face. He didn’t know how to respond to Niles basically saying his increased contact with AJ was the catalyst for his…tension with his cousin, especially when the way Niles said it tore a hole in the net and let all the butterflies loose to cause chaos in his stomach. Until he started noticing Rye. Even the imminent ending of their conversation couldn’t clear the haze that that had put on his brain.

“Oh yeah, can’t keep the champion from his proper rest. Go swim team!” Did Rye know the name of the swim team? No. He also didn’t know most of the others or retain them in his memory outside of reading them out for morning announcements. After the cameras go off anything sports related is promptly wiped from his mind to make space for more song lyrics and puns. “I’ll do my best to find you blending into the wallpaper and peel you off for a little bit, scouts honor,” Rye was never a boy scout. “Thanks again for talking with me, and introducing me to miss Sadie there, it was nice. But, like- yeah, because you already said it was nice so..you…knew…”

Always one sentence too many with you.

Niles smirked.

“If you don’t find me, I’m sure I’ll find you. Scouts honor,” Niles chuckled. He wasn’t tired but he knew if he didn’t go now, he wouldn’t want to leave. Through the embarrassment, he was finding himself wanting this conversation to go on and on until they both inevitably fell asleep. He would not be okay during practice if he didn’t sleep so for now, he would keep to his bedtime. This, however, was a milestone for their friendship. Whether Rye knew it or not, he was officially someone forever on Niles’ radar and that meant sooner or later he’d be welcomed into the boy’s world. The good times and the bad times. That’s what friends were for.“Goodnight, Rye.”

“G’night!” Rye called back enthusiastically before ending the call, his phone dropping to the desk the moment he did and his hands shoving against the desk to shove him away in his rolling chair. When he had space he bent over his knees and covered his face with his hands like he’d wanted to the whole call, letting out an overwhelmed groan that slowly turned into a light giggle that bordered on the edge of mentally stable in its rhythm. Trying to be just a friend had never been hard for him before.

But god damn, there really is a first time for everything.

Looking up from his hands and taking in the dim music still playing from the downstairs speakers, Rye grabbed his abused phone back from the desk as it buzzed with a text, grateful he hadn’t put it on do not disturb yet when he saw a text from Niles.

From: Niles 😳
For your contact photo.
Attachment: Photo.png

Attached was a picture of Niles snuggling Sadie in his bed, the dog’s laying content pillowed in front of him and the faintest hint of a smile on the more serious boy’s face. Somehow, Rye was left grinning even harder. Niles had texted him again too, another thing he wasn’t fond of but was obviously willing to do to interact with Rye. He found that with the thoughts Niles left him with, and the adorable photo that he immediately set to the contact, he felt a little better about spending a night alone. For the first time in years, he wasn’t dreading an empty bed.

BHHS: Limitless

^{Timestamp: Beginning of game
Celeste, Piper, and Athena
@LovelyComplex, @Aces Away, @Melissa
TW: Misuse/Abuse of prescription medication}

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Piper stared at her perfect mask of makeup in the slightly foggy mirror, letting her dark waves cascade back over her shoulders as she took the clip out from atop her head. When her eyes caught sight of the bruise on her wrist that her emergency makeup wasn’t equipped to cover, she frowned and reached into her backup purse for some thick bangles that matched her outfit, slipping them on like it was any other day. The forearm length red leather jacket covered all the scratches from her run down the cliff and to the school, and her sore and cut up feet were resting in comfy fuzzy socks that were completely hidden by her backup boots. For all the world of Beverly Hill High School ever had to know, Piper simply went home to change her outfit for the game, ever the fashion icon to be ready with multiple themed styles each day. Finally ready, she pulled her phone out and sent Adam a quick text, just saying thank you and signing off with her name so he could save her number, before returning the device to her pocket. Celeste had been texting her non-stop despite Piper’s responses that she would be there soon, and the buzzing continued even after her latest reply, a constant reminder against her thigh that she was disappointing someone else that bothered to care for her. Putting on the smile across her dark red lips, the one she’s practiced in the mirror her whole life, Piper sucked up the pain that jolted through each stride as she began her strut out of the girl’s locker room.

Only to come up short as she opened the door and ran into the brick wall that was Butler. Even with the sunglasses on, she could feel his glare on her and she shrunk immediately, a lion becoming a scared kitten in an instant.

“Butler, I-”

“You’ve been grounded.”

“But–!”

“No buts. No Homecoming dance. No Party. You’re lucky your father is kind enough to still let you go to the game.” The mountain of a man scolded, and Piper went to bite her lip shamefully before she remembered her freshly applied lipstick and settled for just looking away from Butler instead. No dance? No party? She’d worked so hard to be allowed to go in the first place! She’d even gotten Celeste and Athena to convince daddy that she could be over one of their houses in the time leading up to the dance, and now it was all for nothing. She’d screwed it all up by acting like she had when she’d still had her mother and hope for a better tomorrow. She thought she’d learned better years ago, but that was before anyone had stepped in for her. Before Adam had taught her something new, given her something back she hadn’t realized she’d lost. “I cleaned up your bloody footprints leading all the way here, you’re welcome.” Piper flinched, fighting back tears in the silent hallway. “You’re late, by the way. Start walking.”

And she would. Normally, she really would, but Butler was here and had cleaned up after her, that meant he had time and last she’d seen him he was on the ground with Adam standing over him. So if he was here, if he had that much time?

“Is…is Adam oka-”

“Walk, Piper, or I’m taking you home.”

Piper started walking immediately, glancing back only once as Butler started to shadow her and taking vindictive pleasure when she saw the way he limped before he began to properly compensate for the pain Adam had put him in. They said nothing to each other after that, and as Piper emerged into the fading evening sunlight and made her way toward the field and stands, she couldn’t help but breathe deeply and close her eyes on occasion, trying to listen for the breeze rustling bush leaves and the chirping of insects.

♥♥♥

Piper pulled out her phone just before she hit the bleachers and pulled up Ethan’s contact, hesitating over the keys for a moment as she tried to think of how to break the news to her boyfriend. Much like Celeste and Athena, Piper doubted he would be happy about the matter. He’s been so excited for his party ever since he started planning it, practically talking her ear off about it sometimes, and now she was throwing a wrench in his plans because she’d been selfish. Typical of her, as daddy would say.

To: Ethan 💋
Sorry baby
I screwed up
got grounded 😢
at the game but no dance or party…

Piper Rose 🌹

With that done, she let out a breath and fixed her hair once more before rounding the bleachers, only needing to glance up at the spot Celeste always sat in to gain her bearings before she made a beeline to the blonde, a disarming smile on her face as she got to her best friend.

“Hey, sorry I’m late!” She announced, as she primly sat down next to Celeste and crossed her ankles. She ignored her Butler setting up post next to Celeste's and focused instead on the spotlight blonde beside her, forcing any thoughts about the day out of her head with practiced ease. “Atrocious to leave you alone, I know, but I had to change outfits.” Her chipped nails were hidden in fists at her sides in hopes of stalling any inquiries as long as possible, but she knew it would be clocked eventually. Celeste knew of her little disappearances, it was just that even she didn’t know where Piper went, it was the brunette’s one true secret from the blonde. “I can’t believe I beat Thena here, though. Like, where is she?”

“God, watch us find out she has a boyfriend now and I’ll have to watch you both be happy without me,” Celeste protested, in an ornery mood because of a certain Spanish prince. Grabbing her purse, she placed it on her lap and rummaged through it to take out a few packs of gum. It was an assortment of brands and flavors. “Want some?” She offered her best friend, her mood gradually lightening up in the presence of Piper. Her other half. As Celeste waited for her friend to say yes or no to gum, she complained, “You wouldn’t believe who decided to come sit next to me! I’m so glad you’re here because now I don’t need to think about that awful experience. The nerve of that boy.”

Piper’s phone vibrated.

From: Ethan 💋
Yeah, no.
You’re going.
We’ll talk soon.

“Oh? Here you were talking about Thena and I having boy distractions,” She maintained face as she read the text but that didn’t stop the pit of dread that dropped into her stomach as the messages flashed up at her. What did that mean? What was Ethan expecting her to do? Daddy had already said no, already retracted the precarious permissions he had granted her with in the first place, there was no way she’d be able to convince him again, especially if Butler told him everything about the stunt she’d pulled. Her boyfriend was many things, but none of those things were introduced to daddy as her boyfriend, and as per their agreement to keep things as down low as possible, she doubted he ever would be. Even then…convincing Gabriel Lyon of anything was not an easy feat. Focusing back on her bestie before she sent Ethan her reply, Piper asked, “Who was it that dared think he could catch your eye, babe?”

To: Ethan 💋
What? No.
Daddy would never let me.
He already said no.
I can’t just change his mind.

From: Ethan 💋
You can’t.
I can.

“Álvaro,” Celeste growled behind gritted teeth. When Celeste noticed Piper being distracted and ignoring her offer of gum, she shrugged and closed her purse, putting it right beside her. “Me being the good samaritan that I am allowed him to sit next to me. I guess he couldn’t deal with his friends and all the football talk. It went well until he acted like he didn’t know I played tennis. At this school. I’ve literally seen him in the bleachers. That’s when I was like okay, this boy is up to no good and trying to make me his sloppy seconds. Like GROSS! He fucked Naomi. I don’t want to touch him. Not even with a 10 foot pole.” The more the blonde talked about this subject, the more heated she got. Clutching onto her skirt, she hissed, “i’M tRyInG tO LeArN yOU. AS IF!” She didn’t care who was listening. She wanted the world to know the prince-of-nothing was not on her good side. He deserved the fall from grace.

