#twpoc

She can barely hear the groan that leaves her mouth as she struggles to sit up. Her phone’s alarm is trilling, and she absently thumbs it off before she brings a hand to her forehead. It feels a bit warm, and the rest of her body is covered in drying fever sweat. Even as she makes note of that fact, a shiver runs through her body, and she immediately collapses back against her pillows and pulls her blankets up to her chin.

She could probably make it through her three classes if she absolutely had to, but she hasn't missed a single class all semester, and she’s pretty sure it would be more beneficial to her and to her classmates if she stayed at home in bed and didn’t spread the germs any further.

Thankfully, the small bed on the other side of the room that belongs to her roommate Kira is already empty, the blankets balled up at the foot of the mattress. It’s a Tuesday, which means that she won’t be back until the afternoon, which means that Erica may be able to actually get some more sleep.

Maybe, if she’s lucky, she’ll be able to simply sleep the damn cold off in time to make it to her four o’clock class.

She drifts into a fitful doze, punctuated by alternating bouts of sweating and chills. During one of those bouts, the sound of her phone chiming manages to make its way through her blocked ears, and she gropes out for her phone, eyes half-closed.

She has a few missed emails and Facebook notifications, but she swipes all of them off the screen in favor of the single text waiting for her.

Boyd, 9:46 a.m: everything alright? I can’t remember the last time you skipped

Even though she feels about three times worse, since she now has a sore throat on top of everything else, Erica can’t help but smile. They’ve been best friends since freshman year of high school, when he was one of the only people who actually tried to help when she had a seizure, who glared down the other students whenever they made jokes in the hallway or muttered comments behind her back.

(He’d never said anything to them directly, but by sophomore year, Boyd had towered well over six feet and weighed over 200 pounds, most of it muscle, and one look, the threat implicit in his dark eyes, had been enough to shut most people up.

This was despite the fact that Boyd was one of the most gentle people Erica had ever encountered, would rather do just about anything than hurt someone willingly, but the rest of the school, the people who taunted her relentlessly, didn’t need to know that.)

Even though she just wants to shut her eyes again, she quickly sends a response; if she doesn’t, he’s bound to get worried and, quiet as he may be, as much as he may play his emotions close to his chest, when Boyd is worried about one of his friends, he hyper-focuses on it, to the point of it detracting from his own life. It’s just one of his many mannerisms that Erica cherishes, that prove just how much he cares about the people he lets in.

It’s one of the many reasons she has been in love with him for as long as she can remember.

Erica, 9:48 am: yeah, i’m okay. just sick. some kind of cold from hell.

She drops her phone onto her clammy chest and sighs, pushing loose strings of hair away from her face. She tries not to think about her feelings for Boyd often; she’s always been good at compartmentalizing, and she decided long ago that it was not worth losing his friendship to bring up the possibility of them dating, a possibility that he’s never broached either.

Some days, the feelings are harder to ignore than others. On most days, however, they simply simmer away quietly in the back of her mind, easily within reach, but also easy to shove away.

Boyd responds again before she can slip back into a nap.

Boyd, 9:52 a.m: it’s going around campus. be right there.

She only momentarily thinks about telling him not to bother, but she knows that it won’t do any good. So she simply fires back an acknowledgment, tosses her phone beside her, and closes her eyes once more, wincing when she swallows, the pain sharp as daggers.

If she ever finds out who exactly passed her the germs that made her sick, she is going to personally kill them.

She dreams briefly, vividly and incoherently, before the sound of a firm knock on the door rips her awake again. Although the door is no more than ten feet away, the distance might as well be the length of a football field, and Erica has to divide the journey into steps. She starts by summoning the energy to peel her blankets off and toss them towards the wall. Getting her feet onto the floor is a feat, and in order to cross the room to the door, she has to stop three times, holding onto various pieces of furniture so that she doesn’t slump to the ground. Once she does make it to the door, she flicks the lock and stumbles back to bed, yelling it’s open over her shoulder.

