#squidink

She grumbles nonsensically into her mattress. You sigh and sit next to her languishing body. “It wasn’t that bad, Syd.”

“It was so bad!” “Okay, it was bad.”

“Why didn’t you tell me not to do that!?” “I literally did! I did so many fucking times!”

She rolls over quickly, only to grab her densest pillow to hit you over and over again. “Clearly! Not! Enough!”

You rip the pillow out of her hands, smacking her once— Harder than any of her strikes. “I told you, ‘Hey, Chel is almost certainly straight— It’s probably not a good idea to ask her to prom— I don’t think she’d be mean about it, but you’re not gonna get a ‘yes’.”

Syd kicks her feet, stomping the air like a child. “Yeah, you said she wouldn’t be mean about it!”

“Cause I thought you’d be fucking normal!” You shriek back.

“I was normal!”

“A three course meal that says ‘You’ ‘Me’ ‘Prom?’ is not a normal thing to give someone!”

“That is my normal!”

You ignore her, thinking to yourself outloud. “You’re lucky she opened the dessert because the app and main just seem like a fucking threat, now that I say it outloud.”

“...She didn’t even eat it…” Syd drags her hands down her face, reliving every moment of utter humiliation all over again. She twists herself over again to shriek into her mattress— And hands. “I’m gonna die!!!”

There’s a call from outside Sydney’s room, down the hall. “Y’all alright in there?” Ah, Syd’s dad, who has finally gotten it in your head to call him Emmanuel and not Mr. Adamu.

You reply on Syd’s behalf. “Yes, we’re alright, thank you Emmanuel, sir!”

“Ah…Chel said no?”

“Chel said no, sir!”

“Like you told her was gonna happen?”

“Just like I told her, sir!”

Poor Syd just groans into her hands, head still in the mattress. “I hate you both!!”

Mr. Adamu now closer to the door, based on the footsteps you can hear— Definitely heard what Syd yelled. “Sorry, I don’t speak whinin’, what was that?”

“She says she loves you so much, sir!”

“That’s what I thought, thank you, Jack.”

Emmanuel walks away from Syd’s door, knowing very well that you’re the only one that can help in this scenario— And even you don’t think there’s anything you can say to make her feel better. Sydney’s just gotta ride her feelings out. Your stomach grumbles. Ah. It must sense you’re in the house that always feeds you the second you’re through the threshold. 

You grab Squid’s backpack off the floor, pulling the 3-stack prom-themed tiffin out. When you open the middle ‘Me’ layer, Syd groans at the fragrance immediately wafting. “Don’t! I never wanna smell that shit again!”

But you ignore her, pulling the conveniently co-packaged fork to eat with. “The chives moved in your bag, it doesn’t say ‘Me’ anymore, so. It’s like it never even happened.”

You take a bite, humming. “Cherry cola pulled pork is a sick idea.”

“I fuckin’ know it is.” Again Syd rolls over, body knocking into your knees. She splays her fingers over her eyes to peek at you. “Is it cold? You need to eat it hot—”

“It’s still warm.” You shove a fork full of pork towards her face. “Try.”

“Never said you could eat food in my bed.”

You tilt your head, calling her bullshit. “I can feel the crumbs digging into my thighs, don’t fuck with me.”

With that, Syd sits up, taking the fork out of your hand to feed herself with dignity. It’s still somewhat warm, so she’s slightly pleased. She points the fork to you, queuing you. 

And you know what your job is. “...A red Rhone— Rhône? Whatever. They’re good for barbecue and cherries.” You take the fork back, quickly scarfing down another bite. 

Adamu nods, reaching her whole body over just to grab the pen and memo pad she keeps on her nightstand. She flips through to one of the most recent pages, cherry cola pulled pork, and writes down your wine recommendation. 

Afterwards, she clicks her pen a few too many times, scrunching up her nose in contemplation as she keeps her head down. “...I’m just not gonna go.”

“Squid—”

“No, like, I don’t even— I didn’t even want to go, it’s stupid— Prom is fucking stupid.”

You nearly roll your eyes at the obvious lie, closing the half-eaten tiffin before setting it down on the floor. “It’s our senior year though— You— We haven’t gone to a single prom— I don’t even think we’ve gone to the home-comings!”