“You wouldn’t have been sloppy seconds, Cel, you would have been an upgrade.” Athena had slid into their row of the bleachers with ease, taking the seat on Celeste’s opposite side while she had been ranting. The blonde couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s frustration, “I still can’t get over the fact that you let him sit here for long enough to have a conversation.” She leaned in to make eye contact with Piper and gave her a smile, “Is Ethan coming to the game?”

“UGH who knows!” Piper replied without a second thought as she threw her phone into her pocket with a pout. I can. Like, what? Ethan wasn’t making any sense right now and being asked about it was just frustrating her further. “He said he’d see me tomorrow in the text that he sent after the pep rally, but now I don’t know what’s going on!” She crossed her arms and huffed, tilting her head to the other stunning blonde that completed the trio known as the Triple Crowns. Or, if you hated them as much as many in the school did, the Red Flags. “He just does what he wants, I never know what’s going on in his head,” She reached into her pocket and pulled one of her xanax out and tossed it back dry, no trace of relaxation from her meditation with Adam remaining in her body. “I got myself grounded, by the way, and now he thinks he can fix it? With daddy? As if. Anyway, Athena’s right, Princey boy is lucky you let him sit down at all, and then he tried to play a game with you? Gag me. He doesn’t deserve you.”

“RIGHT?! And girl, Ethan doesn’t deserve you. I keep telling you, to get a boy like that to really notice you, you need to go radio silent. Then he’ll see what he’s missing and that’s a QUEEN. Like how dare he? And oh my god, speaking of queens,” Celeste went from one friend to the other. “What was taking you so long, my dearest Thena?”

Athena sighed, pretending to act annoyed. Let’s just say she hadn’t let her best friends in on the Benji situation. Or the Jonah situation. In fact, both Celeste and Piper were completely in the dark about the two men in her life. Sure, they had met Jonah on the occasion, but the other members of the Triple Crown had no clue the antics the two got up to when it came to their business model. And when it came to the boy currently on the Football field, neither of her friends had a clue that she had been texting Benji all Summer and was harboring quite the crush on him.

So… she lied.

“Sorry, I had to talk with my Aunt about something. Family business always calls, y’know?” She shrugged, and diverted the subject. “Hold on, rewind. Piper you got grounded? Why?”

“Oh,” Piper froze when the conversation came back around to her, having hoped to slide right past her comment by focusing on Celeste instead, but she should have known that their thorough third would have caught on. She looked at them with wide eyes attempting innocence and uncrossed her arms to throw her hair over her shoulder distractedly. “I just, like…okay, I totally ditched Butler earlier and he fucking snitched like the bitch he is, so now daddy’s mad,” she revealed carefully while letting her annoyance at the scarred man a few feet from them seep into her tone. She was tempted, for a moment, to tell her girls about Adam and about everything else that had happened, but something about it felt personal. It felt like it would invite questions and judgements from two of her favorite people, and her pills weren’t working well enough for her to be ready to field them. She waved her hand carelessly, bangles clacking together, and sighed heavily. “No more fun for Piper after the game tonight.”

Flabbergasted and not pleased, Celeste snapped her gum in annoyance and complained, “Your Butler is so TOXIC, Piper. My Butler would NEVER.” This would not do at all. Celeste wouldn’t dare go to a school function without her best friends. The audacity of Gabriel Lyon prevented his daughter from being a fun-loving teenage girl. “Please tell me Ethan is stepping in? Do I need to call him and tell him to be a man? Do I need to be the man?” The Green Princess already had her phone out, ready to give her cousin a piece of her mind. “Also, girl, we need to stop doing what daddy says and live our goddamn life. What are you going to do, Piper Rose Lyon? You do realize you not going to the dance is a CARDINAL SIN.”

Piper frowned at Celeste and hovered her hands over the blonde’s phone without touching it as though it would actually stop the glamorous girl from making whatever move she wanted. “It’s not that easy, Celeste,” She whined, her lip jutting out. Celeste would never get it. Neither of her best friends would. It didn’t matter if they knew that her bedroom door locked from the outside and not the inside, or that Piper’s Butler was meant to be Levi’s but failed his final test and was then hired by her father instead. They never seemed to understand that there were chains on her wrists and legs heavier than any real ones could hope to be. She huffed and retracted her hands from their place above the phone slowly, cautiously. “But yes, when I told him I wouldn’t be able to change daddy’s mind he just texted back ‘You can’t, I can’, which like, what? Even my Bibi wouldn’t be able to convince him now. I mean, Butler got hurt and he lost me for, like, an hour. I'd be surprised if I’m even allowed to go to my next photoshoot with how upset he must be.”

“Your dad could stand to learn a thing or two about parenting. Or he could just take a Xanax.” Athena shook her head, “If you need an escape plan, you know you always have a room at the Helmsley house.” She placed a comforting hand on Piper’s shoulder, “Maybe Ethan has something up his sleeve you don’t know about. Blackmail can get you far in this life, after all.” The blonde turned to Celeste, moving her head in such a way where their dark haired friend could not see her face, and raised her eyebrows in a slight panic. The other girl was right, not going to the dance was indeed a sin, and if there was a way out of this, she would try her very best to help.

“Whatever my stupid cousin has in mind, I’m sure he’s thinking his ego will carry him to success. So. How about this,” Celeste watched the field, loudly snapping her gum, thinking about an ingenious plan to get her best friend out tomorrow. She needed to double up on her cousin’s plan because she’d be damned if she didn’t have Piper when she went to the dance and party. “Why don’t we force your dad’s hand? The fact your Butler got hurt is curious to me, seeing how our Butlers come from a very legit company, so we’ll need to talk about this… later. BUT if you, me, and Thena go to the dance together, all showing up at your house with dates ourselves, I don’t think daddy dearest would want to deny you then. What? Is he going to start a war with his business partners? That’s like social suicide. To add extra incentive, I’ll have my mommy come and take pictures of us. They can chat away and she can convince him you’ll be at my place afterwards.” Celeste instructed, thinking her plan would be better than Ethan’s, by a long shot.

“Baby,” Celeste turned to Piper and gently grabbed her hands, squeezing them with love but also showing through her gaze that she could not, would not allow Piper to go out without a fight. “You’re only in highschool once unless you fail out. You really can’t miss this party. That’s like setting yourself up to drop out right now and how would your father feel about that then, hm?” She was losing her point but Celeste still talked with conviction and confidence, like she was the smartest girl on the bleachers. “This is our last year to make memories and I’m not okay with you making those memories alone in your bedroom. Do you understand?”

Piper stared silently at the two blondes that made up almost all of the happiness and freedom that she ever experienced, and her frown became an empty, wooden smile as she swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. “You girls are my best friends,” she spoke quietly to avoid any shake that almost escaped in her tone while she also desperately hoped for both girls would keep their attention on her face and words and not her actions. She didn't acknowledge Celeste's comment about talking more on what happened with Butler later, knowing that whether she replied or not, Celeste would make sure to remember for the both of them. Athena’s own comment about Piper's father needing to take a Xanax was incredibly ironic to the brunette, given that her father had control over her own prescription and only allowed her a certain amount per week ever since the incident over the summer. She squeezed Celeste's hands with her own, as the blonde still had them in her grasp, and did her best to gently extricate herself from the dainty yet powerful grip before her friend decided to look down and catch sight of the bruises Butler's grip had left on her when Adam had sent him to the ground. “But please, please don't do anything that can make daddy upset. He'll just extend my punishment later even if he does let me go. At least this way it's just the one day…”

Athena raised her eyebrows at Celeste’s plan, her face contorting into one of surprise. How were they supposed to show up at Piper’s house with their dates to break Rapunzel out of her tower when they didn’t have any dates to begin with! She shook her head slightly, the other blonde always had a way with words and did not put thought behind her ideas when it was necessary. Like right now. But, not wanting to ruin their united front, she nodded. “Celeste has a point,” Thena gave her a pointed look, almost as if she was staring into her soul, “Your dad won’t be able to say no if we all show up, and if he’s upset he wouldn’t dare show his hand.” The blonde smiled softly, “We’d do anything for you, honey. And I promise we’re going to make this year count, starting with tomorrow night.”

“See, I have a point!” Celeste crossed her arms, taking the validation near immediately. When the smart one of the group joined forces with her, she knew that she was onto something. “And quit with the damsel shit, Piper. I know you have a fire in you. Use it. Like come on, you’re a Lyon. Be a Lyon and stop playing so coy.” The small blonde was getting more and more agitated by the second. She chewed her gum and glared at the field. This wouldn’t be the first time Gabriel Lyon ruined things for her. “Is this really how the rest of your year is going to play out? Are you seriously going to let your father ruin everything? It’s like you’re already defeated when you never put up a fight.” Ugh. This was so typical of her. Quitting before she ran the race. She couldn’t survive without her, could she?

“Cel,” Athena reprimanded through gritted teeth, “Not the time, nor place.”

Pop.

Celeste sucked her gum in as a response, watching the game and seething. She didn’t have anything to say to that. Athena knew she was right.

It’s like they forgot that she used to have Scott to help her at home, to fight for her, and remind her of the fight she had in herself, to sit with her on her bed and remind her that she wasn’t as crazy or useless or small as daddy made her feel. Piper had actually been the worse of the two Lyon children when they were younger, always running away and throwing tantrums in public and making it clear that just because daddy was the one that won custody of them from both of their mothers, that did not make him the one she wanted to be with. Piper had been a disruption, a stain to the Lyon brand and rambunctious tomboy when she wasn’t busy throwing fits or breaking down. Granted, Butler had always been there so she only actually got away with however much her father allowed. The extent of her freedom has been dictated by Gabriel Lyon since the moment her mother and Scott’s mother made the mistake of trying to file for full custody of them, and any time she reached for the sky in her cage she realized it was nothing more than paint on the ceiling. Scott had been just as trapped as her. Celeste and Athena had powered their way through early, of course, the girls an inseparable trio since single digits. Then, Bibi had come along and got her into modeling. Piper fell into routine.