As Boyd shoulders the door open, she pulls herself back up on the mattress. She desperately wants to lay back down and fall asleep again, but doing that without so much as a hello seems super rude, so she stays sitting up while Boyd closes the door with his foot. There are two plastic bags hanging from the fingers of his right hand, while the left is wrapped around a take-away cup with steam pouring from a slot in the lid.

“Brought you tea,” he says, finding a space for the cup on her crowded bedside table. “You probably can’t smell it, can you?” Erica inhales as deeply as possible and smells absolutely nothing.

“No,” she sighs, shaking her head and coughing. “Can barely hear too.”

“You definitely have whatever is going around campus then,” Boyd says, and although Erica is sure his deep, rumbling voice is at normal conversational level, it sounds more like a murmur to her. He starts pulling items from his bags, piling them on Erica’s table and, when that runs out of space, placing them beside her on the bed; cough drops, a few tins of loose leaf tea, a brand new container of vapor rub, a bottle of red medicine that looks thick and syrupy, and a small bag of salt and vinegar chips. Erica picks up the last item and shakes it slightly, chips rattling inside the crinkly bag.

“What’s with the chips?” Boyd’s broad shoulders raise in a shrug as he drops a small stack of DVDs beside her.

“My mom swears by them. Says the salt helps your sore throat. If you don’t wanna eat them, I will.” The last item he pulls from his bag is a bottle of water, and he twists the cap off before handing it to her. It feels like she’s swallowing around razor blades, but being dehydrated is only going to make her feel more like crap, so she winces her way through half the bottle before she swaps it out for her tea.

When she presses her nose right against the hole in the cup, she can just barely smell peppermint.

“You don’t have to stay, you know,” she says, carefully drawing her legs up into bed so that she doesn’t knock anything to the floor. “I don’t want to pass this to you.”

“I have the immune system of an ox,” Boyd says solemnly. His face remains straight for less than five seconds before it cracks into a smile; not the closed-mouth one he usually shows to people, but a wide one, showing his teeth, the one he reserves for his closest friends, for her. “It’s fine. Half my chem class is already sick, and Liam and Isaac have gone through it. It’s only a matter of time at this point.” He shrugs again before he crosses the room and grabs her laptop from her desk. “What do you wanna watch first?”

She sifts through the pile and hands him a comedy that she’s seen more times than she can count, something that will be easy enough to fall asleep to. While he sets it up, she rearranges his supplies into a pile at the end of the bed and pops back two lemon cough drops, nudges them into her cheek. She keeps one hand wrapped around her tea, although it’s still so hot that she suspects it’ll be awhile before she can actually drink it.

The bed is narrow, and in order for them to fit, Erica has to roll onto her side and tuck herself against Boyd, who drapes one heavy arm around her shoulders. It feels like curling up beside a warm fire, although she’s sure that as soon as the fever spikes again, it’s going to feel like lying on simmering coals.

“Thanks for coming over,” she mumbles around the melting cough drops, dropping her head down against his chest. “You’re the best. You know that, right?”

“You’ve said that before,” he replies, a laugh huffing from between his lips. “But I don’t mind. This is what you do for people you love. You look after them when they need it.” It’s far from the first time he’s said I love you, and Erica stopped hoping that it meant more a long time ago, but part of her, the part that she’s never been to completely cut out despite the confident exterior she shows the world, still twinges in pain.

“Love you too,” she answers, passing him her tea so that he can put it aside for the time being, laptop swaying where it’s balanced across their thighs. “I honestly don’t know what I would do without you.” She expects him to mumble something self-deprecating, or maybe just huff again and go back to watching the movie. Instead, he suddenly goes tense, and Erica’s stomach, one of the few parts of her that actually doesn’t feel gross or in pain, drops.

Before she can ask if she said something wrong, Boyd leans up, sets the laptop on the floor with the movie still playing, and rolls over, until he’s on his side facing her, dark eyes impossible to read.

“Can I tell you something?” he asks, hands drawn up close to his chest.

Erica’s stomach drops again, and she nods, tilting her head down slightly so that she isn’t breathing her germs directly onto his face.