Like the picturesque angsty teen she is, Syd brings her knees up and holds them to her chest with crossed arms. “You should still go, I’m jus’ gonna stay home.”

“Sydney.”

She buries her head into her knees. “Don’t say my name like that…”

Even so, you lean your head over to nestle on top of hers. “I would rather be drowned in tar than go to a social event without you.”

Sydney doesn’t reply, probably cooking up a way to get out of being your pity plus one— You can tell. How are you gonna win this girl over? You frown in thought, before a fairly lame idea comes to your head, which means you have to do it. 

You shuffle off the bed, and with her eyes closed and head in her knees, Syd can only hear the sounds of you probably doing something stupid. She grumbles, poking her head up to look at you, “Man, I just don’t wa—”

Syd’s stunned silent, when she sees you on one knee in front of her, with the dessert tiffin opened and presented to her— A gorgeous chocolate lava cake— Though, you are kinda weirdly caressing it with your finger as you attempt to move the icing sugar back into its place to say ‘PROM?’ again. Right now, it looks more like ‘RRUM?’

“Sorry.” You take your finger out of the lava cake. “Short notice, I had to borrow your promposal as my own, I know, I know.”

Squid puts her knees down, sighing at you— She’s either speechless or tired of you. It’s almost certainly both. “Ink—”

“Syd, I really do want to go to prom with you.” You try to squeeze as much sincerity as possible into your words— Which is really hard for a teen to do. “And I promise, I will do everything in my power to make it as fun a time as possible.”

“There’s literally no way to make prom fun for a lesbian—”

“I’ll get you a corsage— and— and a boutonniere— If you want. I can be the femme— Or the masc— Or, or the combo platter! I’ll match colours with you, I’ll do your makeup, we can get ready together— I’ll— I’ll let you drive my dad’s car! We— We can do a prank? We can spike the punch? We can go full Carrie on Chel, but like, without her taking revenge on us—”

“Ink—”

“We can do all the romantic slow dances— I don’t know how to dance, I’ll need lessons—”

“Dude—”

“I’ll kiss you! We can do a full makeout! Right in front of Chel! With tongue? Groping? I dunno, whatever the chaperones allow— Even so, if they try to stop us, I’ll call them homophobic.”

“Okay, you need to relax—”

“We can leave, like, after three hours or whenever it gets too annoying or if the dinner is ass— I did hear it was some cold shitty chicken last year.”

Now that gets Syd to tilt her head with intrigue. “Leaving early does sound nice.”

“Yeah it does!”

Her mouth flattens as she sincerely thinks about it, “We could come back here after, I could make us an actually good dinner.” Should have lead with the no dinner thing, now that you’re thinking about it. “I’ll dress as the ‘combo platter’— You can do either.”

“Androgyny Syd’s gotta be one of my favourites.” You nod. 

Syd presses a finger to her lips, “I do wanna drive your dad’s car.”

Ah… You were hoping she’d miss that one if you just talked fast enough. “That’s… Probably fine, I’ll just need to be the one driving out of the driveway and then we can switch on the next block.”

“Fair.” She hums— Why does she feel like a bratty dictator now that she’s taking you up on all your offers? Oh well, good thing she’s cute. “You’re good at makeup, yeah, you can do a little on me.”

“Ooh yay! Thoughts on glitter?” “No.” “You never let me have fun…”

“We do not need to violate everyone’s eyes with P-D-A.”

“We don’t, but we can—” “No.” “I’m still leaving it on the table.”

“...Okay.” Syd nods, after thinking on it for a couple more seconds. “Yeah, fine, I’ll come to prom with you.”

You just about beam at her, so happy— And so you just have to ruin the moment. “Oh, sorry…” You gesture to the lava cake in your hand. “This says Rum— I was asking if you’d go to rum with me— Common mistake.”

…

“Get out.”

“You never let me have any fun!”

god i can't wait to write their gay spin-off...

popcorn, you must know, i noodled around with this so much. there's a couple lines out there somewhere where I was ORIGINALLLYYY gonna do a 'squidink teens' blurb, where they dress up as Jennifer and Anita from Jennifer's Body for a Halloween but literally no one at the party gets it at all (too STRAIGHT !!!) so they just leave and binge watch horror movies all night...

oh my beloved gays... that story AND this blurb are of course both canon in the CK Universe lololol