But Scott left and it all went to shit at home, and then she got too fucked up and Butler brought her home and told daddy and things have been spiralling down ever since. She’d numb herself daily and she hadn’t cried the way she had with Adam since the night Scotty officially left her behind.

Celeste was wrong. It wasn’t that she never put up a fight, it’s that the fight had slowly been drained out of her along with her hope and now she was just existing as a bystander in her own life for her own sanity. The cliff, Adam, that had been the most Piper that had risen to the surface since the summer, and look what happened.

It wasn’t her father that ruined everything, it was Piper. Being herself.

Cracked fingernails dug into her palms as she fisted her hands tightly in her lap before she reached for the last pill she had in her possession and tossed the final Xanax back with abandon, mood now sour after thinking about her brother. It’s not like any of the other ones had helped, but why not. The burn as the dry pill scraped down her throat kept her from responding to her friends until she was sure it was clear, and once it was she crossed her arms and responded to them both with more bite than intended.

“If you want me to fight for myself then stop trying to come to my rescue. Let Ethan do his thing, and if he fails and can’t get daddy to let me go to the dance then I’ll know that he’s not worth staying with any longer.”

“So you do want your Prince to save you,” Celeste scoffed, not surprised. “Fine. Choose a boy over us,” the Crown Green stood up, bringing her purse to her side. Nose high up in the air, she hmpfed in displeasure. Her day was turning horribly. First the prince-of-nothing, now her best friends. “I’m done with this. We’re going to lose, I can feel it in the air. I can’t believe you made me wait and now I’m bored!” Putting her shades back on, flipping her hair over her shoulder, Celeste maliciously snickered, “When my cousin fails, because he will, remember this talk. And remember my voice when I say: I told you so.” Surveying her friends and their facial expressions, seeing Athena gritting her teeth, Celeste rolled her eyes and brought her attention to the towel that prevented their bottoms from touching the dirty bleachers. Disposable. She had plenty of towels at home. “Remember to toss that when you leave. We don’t need some perv trying to steal something our asses touched.” The thought of some gross person collecting their things gave her goosebumps. She had a stalker once but Butler took care of him. All was good in her world and she knew better than to allow someone the satisfaction of following her without her knowing ever again. “Goodbye girls, this has been so… life changing. Not really. It was boring. We really do need to stop talking about boys. They’re not worth our time. I will see you tomorrow, or not.” Her gaze fell on Piper one last time before sauntering away. “God Butler, please tell me something worth my while.” The Triple Crown girls were down to two, leaving Athena and Piper alone together.

The remaining blonde sighed, shaking her head slowly.

Celeste could be… well, a lot.

It was no secret she was the drama queen of the trio, and Thena was always the one to clean up her messes, whether they were intentionally made or not. The girl wordlessly scooted next to Piper, closing the gap that their friend left upon her departure. “You know, she means well.” Athena rationalized, hoping that the girl would know well enough to understand. “It comes from a place of love, she’s just… protective.”

“Well sometimes I just don't want to hear it,” Piper huffed, looking away from Athena so the blonde didn't see her tears of frustration. And after all the work she did to get her makeup back to perfect, wasted. “Does she think I don't know I'm pathetic? I don't need her telling me too. I don't care anymore,” The words slipped out before she could stop them and she bit the inside of her cheek in self reprimand. She was usually better at holding everything together but that brief flame of hope with Adam had been suitably extinguished with the return of Butler's damning presence. Piper could play pretend all she wanted, but she wasn't her own person and she was getting too tired to carry on like she was. She had been reminded of how she used to be and then quickly reminded of why she was no longer that way. She loved her friends dearly, but she was bitter too. Athena would be able to read her like a book if she so much as glanced the blonde's way. Sniffing as an act of pretension just as much as it was to cover the stinging in her eyes, Piper watched the field without taking a single thing in, retreating within herself before the game could even really take off. She brushed invisible dirt off of her pants and dropped her chin into her palm, resting her elbow on her knee. “I only came to the dumb game for you two and now she doesn't even want to be around me, I might as well stop ruining things for everyone and go home too, get my grounding started.”

“No, Piper, don’t say that.” The blonde’s face fell, her brows furrowing at Piper’s devastating confession and the moisture she could see forming in the corners of her eyes. She sighed, brushing a piece of her friend’s hair out of her eyes. “I want you to be here, please stay.” Athena pleaded, hoping that her friend would take a breath and enjoy their evening together (even though it was partially for personal benefit since she didn’t want to watch Benji from the bleachers alone like a loser). “Let’s just forget that conversation even happened for now and we can talk about it later. I want you to have fun tonight, you and me.”

“Okay…” Piper went along with Athena’s request, slumping against her friend’s side like a ragdoll and dropping her head on the blonde’s shoulder, a combination of the effects of her meds and the exhaustion of running all the way back to the school after climbing a cliff finally beginning to breach her awareness with the less judgmental approach Athena took with her. She was so fucking tired, and Thena was comfy. She took a deep, steadying breath and wondered if her best friend had intentionally used the words escape plan when offering Piper a room at the Helmsley home, or if she was just being dramatic and intending to mean for a sleepover. As she watched the players move on the field like battling and racing ants, the brunette realized something. “Thee…why are we watching football? I like, I don’t even know what’s happening.”

“Shhh… don’t worry about it, just enjoy the game.”

BHHS: Limitless

^{Timestamp: Between the Rally and the Game
@LovelyComplex and @Aces Away
Jordyn 'JJ' Jones and Gavriel 'Rye' Shomer}

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“Okay,” Rye sighed dramatically at JJ before pulling the straw into his mouth and taking a big gulp of his rootbeer in order to fortify himself. After his little breakdown in the library, Rye had woken up and pulled himself together in the presence of JJ and Helen before continuing on with the rest of his day like he always did. He and JJ agreed to go to the mall after school and catch up then, as they’d been forced their separate ways for class. They’d had their small talk and general catch up while they were actually shopping, and now that they had their bags of clothes and impulse buys, the two best friends were refueling at a food court table, their takeout boxes spread haphazardly all over the small surface. Before he could continue, his phone screen lit up from the table and he glanced down disgustedly at the unknown number before locking his screen again to ignore it. Rye, who already despised trying to decipher audio over phone calls in the first place, barely ever answered calls from his friends, let alone unknown numbers. He much preferred to text, or to video chat so he could watch the other person’s lips for any words he missed audibly. “Jesus, the scam calls are just horrible around election time, I swear I get one like every hour. JJ, I’m not even legal to vote yet, what could they possibly be needing to tell me?”

Okay, stop it, Rye thought to himself, well aware of his own habit of using any little distraction as, well, distraction. “Sorry, nevermind. You wanted to talk about Jamie and Decky? Or just Decky?”

“Where did we leave off?” Jordyn said absentmindedly, having eaten most of her chicken teriyaki and going straight to her salted pretzel. Tearing a piece off, she thought long and hard before winging it. Hopefully she wasn’t repeating herself from earlier, “So. As you already know, I like Decky and I think today is the day he noticed me. Or well, I hope he noticed me…” Briefly, JJ stumbled over her words, doubting herself and wondering if this was a chase worth pursuing. She was quick to bury the doubt to focus on the conversation at hand. “But before I get lost in talking about him, I should bring up the incident between Jamie and Decky from this morning.” JJ chomped at the piece of pretzel she tore off and chewed for a bit. Chewed in silence. Chewed in thought. Chewed in happiness from the salty goodness.

Once she swallowed, JJ continued, while her eyes were on Rye, her mind was elsewhere, on the events from this morning, “In homeroom, Jamie and Decky were going at it. Throwing shots at each other. I don’t remember who started it, if I’m going to be honest. Jamie was in a mood already. My guess is maybe an argument with AJ? I don’t know who else would give him such a big hickey. But I was able to bring him back and I think I’m going to try to be his friend. That’s beside the point, though. Decky is… AJ’s best friend?” The curly haired girl asked, trying to explain herself as clearly as possible at the same time but her mind was going every which way. “Is that why he doesn’t like Jamie? Is it bad that I want to be friends with someone my crush hates?” She didn’t know if she was giving a report or seeking advice but here she was, lost in translation, hoping Rye understood the scrambled pieces of information in her brain. She was doing her best. It wasn’t usual that JJ was caught up in drama like this but because it involved two people she liked, she wanted to help.

“Decky isn't the type to care who you talk to so long as they don't pose a physical danger to yourself or someone else he cares about. He may not like it, especially with it being Jamie, but he's not the controlling type that would try and tell you you weren't allowed or some shit,” Rye replied honestly to his friend, following her broken flow with the practiced ease only a sibling or best friend could. He popped a fry in his mouth after dragging it through some barbecue sauce and chewed slowly, trying just as hard to piece together a response as she did to get her thoughts out. “But yeah, AJ is one of his best friends so he's super protective of him, as he is with anyone he cares about, but AJ was like…the first person from Beverly Hills to take Decky in and call him friend. So it's more personal and that means Decky like…he kind of fucking hates Jamie, to be honest. It's not my business to tell, but in the vaguest wording let's just say that AJ changed a lot while dating Jamie, and Decky wasn't a fan. Pretty sure most of AJ's closer friends weren't fans but don't take my word for it,” Rye ventured, not wanting to talk on anyone else's thoughts or feelings that he didn't know for sure. His fingers tapped rapidly against the condensation coated cup in between his hands and he looked away from his friend, not really feeling shame but not feeling great when he admitted the next bit. “Decky and I stopped hooking up because he got AJ and I together for a no-strings situation after he and Jamie broke up, since neither of us were doing great and Decky thought we could help each other out more, y'know? We just keep each other from falling off of our prospective edges, and we know there's no romance past friendship and physical intimacy in it, but it's been working well enough. Or I guess it was before AJ and Jamie decided to try hooking up again, but obviously something went down this morning from what you're saying.”