“Yeah. Of course.” For a long time, he stays quiet, just keeps looking at her as the movie drones in the background. He only moves to carefully brush a lank piece of hair away from her forehead.

“I love you,” he says again, but his voice is different this time, deeper and quieter, the distinctive tone of a secret being confessed, brought into the light. “Have since high school. I’ve almost told you more times than I count, but I didn’t want to change things between us. And if you don’t feel the same way, things don’t have to change. You are my friend first, and that matters more to me. Okay?”

It’s the longest Erica has heard him say in one go in a very long time. Possibly ever. But it’s still short and succinct, doesn’t ramble on like some of the love confessions she has overheard, and if it were under any other circumstances, if she wasn’t sick and exhausted and gross, she would simply close the space between them and kiss him.

Instead, she simply laughs quietly, slides closer and asks, “We're not even dating, and this is the moment you use to tell me that you're in love with me? When I can barely breathe and look like roadkill or something?"

“You don’t look like roadkill,” Boyd says, pushing more hair away from her face, sounding genuinely confused. “And honestly? It just felt like the right time. I don’t know. That’s all I’ve got.” Erica laughs again and shuffles even closer, until her head is tucked underneath Boyd’s chin and her face is pressed into the solid strength of his chest.

“I’ll take it,” she says, letting one arm fall around his waist. “I love you too.” She lets her eyes fall closed, and his head moves, the edge of his chin replaced with the softness of his mouth on top of her head. “Can I kiss you when I’m no longer a plague carrier?”

Boyd snorts and presses a kiss to her temple.

“Yes. Get some rest. I’ll be here if you need anything.”

Erica doesn’t need to be told twice. She’s asleep within minutes, and this time, she actually stays asleep for a long period of time. When she awakes again, shivering slightly, Boyd is right beside her, holding a book in one hand, arm still wrapped around her shoulders.

She’s never met Kira in person, even though they’ve been talking for almost a year and a half and dating for a little over six months. They met online in a discussion board for young musicians that Malia had been frequenting since middle school, when she’d first fallen in love with playing the drums. She’d been scrolling through the board one day before class when she’d come across a new thread posted by a user named foxfire, asking for advice on what drumsticks would be best for someone with absolutely no experience. Malia had jumped in with advice honed from years of users asking the exact same question and, looking back, it was possible that she’d been a little terse, a little snippy.

Okay, she'd been a lot snippy.

But, to her surprise, her response had been followed up with a private message that revealed that, while foxfire didn’t have experience with the drums, they did have musical training that was on the more classical end of the spectrum. That was followed by a few more specific questions that were follow-ups to the information Malia had provided in her response.

Malia had let the message percolate in her inbox for a few days before she finally answered.

Kira had responded only hours later.

Eventually, once their conversation began to veer away from topics unrelated to music, Malia had sent Kira a link to her blog. They’d followed each other and continued talking, leaving comments and likes on each other’s personal posts.

(It was around that time that Malia had received a number of anonymous messages that were all along the lines of you are so amazing!

She’d brought it up to Kira once, later, once they’d moved to Skype and started talking face to face, or the closest thing to it, and while Kira had denied it, her face had been scarlet as she’d done so, and that had given Malia all the answer she’d needed.)

Eventually, barely an hour went by without them talking to each other. It was easy to forget that they hadn’t been best friends since childhood, so long as Malia didn’t think about the thousands of miles between them.

It’d been Kira who brought up becoming something more, one late night while they were Skyping. Kira had been lying on her side in bed in an oversized sweater, loose tendrils of hair falling from her face, breaking out into yawns every so often. Just when Malia had been ready to hang up and let Kira get some sleep, Kira had snuggled deeper into her pillow and murmured seven words.

“You know, my friends think we’re dating.”

“They do?” Malia asked, feeling herself smiling. “Would that be so bad?” She’d meant it as a joke, something to make Kira blush a little; her own friends had been bugging her about the same thing for months, and Malia would have been lying if she said she hadn’t thought about a few times. If it wasn’t for the sheer distance between them, she would have already asked.

Even with the pixelation of the screen, it’d been easy to see the red flush that had spread across Kira’s cheeks, but instead of simply changing the subject, she’d shaken her head and smiled.

“No. I’d like that, actually.”

Kira’s smile had been contagious. Malia felt like an idiot for how quickly a matching grin spread across her face, but there’d been no stopping it even if she had wanted to.

“Yeah. Me too.”

And now, here she is, waiting in what is possibly the most chaotic environment she’s ever stepped foot in, and Kira’s flight was supposed to arrive twenty minutes ago, but there’s absolutely no sign of her, and every time Malia looks up at the multiple screens scattered around the arrivals area, she just ends up more confused.

If she doesn’t figure something out soon, Kira’s first day with her is going to be a disaster.

“Oh God,” she mutters, stepping backwards to avoid getting run over by an entire family with a massive amount of luggage. “Shit. Fuck."

"Excuse me. Are you okay?"

Malia whips around and expects to find herself staring at a TSA agent, ready to escort her out of the airport for loitering. Instead, she’s met with a man who looks to be her own age, frowning softly with concern, noticeably not carrying any luggage.

“Do I look okay?” she snaps, shoving a chunk of hair away from her face. “My girlfriend’s flight was already supposed to be here, and I have no idea where I’m supposed to wait for her, or if her flight has been delayed, or what is happening. This place is a fucking nightmare.”

“Yeah, it’s pretty confusing,” the man agrees. “My girlfriend isn’t getting in for another half hour. I can help you find your gate, if you want?”

Malia raises an eyebrow. Airports don’t seem like the kind of environment to breed kindness, just panic and stress. “You sure?”

“Yeah! I could have used some guidance the first time I had to pick someone up here. Do you know her flight information?” Malia has screencaps of all the information about Kira’s flights, both her arriving and departing ones, and she brings the photos up, keeping an iron grip on her phone with one hand, just in case this whole offer to help turns out to be a play to try and steal her phone.

Thankfully, the guy makes no attempt to do so. He simply peers at Malia’s screen and nods once before he looks up at one of the huge screens dotting the cavernous room. The scrolling text still looks like gibberish to Malia, but he must find something useful in it, because he nods again and points across the vast room.

“They must have changed her gate for some reason,” he says. “Her plane just landed at gate 12. If we move fast, you should be able to catch her just as she gets out.”

“Lead the way,” Malia says, shoving her phone back in her pocket and taking off across the room at her fastest walk. The guy quickly catches up to her, keeps pace without a struggle (which is a feat, she’s been told.)

“I’m Scott, by the way,” he says, right before he effortlessly steps around a couple who are taking a selfie for some godforsaken reason.

“Malia,” she responds. She momentarily debates on sticking her hand out so he can shake it, but that would just slow them down too much, so she settles for a quick nod. “Do you give complimentary tours of this place often?”

“Honestly, pretty much every time I’m here,” he replies with an easy laugh. “My girlfriend travels a lot for business, so I’m usually here at least once a month to pick her up. There’s always someone who needs the help while I wait.”

“The airport should start paying you.”

“Maybe one day,” he says, laughing again. He slows slightly, pulling his phone from his pocket, and his lips crinkle into a frown. “Speaking of my girlfriend, looks like they got in a little early. Do you mind if I-”

“Go for it,” Malia answers, slowing to a stop, even though every nerve in her body demands that she keeps going, that she get to Kira as soon as she can. “Thanks for the help.”

“No problem!” Scott flashes her a beaming grin before he points ahead, the way they were going. “Gate 12 is just a little further. You can’t miss it.” With that, he turns on his heel and starts easily threading his way back through the crowd, moving against the stream. Malia doesn’t waste much time looking after him; one of the speakers over her head blares an announcement, and while she can only half hear it over the hubbub, she does catch the words gate 12, which means she needs to move if she doesn't want to leave Kira waiting.