And that was worrying, because AJ had been radio silent all day, meaning whatever happened was bad enough to get the other boy in his own head and stuck there, likely until one of his three best friends pulled him out of it. Jamie having a harsh hickey? Not the weirdest thing out there, especially with AJ, but from what JJ had said of the way the other media-based boy had acted and the fact that AJ ditched school, things hadn't gone well, so Jamie walking away with a physical reminder of whatever went down between them made something sit heavy in Rye's stomach, the small boy forcing himself not to think of any possibilities or spin himself out on self-created stories fabricated from his own past experiences in place of whatever the truth was.

He shook his head, ignoring the phantom fingers of anxiety creeping up on him while dispelling any thoughts of Ronnie and that end of summer party, deciding to focus instead on his friend and the progress of her incredibly slow burned love story. “But what about Decky noticing you, huh? How'd that feel? The moment we've all been waiting for,” he got a little more nervous energy out as he drumrolled on the edge of the table and smiled at JJ. “What actually happened?”

What happened that changed things?

JJ tilted her head when she processed a silent message from Rye, noticing his fingers tap, tap, tappin’. Respectfully she didn’t probe, willing to wait until he was ready to talk about whatever internal battle he was facing that made him anxious. Breaking another piece of pretzel off, she went in a daze, trying to register when exactly the tension started to show. “I had Addie’s lipstick on, he noticed,” JJ started, nibbling on her pretzel piece, stuck in a memory. “I checked up on him and called him Chai, which seemed to get a subtle reaction. Maybe I embarrassed him? But I don’t think it was a bad embarrassment. I would know if he disliked it, so I think he liked it. Iunno… I hope he liked it.” She talked to herself out loud, trying to understand what happened and if it was a good thing or bad thing. “And then Jamie came into the picture.”

There was a pause as her attention went to her tote where Biggie squeaked, demanding some pretzel. She slipped the tiniest of crumbs in the bag and then it hit her and her eyes widened and there was sudden terror in her stomach, as she began to assume the worst. Her own anxiety got the better of her. Her heart raced, sending warm blood to her soft, brown cheeks and she could feel the butterflies fluttering all around inside her. “OH-MY-GOSH-DARN-IT.” Dropping the pretzel from her hand, it falling from her lap to the floor, she started biting her nails. “Biggie… went to the windowsill and…” JJ nervously laughed and continued to nip at her nails. “He’s going to think I’m a HOE, Rye. Why didn’t I think about what I was doing? Why did I do THAT?!”

“Well, he's an actual hoe so I don't think there'd really be anything negative behind that if he did think it. And trust me, you calling him Chai probably made him blush like a schoolgirl inside,” Rye assured almost dismissively as he watched his best friend squirm, attempting to squint past the obstacles now blocking her lips, leaning in both to sip more of his drink through his straw and to hear her better. Tilting his head at JJ once he'd finished, he complained softly, “Jay, dude, the fingers. I’m sorry but I can’t read your lips like that and this food court’s hella loud,” He’d only been able to hear the part of her story that he’d replied to before her fingers had blocked half of his understanding and her words became a garbled, unprocessed mess to his ears. It was like the subtitles suddenly being removed from a foreign movie and you realize you never actually understood the characters’ words at all, and it was frustrating. He liked to lie when asked and say that the tinnitus was just the ringing in his ears and pretend like he didn’t have any actual hearing loss from it yet, but he hadn’t exactly learned ASL super young or joined the ASL club at BHHS out of passion for another language. It was just good planning for his future. “Please choose another anxious fidget for this conversation. And repeat your last sentence after ‘hoe, Rye’.”

JJ was quick to put her palm on her lap, clasping her fingers together. Swaying her feet, heel toe, left to right, right to left, the inexperienced teen, having never dated and only having a feeling of what her sexual orientation was, decided to not repeat the same words but to explain what exactly happened. “I just panicked… sorry.” Not looking Rye in the eyes, flustered and shy, she remembered out loud, “I climbed over his desk to get to Biggie and he might’ve had a nice… scenic… view.”

“Oh!” Rye giggled like an idiot, almost spitting out his latest sip of soda in the process. “He saw your ass! JJ oh my god,” Rye dissolved into a fit of laughter, his previous anxieties dissolving along with it as he held his stomach and shook. “I’m sor-” More laughter, barely contained to be publicly acceptable, and then a deep, steadying breath as he held up his hand, asking his friend for patience as he pulled himself together. When he was ready, he grinned at JJ and held his hand to his chest in apology. “Sorry, seriously. It’s just that I told you like first thing back in sophomore year that he was an ass man and you waited almost two years, until Biggie was pulling a houdini, to finally give him a glance? Dude, JJ, that is the least hoe behavior I’ve ever heard.”

“Oh,” JJ giggled, realizing how silly she was being. A simple misunderstanding in the brain. Classic JJ. Grateful and appreciative for her friend who never failed at discerning her words, the dorky girl gleamed. With a wide kind of smile that showed she was relieved and delighted, she confessed and asked, “Tell me straight, Rye. How out of my element am I? I have never been in a relationship, sexual or romantic. I’d like to think I would love all kinds of people and have room for more than one partner but that’s just because I believe it to be true. I will it into existence. I know my heart and that’s all I have to go off of. Right now? I want Decky. I’ve wanted him for TWO YEARS. Just like you said.”

Sighing and taking a breath, JJ grabbed her cup of water and took a sip. “I worry though,” She admitted. “How would Decky feel when he finds out… I’ve never been with anyone? What if that discredits my understanding of him being polyamorous and what if his partner, Sonny, feels some type of way? I don’t want to replace him. I can never replace him. I am me and I want to add to their love story, while finding my own, maybe with Decky, you know? I think I can make it work I just, don’t know what I’m doing.” She shouldn’t use the love word. They were teens. How did they know what love was? JJ knew, however, if she took a leap of faith, she wouldn’t have the ability to do a one night stand. She could try. Anyone could try. Something told her, in the pit of her stomach, that doing something just for sex wasn’t for her. She needed something more than that. Sex wasn’t needed. When you loved somebody, she’d like to think sex felt good. When you desired someone, the feelings came naturally. Inside and out. When they wanted you back? That was pure magic. Oh man, was she already thinking of having sex with Decky?! She hadn’t even told him her feelings. The fire of passion, coming from a blushing, new bride appeared on JJ’s cheeks as her mind thought of her next interaction with her crush. Not so pure thoughts. Naughty, actually. Embarrassing. Shaking her head, dirty thoughts begone, she pouted, “I want him to like me, Rye.”

The smirk Rye leveled his best friend with was all knowing, telling her that he saw exactly what was going on in that chaotic little brain of hers and that it amused him greatly. He ate another fry as he thought about her words, doing his best to actually think on them first and not just run off at the mouth like he usually does. This was an important conversation. He decided to start with the easiest part.

“So, first off, I know for a fact that Decky does not care how long, short, or nonexistent your list of sexual experiences and partners is. Sex is that dude’s first form of communication and as long as he and the other person or people are all consenting, then fucking will happen. It’s just fact with Decky, he throws himself in physically first because he’s afraid of letting people see his feelings before they’ve seen his body,” Because his body can take hits that his heart can’t. Rye thought back to the difference in the way Decky acted around him between his first night with the strong gearhead versus many interactions later when the taller was finally comfortable enough with him in bed that he took his shirt off. After Rye’s limited reaction and continued acceptance despite all the scars on the other’s torso, especially the one across his left pec and collar bone leading to his shoulder, Decky had been more open with the curly haired boy and that was when their friendship had hit off just as well as their physical relationship. Rye understood to his own extent why Decky was so scared to share such a vulnerable part of him, and it helped the slightly younger boy understand the other’s actions and defenses just a bit more when he’d finally revealed it. Decky knew that if you couldn’t get past the scars littering his body like pieces of the past that refused to be forgotten, then you wouldn’t be able to handle him and everything he holds inside. Sex first just made sense.

That, however, was a situation JJ would have to go through herself, because Rye was on the same boat as the other handful of people trusted enough by Decky to see the scar that weighed him down like the very word branded there. That boat was ‘don’t say a word about it no matter how much is asked or offered’, and Rye would stay there until he died.

The Boaz parents truly were disgusting human beings.

“Secondly, you don’t have to be some kind of sex goddess to be polyamorous, JJ, and you’re allowed to try different labels and see how they fit you. Being queer in any form is not a one way stop, it’s all about the journey on the way to discovery. No one is going to judge you if things change as you get more experience,” Rye never thought he’d be the one giving these lessons, but here they were. God save them all. “If you don’t want to have sex with Decky, tell him that. If you do, tell him that. If you want him to be gentle, or rough, just communicate. Dude does great with up front wording, but he’s only really good at context clues when it comes to reading actual books. Just wait, he’s going to blindside the fuck out of you with his flirting now that you’ve awakened him to your possibility. It’s mostly him like, hotly leaning over you against a wall somewhere while throwing out blunt compliments and innuendos during conversations, but hell if it doesn’t pull you in somehow.” Rye rolled his eyes as he recalled the many times simple flirting from Decky had him weak in the knees because it wasn’t just words when it came to the other jewish boy, it was something about his actual presence and proximity that became intoxicating.