By the time she reaches the gate, her stomach is cramping with nerves, and there’s sweat gathering on the back of her neck. She hasn’t felt this nervous in literally years, and the feeling is so overwhelming that she kind of wants to vomit. All the questions, the negative thoughts, that she’s been trying to keep at bay since the day Kira officially bought her tickets to come visit, have rushed up into an overwhelming deluge that she can’t even begin to handle.

The doors connecting the gate to the tunnel leading to the plane open, and a group of passengers start making their way out agonizingly slowly. Even though she has a relatively clear line of sight, Malia still can’t help leaning up onto her toes, searching for Kira.

Her whole body feels jittery. Her heartbeat is pounding in her ears. With every second that passes by without Kira emerging from the tunnel, Malia’s stomach inches further and further up her throat.

Just when she’s ready to find the nearest garbage can, Malia sees her.

She’s one of the last people off the plane, wheeling a carry-on suitcase that’s patterned with red and blue elephants. Her sleek black hair is pulled into two braids that dangle down over her shoulders, and she’s dressed for comfort, in a pair of leggings, neon-orange sneakers and an oversized zip-up hoodie that reaches almost to her knees.

She’s the most beautiful person Malia has ever seen.

Her heart takes the place of her stomach, hovering in the base of her throat.

Kira’s face crinkles with concern as she scans the area, but before Malia can call out her name, Kira finds her, and her face illuminates from within. She smiles wide, and she starts jogging forward, suitcase bouncing along behind her.

Malia means to say something cool, something nonchalant that doesn’t make her sound completely gone on Kira; she doesn’t want to be too obvious, after all. She thinks that maybe a simple hey would be a good place to start.

But before she can open her mouth, she realizes that Kira is about to jump on her, and Malia barely has the foresight to open her arms before Kira crashes into her hard enough to make Malia rock back on her feet. She immediately wraps her arms tight around Kira’s slim waist, just as Kira threads her arms tight around Malia’s neck, tight enough to almost cut off Malia’s breath.

For a moment, they don’t say anything. They don’t move. They simply stay like that, wrapped up in each other, Kira’s toes just barely skimming the ground, mostly held up by Malia’s arms. Malia’s face is tucked into the spot where Kira’s neck meets her shoulder, and every single time that she breathes in, all she can smell is Kira, the floral scent of her shampoo and clean sweat and a hint of fabric softener. When she shifts, her nose drags over the curve of Kira’s neck, and Malia tightens her arms further, until it doesn’t feel like even air could worm its way between them.

She’d known, objectively, how amazing it would be to have Kira in front of her, to be able to actually touch and see her. But knowing that had in no way prepared her for how simply amazing the reality is, how amazing it is to feel Kira’s heart beating in her throat, to feel the simple human warmth of her, to feel her squeeze her arms around Malia’s neck.

It’s infinitely more real and more wonderful than she could have imagined in her wildest dreams.

“You’re here,” she mumbles, moving back slightly when Kira wiggles in her arms. She doesn’t end up far; once their foreheads are touching, Kira locks her arms around Malia’s neck, keeping her from moving back any further. “You’re actually here. In front of me.” Kira nods rapidly, a quiet laugh slipping from between her lips, which are still parted in the brightest smile Malia has ever seen.

“Yeah,” she says quietly, dark brown eyes sparkling with wetness. “I am.” For a moment, it looks like she might say something further, but instead, she leans forward and presses her lips against Malia’s. It’s firmer than Malia expects, but she quickly reciprocates in kind, wrapping her fingers in the back of Kira’s hoodie, biting back a moan when Kira’s fingers twist into the hair falling against the nape of her neck.

Malia can’t believe that she ever thought seeing Kira in person, actually meeting her, would somehow make things different between them, would be awkward and complicated, would change things for the worse.

Things have definitely changed between them; all she needs is one kiss to know that.

“Good morning,” Braeden says, sipping her fresh cup of coffee. Kira mumbles something incoherent, grabs her cup of tea and drags it to Braeden’s side of the table before unceremoniously flopping down onto Braeden’s lap, chin digging into the top of Braeden’s head. Braeden snorts quietly and drops her hand from her coffee mug so that she can wrap her arm around Kira’s waist instead.

“I thought you were going to sleep in today,” she asks, sliding her hand under the hem of Kira’s (or rather, her) shirt and smoothing a thumb over the smooth, still damp skin of Kira’s hip.

“Tried,” Kira mumbles, pressing her face into Braeden’s hair. “But I forgot to turn my alarm off last night, and I couldn’t go back to sleep once it went off.”

“You can always nap later,” Braeden says. Kira makes a sound that might be agreeable before reaching out and grabbing her mug from the table. Braeden isn’t much one for the taste of tea, but there’s no denying that it smells rather pleasant, and she inhales deeply as the scent passes her nose. Kira takes a tiny sip and sighs contently before dropping her chin to the top of Braeden’s head again.

“Anything interesting in the paper?”

“Is there ever?” Braeden replies. “Mrs. Margolis was on her front stoop though. Stared at me the entire time it took me to get the mail.”

“She’s so nosy,” Kira grumbles. “You think she’d be over us by now.”

“Some people don’t have anything better to do than be nosy.” When Kira leans forward to put her mug back on the table, Braeden intercepts and does it for her. When she leans back, she twists so that she can see Kira’s face, still a little puffy from sleep. “By the way, have I ever mentioned that you look good in my clothes?”

Kira flushes pink, fingers dropping to the baggy fabric of her stolen tank top.

All it takes is one stray bullet, one hunter who momentarily has luck on his side, one moment of Malia being too distracted to notice what is about to happen. By the time she turns around after knocking another hunter’s head against the concrete wall hard enough to knock him out, the shot is ringing out in her ears. Somehow, the sound as it strikes Braeden’s stomach, muted and liquid all at once, is even louder than the initial shot.

For a few moments after that, all of Malia’s control, everything she’s carefully cultivated over the past years, simply goes out the window. She operates by instinct alone, and instinct tells her to destroy the creature that’s harmed one of her girlfriends, one of her mates. Unable to smell anything but Braeden’s blood, she dives onto the hunter, barely feels it as he plunges a blade into the meat of her thigh.

When she comes back to herself, her hands are soaked with blood and gunpowder, and the hunter’s throat has been torn open, shredded so thoroughly that she can see his spinal cord peeking through the viscera. It’s a disgusting sight, and she knows that, at some point in the future, that disgust is probably going to transform into deep shame, disappointment, with herself, but she doesn’t have time to go down that particular rabbit hole right now, not when the smell of Braeden’s blood is only intensifying.

“Marin!” she howls at the top of her lungs as she lurches across the room on her hands and knees and drops into a crouch at Braeden’s side. She has no doubt that Marin felt the phantom impact of the bullet in her own stomach; all Malia can hope is that she’s not too busy fighting her own group of hunters to come to them.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Braeden rasps, and Malia almost laughs at the sheer idiocy of the statement. There’s blood soaking through where Braeden’s fingers are pressed against the wound on her lower abdomen and blood pooling in her mouth. When Malia takes her other hand tightly between both of her own, black lines of agony start climbing up her own veins, and she has to bite back another howl as the pain sets in.

“Let me guess,” she says instead through gritted teeth, “you’ve had worse.” This time, it’s Braeden’s turn to laugh. A grimace creases her face immediately afterwards.

“Something like that.” More blood bubbles from between her lips. “There was this time-”

“Shut up,” Malia interrupts. Taking Braeden’s pain away is important, but so is putting pressure on the wound, so she takes one of her hands, bats Braeden’s out of the way, and presses down hard on the seeping bullet wound.

Braeden hisses sharply, but she doesn’t talk, doesn’t even curse, and Malia has never been happier not to hear her girlfriend’s voice.

By the time Marin slams the door open so hard that it falls off its hinges, Malia can barely breathe - the air is too thick with the intertwined scents of pain and blood and fear. Her own panic is sitting in the back of her throat, threatening to choke her every time she swallows. The lines climbing up her arm have gotten even darker, almost the color of tar, and her face is slicked with sweat from the effort of trying not to scream.