“And Sonny? Don’t get me started on Sonny, dude. You’re fine there, because if Sonny says no to Decky whenever Decky calls him next then you’re not even going to get to the flirting stage. Sonny’s an ornery dick on a good day, and they're both unhealthy in a ton of ways but the way that they treat each other and their relationship isn’t one of them. Decky’s going to be getting Sonny’s permission to ask you out or he’s not, in which case he won’t lead you on or I’d bite him next time I saw him, and not in the kinky way. In the ‘how dare you try and play with my bestie’ feral gremlin kinda way, y’know?” Rye was a healer, not a fighter, sue him. “Plus, you know, PJ would slaughter him, probably DJ too at the very least, and he wouldn’t dare raise a hand to defend himself against them because he’d know he deserves it.” Rye finally took a breath from his informative assurances and took another sip of his drink, ignoring the now cold food before him with a small frown, realizing he hadn’t had much more than his fries before he let it all cool too much to eat, not even a bite taken from his chicken tenders. Oh well, JJ was more important. He leaned onto his crossed arms, elbows resting on the unbalanced and wobbly tabletop, and addressed the final issue that he recalled from her ramble.

“We all already knew he liked you, JJ, and now he finally realizes it too. Don’t start doubting yourself now, yeah? You’ve waited, you’ve played it safe, but safety’s about to be off, babe. Now’s the time to buckle up for the ride.”

Internally noting the advice her friend was giving her, JJ looked around them, at those sitting in the food court and the passersby. She never expected her crush would bear fruit but now Decky saw her and he wanted her, at least physically. That was a good thing and yet, even when her friend told her to stop doubting herself, she found herself more worried than usual. Turning back to him, catching his kind, brown eyes, while her gaze was packed with concern, love and respect, Jordyn worried, “And you’re okay with this?” Rye deserved love more than anyone she knew and she would hate if he was burying his feelings for Decky because he knew how she felt. All he had to do was say the word and she’d shut down any romantic or sexual aspects she had with the mechanic. “I get it, you’re giving me advice and all and I know you’re always rooting for me but as your friend, I want to know— no. I need to know that my actions won’t hurt you.”

Extending her legs from under the table, she grabbed a hold of one of Rye’s legs. Instead of holding hands, she held his leg (minimal mess since she didn’t want to reach over her food). “Regardless of how I feel, Gavriel,” JJ continued. “You are my best friend and you come first.” There was extra emphasis on the last part, wanting him to know that he was her priority and no relationship would pull them apart. No matter what, they had each other. “You know so much about Decky, you know that right? And the last thing I want on my conscience is something like I took what makes you happy away from you. I know you have other lovers, you tell me everything, but you can’t deny what you have with Decky is special.”

“You’re right, I’ve never denied that we had something special, but what’s between Decky and I, the important part? I don’t think it’s that kind of love, Jay,” Rye imparted, eyes leaving her face and skittering across the crowd without actually taking any of the faces in. You tell me everything. That was only partially true. He hadn't told her what happened with Ronnell aside from the barebones, and absolutely nothing about what happened once the firefighter had gotten upset with Rye. He didn't lie to JJ, he just didn't give her an in depth explanation. The only people that actually know what happened there were Helen and Decky, who knew everything, and to a lesser extent of knowledge, Monarch, Sin, and AJ. Well, maybe Monarch knew more than she let on, but she didn't get the information from Rye.

Anxious fingers found his napkin and began to fray it before tearing off a tiny piece at a time and balling it up, only to toss it into his box of unfinished food that now served as the base for their table’s trash before going back for another round. Of course what he had with Decky was special, the two boys didn’t just share touch as a love language, they also shared a culture, one that encouraged strong ties amidst its tribe and fostered deeper connection and conversation with every encouraged question. Rye was a positive connection to the culture his upbringing with his parents withheld from him, and Decky and his family had been the community and conversations that Rye missed from home. There was just something different about the commiseration of having transferred to a place where even the people at your synagogue were completely caught up in the frivolity and shallow depths of the world that they drowned themselves in. Decky had been a breath of fresh air that hadn’t come around until almost a year into Rye’s own acclimation to California.

To top all of that off, Decky was far too much like Rye’s childhood friend from the start, and the second the shorter boy had seen those haunted mahogany eyes that constantly scanned the world for threats, he’d been drawn to him. His mother called it his healer’s heart, and he never denied it. He wasn’t there to fix people, just to show them that they were seen and accepted as they were, and if that love sent them on a road to healing then all the better, but if that person stayed the same? Rye saw them. He’d always see them. When he’d found out Decky was AJ’s friend, Rye had used his flirtatious connection with the king gearhead to ‘run’ into Decky at the next party while he’d been partying with their mutual connection.

“We’re great as we are. I liked sleeping with him but it was never going to be anything more than a deep friendship, Jay. He’s too much li-” Rye froze, fingers clenching around the tattered remnants of his napkin and the leg in contact with JJ’s wrapped desperately against her limb to ground himself. Memories rose unwanted in his mind like a sudden swell in shallow waters, threatening to engulf his mind and drag him away in the undertow. “He’s too much like Toby, having him as a friend is perfect, but I don’t think I'd be able to love him in an actual relationship without seeing someone else in his place sometimes, and that’s not fair. I wouldn’t be good for him. I don’t know if I’d be good for anyone, but especially not Decky. I love him too much to ever even try that with him, and he knows that. It’s why it was so easy for us to stop when AJ and I started. You’re different from what he knows, but trust me when I say that’s a good thing. I never would have encouraged you if I wasn’t completely secure in my place in this whole thing.”

There was a sigh of relief after hearing Rye’s words. JJ was new to all this relationship stuff. Truth be told, out of all her sisters, including her step sisters, only Addie had the most experience in this department. That said a lot since the girl loved sex and loved love. She was able to let go of any restraints of the social constructs of sexual orientation, identity and gender, as well as the ideologies of sex and romance to get herself involved in chasing a feeling. A feeling of ecstacy. Not even Dallas, their older sister by a year, actively pursued a relationship, content with her pursuit to visit the planets in the galactic skies. Jordyn was out of her element and she hoped her personality alone could get Decky to see her for more than a one night stand but only time could tell. She would never know unless she took the risk. It was a little scary and nothing usually scared her, aside from her babies dying one day. To be vulnerable, completely to someone, as if they were family to her, allowing them inside her heart and telling them things that she doesn’t even tell her twin… a scary thought but not scary enough to hold her back. Her desire outweighed her fear and she knew deep down. She wanted Decky, like really, really, really wanted him. “I hope he likes my different. I’m a little weirdo, I know that… different could be good, like you said. I want my different to be good for him.”

As JJ reached to take a sip of her drink, contemplating her thoughts and how Mordechai would pursue her, Rye’s phone vibrated in his pocket. This time it was shorter, informing him that it was a text.

“I think it will be. If not, we riot,” Rye once more assured his best friend, this time with a joke, while reaching into his pocket and pulling his phone out to check who texted him. “Sorry, one sec.”

FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER
I realized calling you was definitely weird. AJ gave me your number. I wanted to see if you were okay. Also please bear with me, I don’t like to text… call me? If you’re comfortable with it. If not, can we talk tomorrow? At the dance? If not, that’s fine too. Alright, going to shut up now. Talk later.

Another text came in.

FROM: UNKNOWN NUMBER
It’s Niles, by the way.

Rye stared at his phone screen, blinking rapidly as he processed the words before him, fingers on his free hand tapping rapidly against his thumb in a repetitive and soothing pattern. “It…it's Niles,” He muttered for JJ's sake as hope began to bloom in his chest. Niles asked AJ for his number. Niles had gone out of his way to get Rye’s number and message him, which meant Rye hadn't completely and utterly fucked up this morning in front of the library.

The way that Niles texted was nowhere near the way that Niles spoke, and Rye actually found himself grateful for that, if only because without his own anxiety from standing in front of his crush, Rye was now privy to a bit of Niles’ own. He was nervous. Niles was nervous, and tried to immediately cover all his bases so that he didn't have to field several questions in response. Was Niles nervous about texting Rye? Or was it texting in general that made him come off as a bit more awkward and anxious than he is in person? Rye’s free hand went from finger tapping to desperately swirling his earbud cord around the digits in a constant flow of motion as his thoughts ran off without him.

“JJ, it's Niles,” Rye repeated, this time with a bit of hopeful panic in his tone. He shoved the device over to his friend so she could also read the message. “What do I say? What if I tell him I don't like phone calls and he gets upset with me?” Rye didn't hide that he had his hearing disorder, he just didn't advertise. The most you get when you try to explain that you constantly have your own version of a tinny dial tone constantly reverberating through your auditory senses was either confusion then well intentioned louder speech, straight up denial, or the classic ‘my ears have rang before, it can't be that bad,’. As if a single or multiple infinitesimal moments of your life where you hear a slight change of pitch was comparable to never once being able to understand the concept of true silence. As if it was the same thing to have ringing triggered by the clanking of ceramic and metal pieces together as it was to have your audio processing and understanding completely overwhelmed and blocked off by the incessant shrill siren that was so loud it caused nausea.

Assessing the texts, staying calm (although internally she was excited for her friend), JJ took what she knew of Rye and what she was gathering of Niles from the text alone and processed the information accordingly. Before she gave any advice though, she noticed the voicemail. “Maybe we should check the voicemail he left out first and that could help you decide? Looks like he is willing to text even if he seems anxious as heck. This is crazy.” The gremlin girl said in disbelief. “This is cool Niles? The one that’s quiet and reading his books? The one that sleeps under the tree with little to no care in the world? The one that put you in a straight up panic attack this morning?” JJ couldn’t believe it. The words coming from this other person didn’t match the face but then again, Niles was one of the smart students that kept to himself. She didn’t really know him. Not like Kate and Kim did. “Do you want me to listen to it? Or we can transcribe it into words?”

“Honestly I put myself into a panic attack, but yeah, that Niles. Transcribe it, please,” Rye answered, watching his best friend press the required button in the voicemail app and then press play once the words had finally popped up on the screen. As he listened to Niles’ voice, his eyes locked onto the short paragraph of text.

VM: Hey Rye. Niles here. Before you ask, AJ gave me your number. I… want to make sure I didn’t hurt you in any way by leaving the way I did. If you want to talk about it, this is my number. Text me, call me…video chat me, whatever makes you comfortable.*clears throat* Sorry if I upset you. I wasn’t really thinking… but that’s a conversation we can have when we talk. I’m here when you need me. *Click*

In his tone, it was controlled. All his emotions were contained. The only part that showed a sudden drop in uncertainty was when he mentioned video chatting, as if that wasn’t something he did often, if at all. He was willing to adjust for Rye, if that made the other boy comfortable. He spoke genuine and from the heart, and although it was hard to notice, the long pauses between words showed how careful Niles was trying to be, having thought about what he’d say long before he made the call. While the speech to text didn’t convey the tone, it certainly showed when Niles took breaths and breaks. This was a sensitive matter and if the text wasn’t revealing enough, the voicemail showed that Niles, like Rye, spent the whole day thinking about this morning and whether he fucked up. It was eye opening to say the least.

“Holy shit,” Rye breathed in disbelief, his heart beating just a bit too fast and his face quickly taking on a red hue as the words sunk in. The idea that Niles had been worried about him, had been thinking about him, should not have been as mind blowing as it was for the anxious boy. But it wasn't just thinking about him that got Rye, it was the fact that Niles wanted to check up on him, must have realized that the way he headed off after their conversation had been the wrong move for someone like Rye. It was the fact that he was willing to forgo his preference of mobile interaction in order to make it easier for Rye, likely without even really knowing why Rye had his own preference in the first place. Niles was seeing Rye, and he wasn't trying to look away.

Shaking fingers saved Niles phone number to a new contact, simply under the other boy's name instead of a nickname or pun like he usually does. When his brain wasn't broken from the way Niles spoke and the mix of excitement and nerves for their next interaction, he'd be able to think of a good one. Then, he returned to his messages and took a deep breath before typing and sending off his response.

To: Niles 😳
Hey, thanks for reaching out!
I don't do phone calls well so between text or video call
Whichever of those is better for you
Or if you want to wait for the dance that's fine too.
Oh!
And you don't need to apologize, but thank you

Rye stared at his screen as his finger hovered over the send button, second guessing himself before he'd even gotten out the gate. Silence stretched between the two friends until Rye looked back up to JJ for the support he needed to click send.

JJ shook his leg that she held onto with her feet. He would never know until he did it. What ifs, if things went differently, could be realities. This was Rye’s chance to make Niles a reality in his life, just like she was making Decky more and more an integrated part of her life. “Dooooo it. You got this. It isn’t like he’s going to say no. He reached out to you. Remember.”

“Yeah…I mean, yeah! Yeah you’re right,” Rye swallowed harshly before smashing his finger down on his screen. No going back now. He looked up to JJ for only a second, intent on using her to distract him until Niles replied, but his phone vibrated mere moments later.

From: Niles 😳
Video call tonight? I need to pick up my sisters from work, then we need to figure out dinner. But afterwards, I’ll be available. Does 8:30 work for you?

At this point, Jordyn was wiggling her eyebrows as she wore a devilish smirk. This was going smooth, better than smooth. Amazing! Maybe Niles wasn’t straight and maybe he did like her friend. Or maybe he was a good guy worried about the impression he left off. Whichever it was, it didn’t matter! Rye was making progress and soon enough he’d be on everyday talking terms with his crush, outside of the library. Teasingly, JJ made a heart with her hands and danced in her seat. “♪ Niles and Rye sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G. ♫”

“Oh yeah? Two can play at that,” Rye laughed with a blush high on his cheeks before giving her a devilish grin and going for the one shot kill. “♪ Decky and JJ down by the creek, F-U-C-K-I-N-G. ♫”

“Stoppppppp!” JJ’s genuine sweetness and innocence went from her heart to her own cheeks, immediately bringing her legs back from under the table. Decidedly, she retreated from the conversation by cleaning up the table. “Look who has a date tonight, not me!” She stuck her tongue out, not taking a cheap shot but still poking fun at him. Grabbing their trays, she rushed to the trash. Her bags, one tote with a Biggie mouse, were by her seat which meant she’d come back but only after she brushed off the embarrassment. The idea of sex made her nervous and it showed. Once she settled her heart, from the sudden change in pace, and calmed the butterflies in her stomach, she’d come back but for now Rye could sit in his own emotions, thinking about Niles. He deserved it.

“Aww man, too far,” Rye chided himself when JJ made her retreat while also being well aware that she was getting back at him in her own way when she didn’t come back immediately. Determined to apologize for pushing her boundary when she returned, Rye took his punishment on the chin and focused on forming a text back to Niles and sending it without her proofreading or encouragement. Fair’s fair. Leg bouncing up and down erratically, Rye’s fingers slowly tapped the screen as he thought far too much on a response that could have been a simple sure. Finally, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes as he hit send, only opening one back up to make sure he had succeeded and it had been sent off to his crush.

To: Niles 😳
Yeah, totally! 😁I’ll be around, so just hit me up!
Thanks again for reaching out 👍
Talk soon! 👋

“...You desperate motherfucker,” Rye groaned to himself after rereading the sent texts, dropping his forehead onto his hands and making the whole table shake in the process. Yeah, he used emojis a lot but one for each line was a bit embarrassing even for him, and now all he could think about were the shitty MLM spam messages that tended to read much the same way.

See what happens when he’s left alone? This is why he needed his best friend!

BHHS: Limitless

Timestamp: Immediately after the Pep Rally and school
Location: BHHS Parking lot
Samyan and Leila
@Aces Away and @Fabricant451

____________________________________________________________________

Samyan stared at the files on their phone, scrolling up and down repeatedly through the songs they’d created while thinking about the muse currently on her way to Yani’s very spot. They leaned back on the grill of their van to avoid pacing and wound up tapping the fingers of their free hand together instead. That traitorous hand was shoved into their jacket pocket in punishment and the smaller of the Fujimori siblings scanned the lot for Leila Webb, who had earlier agreed to Samyan’s offer of experiencing a song in their van after school. Which one should Yani show her? They had been inspired to create both entire songs and short tracks almost every time that they had the pleasure of encountering the soft girl, from first realization of her to last week after talking about her tik tok account, Melodic Moments, of which Yani was an enthusiastic supporter and follower. There were so many different tunes they could show her to set the tone for their question, but even as Yani stared at their phone screen they felt like there was really only one option. The first option. After all, aren’t you supposed to start at the beginning?

It was a wonderful song that kept the memory of that day alive and crisp within Samyan’s recollection. The slow indie build of walking oblivious through the hallway while talking to Kisho that crescendos until suddenly, as their shoulders collided while walking in opposite directions, the beat drops as Samyan’s heart did while apologizing and looking into wistful dark brown eyes that sung of untold stories and a soul scrabbling to be seen in a world that only believes what it hears. The yearning pull on violin strings puts a warm and smooth tone into an otherwise adventurous deep bass that takes up the foreground. It was a song that poured directly from their heart in a way they couldn’t contain, and perhaps to others it would sound messy, but Samyan was hoping that what they’ve learned and observed of Leila was true, and the dark haired beauty would be able to discern the meaning and feeling within the notes. Samyan was not subtle, but in the case of their flirting Leila was not perceptive, so the DJ and producer hoped that their shared love of music could help bridge the gap in notice just enough that Yani could finally step over it and ask the question they’ve wanted to since partway through junior year.

When Yani greeted her in homeroom, Leila initially thought it was just simple courtesy; that was, of course, before the question of free time was brought up and ever since the morning, Leila had found it increasingly difficult to focus on the school day. Her head was drowning in the ocean of hypotheticals and thoughts and the more she swam in that maelstrom the more the little voice in her head became clearer and clearer. Samyan Fujimori wants to talk to me. It wasn’t the talking part that had Leila wondering what about, why it couldn’t be done in the classroom or at lunch, she talked to people daily, often without even wanting to; no, it was the fact that Samyan Fujimori went out of their way to initiate further conversation. Leila had once spotted Yani doing what Leila assumed to be humming in the back of class one day, totally by accident. At the time, Leila was handing in a test she finished early and on the way back to her desk, there was Yani, in the back, moving in such a subtle way that most probably wouldn’t notice. But Leila did. Because Leila moved that way every day, to the unwritten notes of music singing in her head.

That hadn’t even been the first time Leila had seen Yani, just one of the times that Leila remembered vividly. The first time Leila learned who Yani was, other than ‘that person in class with the cool shaved part of their head’, she admired that confidence from afar. Never in her wildest thoughts did Leila ever think the admiration might be mutual. Throughout the day, Leila shook her head when that particular thought of mutual admiration breached the surface. She was assuming. Reading too much into an innocent invitation. This was probably some music club business, to get Leila to attend more often and of course she would…but Webb-Heads needed her…

And yet when the final bell rang, Leila walked with a briskness that she never did when she went from school to work. Was she smiling? Probably. Maybe. She couldn’t tell. Was that nervousness or excitement that made every step she took seem equal parts heavy and weightless? Yani had asked for five minutes and Leila would have given them fifty. In the parking lot, Leila spotted Yani leaning against their van and fuck, how could someone be so effortlessly cool while leaning? With a deep breath to keep navigating the turbulent waters of her mind in an effort to still them, Leila approached Yani and waved to get their attention, her own expression doing its best to remain collected even as the corners of her lips were twitching just enough for someone to know that internally she was giddy. ”Hey…hi!” The same words Yani had opened with this morning, only reversed.

Yani grinned excitedly when Leila appeared before them, taking in the girl's own happy twitch of her lips with great hope. She looked just as gorgeous as she had this morning, but the small smile that threatened to break across her honey almond skin had her shining, eyes glowing bright like light through fresh violin rosin. This girl was sunlight and song, rainbows and rhythm, vitality and verse. Yani could feel their heart in their throat just staring at the golden cast the sun sent over her earthen eyes, getting lost in the depth with hardly any will to escape. Leila was all those things and more, and Yani was hoping they could be the introduction to the ‘love’ part of the lyrics that Leila already has down herself.

They'd settle for just being allowed to keep being a part of her life after this.

“Leila! I am so excited you came,” Yani exclaimed once they'd managed to come up for air out of the intoxicating pools of warmth that were Leila Webb’s brown eyes. Their hand went out to touch the girl's elbow, ever the tactile being, but left the girl's hands free so she didn't feel like Samyan was suddenly grabbing her. Hitting the remote start on the key in their pocket, the violinist guided her to the side of the van where the door had been left open to reveal the setup within. It would have been much harder to get in through the back door, given the raised bed and storage area that had been built into the space for when Yani was traveling for shows. Above that bed, however, was the control system for the speakers and subwoofer that they'd had fitted throughout the vehicle. Yani spent many nights with their legs dangling off the side of the mattress, listening to their latest mix while fucking with the different settings to try and find out what was missing. It was their creative space, a piece of them that was only shared with those who have encouraged Yani's affinities and traveled with them for gigs, but they were opening it up to Leila in the hopes that the girl would soon become one of those people as well.

Yani was used to taking the first step before they'd even realized they lifted their foot, used to blazing trails before they even knew one was needed, it was Kisho that stopped and thought of consequences and attempted- though often in vain- to be the voice of calm and reason. Their brother was a man of calm and restraint but only as a cover for the impulsive hothead that used to tackle and beat bullies back when they still lived in Japan. As the one that will be inheriting the bulk of the company and who will become its face, that attitude couldn't slide, and their brother had gotten another type of tutor added to his weekly schedule just to reign in his temper. He'd had to learn to be calm and still like a secluded pond while Samyan had coursed through life like a raging river, unburdened by anything more than the knowledge that they would be helping their brother but not beholden to the business in the same way as he.

Now though, as they stepped up into the living space of their van and held their hand out to Leila to help give her a boost up and further into their life, they wondered if maybe slowing down to think about things was good even outside of business, despite how much their brother had despised his early lessons. Because going slow with Leila has led to this moment. Because slowing down right now gave them more time to admire the gifted sight in front of them as Leila looked up to catch their gaze once more, and Samyan would do anything to keep that picture forever in their mind, even calming the torrents of energy that made them them just so they could absorb the current moment with a higher level of awareness. If Samyan’s mind was a coursing river, Leila gave them enough peace and calm for it to settle into a babbling brook, and they found themselves in love with the new melodies they could find there.

“Please, come in, make yourself at home.” In my van, in my life, in my heart where you've already carved out a place for yourself without even knowing. Please, come in and stay.

In any other instance Leila would have been in awe of the van’s interior; the subwoofers alone looked as if they would produce a bass so heavy that it would rattle the bones and that was before getting into the other audio enhancing devices found throughout just the initial glimpse from outside. But Yani touched Leila’s elbow and that was all Leila could focus on. It was brief and it was probably just out of reflex - some people were touchers, but that brief interaction was like a lifesaver on the rough waters of Leila’s mind. It kept her from getting washed away in the addicting verbal demons of doubt and uncertainty, kept her afloat with the lingering thought that she wouldn’t have been invited here, to this audio playground of a van, if it was under some sinister pretense.

Without thinking, Leila took the offered hand and it was only after taking the first step to the interior that a crimson tint was forming on her cheeks as she realized her hand was having difficulty removing itself from Yani’s palm. Was that the first time Leila had held hands, even if it was for a radically different context than most people would assume? Yes. Did she want to do it again? Yes. Did she sheepishly look away from Yani’s eyes when their eyes met, thus adding to the blush? Yes. Would she do it over if she had the chance? Absolutely not. In her mind, this would be the kind of scenario a music video to a tween song would feature and that thought made Leila crack a smile; that the smile came immediately after a handhold was a wonderful turn of fate. “Whoa…this…is yours?” Leila slowly spun, eyes looking at the speakers, the subwoofers, the mattress; when Yani said to make herself at home…she didn’t know it was meant so literally. “You should invite me here more often. This…it’s amazing.” Her proclamation coincided with her returning her gaze and attention to Yani, with a smile in her eyes and a little open mouthed wonder.

”Should I…sit there?” She pointed to the mattress, unsure of what proper protocol was in a van like this. If she needed to, she’d sit on the floor and be happy to do it.

Invite you more often? I don't even want you to leave. Leila Webb truly had no idea the power she had over Samyan Fujimori, nor the world that that opened up for her. The Fujimori family was not one for trivial interests, they either found passions that they dominated the field in or they didn't call them passions at all. They were hardworking, dedicated, determined, and of a bloodline that built the foundation of their company itself with torn hands leaking life into the concrete long before it ever saw a pressed business suit or a walk in closet. A Fujimori knew what they wanted, and what was wanted was never worth simply taking. No, if you wanted something, you worked hard for it, and just like many things in their life so far, Yani was putting in the work in order to show Leila that she was worth it, not just expecting her to return the affection because of their Family name and status.

“Yes, ah, please!” Yani offered as they came out of their enamored haze, fingers twitching uselessly at their leg with nothing to hold now. Leila’s hand had been soft, gentle, and warm, sending the same blush that reached her cheeks thrumming all the way into Yani’s own as heat spread from their point of contact. They'd almost been knocked over when the other looked away and smiled, turning in a circle to take in all that she could of Yani’s life before settling again and asking her question. The producer hoped that they weren't too slack jawed by the time the girl had landed her eyes on them again. They pointed to the control box in the cabinet while grabbing their phone out with their other hand, finding the song with the knowledge that the Bluetooth was already connected.

“Best place to be for sound and editing, and super comfortable, man!” they closed the door of the van but quickly passed Leila before she could sit down and kneeled on the bed themselves in order to reach the two custom windows on the van’s back doors. Stretching across the mattress with one hand down for balance, they threw the lock levers at the bottom off and pushed the windows out until the rod’s joints engaged and held them up on their own, giving the two inside both airflow and privacy. They turned back to Leila with a grin while sitting on the foot of the bed, leaving the head to her so she was closest to the controls.

“Please,” They said a second time, tapping the mattress in invitation while unzipping and kicking off their boots in order to sit on crossed legs. “Change the settings however you wish. Loud, quiet, heavy on the bass, all is fine! This is all meant to be for you to experience, I can even play a sample of something just so you can get the settings to how you like.”

The last time anyone had done something that was meant for Leila was…well, never. Her parents opened Webb-Heads for them, it just happened that Leila took to the place well as an employee but other than that it often felt that life was taking away from Leila above anything else. She wondered how many people other than their brother were given entry into Yani’s sanctum of a van and Leila promptly shook her head to prevent that thought from getting its hooks into her brain. That didn’t matter. What mattered was that Yani invited her here and Leila was not going to take that for granted. The music lover never really got to hang out with people in a one on one instance like this; most of the time she was with her group of friends or co-workers or otherwise by herself, which wasn’t such a bad arrangement considering the first months after her hearing issues she was convinced she’d never have a regular social life again. Right now, Leila just hoped she wasn’t going to do anything wrong or, worse, embarrassing, but this was uncharted territory for Leila.

She’d never been alone with a person that she wanted to steal glances at before.

“It would be a shame not to try those woofers.” Leila looked at the control box, careful not to mindlessly adjust knobs and settings lest the music about to be played take her back to the dark place of her youth. “I think bass is the most important part of a song. It’s like…the foundation, the bridge that links melody and harmony and rhythm, and it’s also so…underappreciated, you know?” Leila had a buoyant curl to her smile as she spoke and slightly adjusted the knob marked with bass. “Sometimes I have to turn it up so it shakes the bones. But it’s a balance, too much and it overpowers the rest.Sorry.” Leila could’ve gone on. At work, she had a bad habit of going off on tangents about music, bands, artists, and it took someone like Dani Jones to speak up and cut her off. Yani probably already knew stuff like this, they had a killer sound set up in their van, the last thing they needed was for some audibly impaired music nerd to bore them. “I didn’t mean to ramble. Go ahead and play something, I’ve been looking forward to it all day.”

As she sat on the mattress, Leila noticed Yani’s boots being removed and she had the briefest question. Was she supposed to take her shoes off too? “Do I need to..with the shoes? I will if you need me to or want me to. Whatever the rules are, this is your space, I wanna respect it”

“If you do not mind, yes, please remove them,” Yani answered warmly, thankful the other audiophile had asked. They were well enough used to the fact that people didn’t often think about their shoes coming off in other people’s spaces, and had simply decided not to say anything and switch out the sheets once they got home. They were on this mattress far too often to want to risk letting it get too dirty anyway, but it seemed Leila was even more conscientious than Yani had already known. Getting lost in Leila’s actions was quickly becoming a problem in the small space, because Yani couldn’t keep their eyes off of the girl and the way she restrained her own enthusiasm, as though it needed to be hidden instead of celebrated and praised. Who cared if Yani knew everything Leila was saying? They’d never heard it from her lips, and it was being listened to like a devout to gospel. “And please, do not apologize to me for your passion, I enjoy it.”

They looked down at their phone then, clicking play on the song and doing their best not to openly stare at Leila in hopes of seeing every little reaction. “I started this after we ran into each other in the halls,” they explained before anything truly began. “By the time I saw you next, I had completed this one, but another popped into my head from that meeting that I had to work on. And so on, and so on, but this was the first,” As the audio began to pour into the van around them, the vibration coming in slow and building, they stopped talking so that Leila could focus on their creation, but they let the girl see a moment of the nervous smile that only seemed to cross their face when thinking of the beauty before them.

Her passion. She’d never heard her love of music referred to as such before and she liked the way it sounded, especially from Yani’s lips. They just had a way of making things sound…wonderful, to put it lightly. Leila offered only a brief apologetic nod before her shoes joined the boots in being removed from her person just in time for the music to begin. The slow intro that sounded familiar in the best ways, like a comforting meal from your favorite restaurant, which had Leila smiling - it was like one of the songs she often danced her way into school with. Did they say this was because we ran into each other? Her mind reflecting on the words Yani said, dismissing them as a trick of the ear, but secretly wondering how true it was and how badly she wished it to be.

“The crescendo…the way it leads to the drop and bows in tandem with the violin…it’s super layered. There are artists with albums out there that don’t have this depth of sound.” Leila tried not to speak over the music. To do so would disrespect the artist, who was seated next to her, and the music itself. As the song went on, Leila allowed Yani into the world only Leila knew - the world that Leila entered when she listened to music tickling over every synapse of the brain. She began to move. First her head, then her shoulders, arms, torso; if she were standing she would have twirled, taken a step back, skipped forward, all in time with the beat and signatures. Her enjoyment was anything but subtle, the groove of her body, the way her lips were following along to the beat as if she were creating lyrics from the soundscape, the look of genuine amazement sparkling in her eyes. As the song reached its climax and headed towards the outro, Leila had a single thought. I bet Yani could describe the color red to me.

When the song ended and Leila fell back down to earth, she turned her head towards Yani and half smiled, half laughed at her the way someone did when words couldn’t describe the excitement of what they just felt. “That song felt…personal, in like a raw, passionate way. What…” Leila hesitated a moment as the high of the song was mellowing, this question could well turn the conversation down a road leading to an awkward collision…but she had to know. “What did you mean…that it was when we ran into each other? Do you mean…” Leila pointed to Yani and then to herself.

Yani was left staring like they’d tried not to the entire way through the song as Leila enchanted them with the way she moved and flowed to the music, experiencing the song in a way that sent pride and joy soaring through Yani’s nerves like an electric current. No matter how many times they thought it, the fact continued to remain: the celestial being of signals and songs before them was beautiful. When she’d settled and the song had ended, when she’d asked her question, Yani couldn’t help the emphatic nod that answered her almost immediately, leaning forward with their arms supporting them between their space. She’d felt it. She’d understood.

“Yes! I don’t know what it was exactly,” Yani began, hoping that this being a private space meant their father would forgive them for letting their speech relax. “I saw you that day and it put a song in my heart, every time we speak another’s added and I can’t get you out of my head. I’ve been flirting with you since last year though and you didn’t seem receptive, but with the dance tomorrow I didn’t want to miss my chance to-” Yani stopped themselves mid ramble, realizing that somewhere during their speech they’d put a hand on Leila’s knee and they retracted it with a shamed blush. They weren’t even trying to be forward, it was just in their nature to be in contact with someone as they spoke, be it a light tough to the arm or a grazing of knees or legs. It just made sense to be touching someone when you were engaged. They cleared their throat, looking away for only a moment before returning their gaze to the girl across from them. “Sorry, that wasn’t me trying to- anyway, I wanted to ask you and this seemed the best way,” Yani ran a hand through their hair and smiled at Leila, a bit of nerves showing through as they asked. “Would you like to go to the dance with me? And, if that works out well, perhaps be willing to be my girlfriend after?”

In the moment, Leila hadn’t even realized there was a brief encounter between hand and knee but even if she had been aware there would not have been any part of her that would have minded. Not when hearing that Yani wrote a song about her or that Leila inspired artistic thoughts. Leila’s mind tried to think back on the past year to conversations with Yani, brief or otherwise, of saying “hey” in the halls or trading laughter at little jokes or comments. Had she been oblivious to flirting? Or had she just assumed there was no way someone like Samyan Fujimori could be interested in any form of relationship with Leila other than a friendly one? For as much as she had a normal social life, part of her still believed that the little devices on and in her ears would be a barrier to entry in the dating world.

There had been times during the previous year where Leila had given a glance after exchanging pleasantries with Yani; she just never assumed the same could be true. That she could inspire glances, songs, flirting. Leila knew what she wanted to say but wondered how best to say it. She always preferred when people spoke to her face to face - much easier to read lips when words were too muted to detect but looking at Yani was suddenly difficult because their eyes were doing more than just being pretty, especially when they were smiling. How had Leila never noticed Yani’s eyes before? Or their eyebrows? In the belief that they were just effortlessly cool, only now did she realize they were just as vulnerable to nerves and awkwardness as everyone else. And that only made Leila think even more highly of them.

“I would…I would love to go to the dance with you.” That hadn’t even been on the list of possibilities in her mind. Her fingers found a small part of her jeans and gave the denim a tiny pinch. Internally, she was remembering the brief moment where the two of them held hands. It was minutes ago but that might as well have been another lifetime now. “And…” Leila wasn’t one to make the first move, but she wanted nothing more than to have Yani’s hand on her knee again; she’d settle for the mirrored smile the both of them no doubt had. “I’d really like to be your girlfriend even if it turns out we can’t dance at all.”

“Really?” Yani asked, an excited grin overtaking their features and causing their nose and eyes to scrunch up. “Fantastic!” Their hand, once done with an enthusiastic clap, fell once more to Leila’s leg but this time stayed there with the knowledge that the other was receptive to the affection. “I’ll pick you up and bring flowers, I promise, and we can listen to whatever you want to listen to on the way to the dance,” They reached out and gently pushed a strand of hair away from Leila’s face, not wanting anything to block those eyes or that smile now that they could take it all in unrestrained. Their hand fell to a rest at the girl's jaw and Samyan couldn’t help the small glance down at her lips, so inviting stretched out into her own smile. Maybe this was too much, maybe it was too forward because Leila literally just said yes but Samyan has been waiting for this moment for months. Biting their own lip, Samyan leaned forward a bit and asked, “I’m sorry if this is too much, but can I kiss you?”

She didn’t say it, but Leila would have been just as happy listening to nothing on the way to the dance simply because the excitement of both having a date and who said date was was more harmonious than even her favorite songs. The flowers were definitely nice, though; she was looking forward to those but even if all they had to offer was sitting on a bench and listening to something on a phone speaker in lieu of a dancing date, Leila would still be over the moon. Yani’s second question was answered with a nod, but Leila knew she could do better. “It’s not too much. It’s perfect.” The volume of Leila’s voice went low, just above a whisper, and her hand found Yani’s on her own leg, a silent reminder to the both of them that this wasn’t a shared dream no matter how it seemed like one coming true. Her jaw was quivering under Yani’s touch, an excited, nervous, heart-pumping-overtime quiver as Leila leaned forward, awaiting Yani to take the reins from there.

Not needing any more allowance, Yani surged forward and captured Leila’s lips in their own, gentle despite the excitement and passion boiling just beneath the surface. This didn’t need to be crazy, this was their hello kiss, this was for them to get to know each other past the level they were already at and Yani didn’t want Leila to only know them as passion, they wanted her to know them as gentle comfort as well. They brushed their thumb over her cheek and jaw while tilting their head just so in order to deepen the kiss the slightest bit before finally pulling away for breath, hand dropping to the girl’s shoulder. Euphoria swam across their senses as they realized that what they’d wanted all this time had finally come true, that their worries had been unfounded, and Yani licked their lips while staring at Leila with a heavy gaze.

“You, you are going to be so good for me and so bad for me at the same time,” They kissed her again, slower this time, savoring her lips as they savored her presence and soaking it all in. Their voice was equally low as Leila’s when they said, “I thought I had focus problems before, but now I really don’t think I’ll be able to stop thinking of you.”

One thing was abundantly clear for Leila when the kiss broke: she wanted to do that again. When their lips met each other in a sweet embrace, for Leila the van ceased to be grounded on Earth. There was a weightlessness she felt like gravity had been reduced and the only thing keeping her from floating off into the unknown was Yani’s lips. If it had been Leila’s first kiss, she hid it well even while letting Yani take the lead; Leila found her thumb tracing a pattern on the top of Yani’s leg-touching hand while her other hand found its stability and comfort on Yani’s leg, those fingers giving a gentle squeeze simply to keep from shaking back and forth while the electric jolt surged through her body. Her earlier notion of Yani’s touch keeping her from getting swept away felt so backwards now.

Leila wanted to drown in the ocean that was Samyan Fujimori.

“I’m sorry in advance to your friends, because I think I wanna spend a lot of time with you.”

“My friends will get over it,” Yani assured as they thought of their lunch table full of gremlins, a thrill coursing through them as Leila’s fingers flexed on their leg. Who knew starting slow could be so beneficial in the end. “They may be relieved, actually, as they’ve had to hear me speak of you often.”

”Then I guess they’ll be hearing you speak of me even more.” The thought made Leila give a bright little laugh; no doubt the stories told to each others’ friends would come now with the appearance of one another. “I know I’m here to listen to music…but I think I want to kiss you again.”

Though the laughter faded, Leila’s smile didn’t. She didn’t think it would for a while.