“What happened to the hunter?” Marin asks, crossing the room and dropping to her knees on Braeden’s other side. Her magic is so strong that Malia can see it, surrounding her in a faint, shimmering aura, and the smell of it, crackling lightning and dirt after a thunderous storm, actually overpowers all the other scents in the room.

“Over there,” Malia answers, nodding her head towards the corner of the room, where the nearly decapitated hunter is sprawled on the floor. Marin’s gaze stays in that direction for a beat, possibly taking in the blood and gore splashed nearly to the ceiling, before she nods once.

“Good.” She gestures for Malia to move her hand away from Braeden’s wound, and Malia reluctantly does so. Her hand is tacky with blood, and she wipes it off on her thigh, bare underneath the hem of her shorts, before she wraps it around Braeden’s forearm to take more pain.

“Did you stop your group?” Braeden asks. Her voice is too quiet, barely louder than a whisper, and more panic starts scrabbling up Malia’s throat. Marin nods and briefly places her forefinger on Braeden’s lips.

“Don’t talk. And hold still. This is going to hurt.”

Braeden parts her lips again, probably to make another smart comment about how she’s gone through worse. Before she can speak, Marin snaps her fingers and says something in Latin. Sparks fly from her hand towards the wound. As soon as they touch it, Braeden starts to scream, the tendons in her neck drawn tight with pain.

A second later, the pain travels through her and into Malia. It’s nothing less than torturous, the most overwhelming pain she’s felt in her entire life. Her fangs and claws both pop out, and she howls as the pain continues to hit her like waves battering the shore.

Eventually, she blacks out.

When she comes to, they’re in a hospital room.

She can tell before she opens her eyes - the scents of antiseptic and bodily fluids, the beeping of monitors and the squeak of wheelchairs and gurneys, are all ones she’s well acquainted with. There are other scents in the room as well, familiar ones that make her flick open her eyes.

She’s in a hospital bed, back against the railing, tucked against Braeden’s side. Braeden’s in a hospital gown, which she’ll probably rip off the first chance she gets, and there are IVs threaded into her arm and sensors attached to her chest. She’s still unconscious, and when Malia carefully wraps her fingers around Braeden’s forearm, lines of pain crawl up it once more.

But these lines are faint, almost gray than black, and that’s promising.

Marin is on the other side of the bed, perched on the very edge of the mattress, stroking a piece of Braeden’s hair back from her face. She doesn’t pause the motion even when she glances over at Malia, and Malia can’t help but wonder who the gesture is supposed to sooth more: Braeden, in her world of unconsciousness, or Marin.

“How are you feeling?” Marin asks quietly.

“Fine,” Malia answers honestly. She has a bit of a headache, but it’s nothing she can’t handle. “Is she going to be okay?”

“She’ll have another scar for the collection, but she’ll survive.” Marin smiles slightly. “She’ll probably just say that it’s sexy.” Malia laughs and shuffles a little closer to Braeden, so that her back isn’t digging into the hard railing.

“Probably.” After taking a moment to arrange her limbs comfortably, she reaches across Braeden’s torso and holds her hand out, palm up. Without hesitation, Marin takes it with her free hand, and once their fingers are intertwined, Malia lowers them until they’re resting above Braeden’s heart. The sound of it beating, a little quieter than usual but steady, is quite possibly the sweetest thing Malia has ever heard, and she sighs gratefully as she squeezes Marin’s hand, the hand that saved Braeden’s life, and shuts her eyes again.

Two months after she moves to Beacon Hills, Kira finds herself in what is possible the worst place for her, considering the massive crush she has.

More specifically, she finds herself stuck with Allison in the janitor’s closet, which they’ve been tasked to restock as part of their detention (which had come about due to a rogue omega that had stamped through the school, causing some thankfully minor property damage that they had taken the fall for).

Almost as soon as Allison closes the door behind them, knocking it shut with her foot because her arms are occupied by a huge box of cleaning supplies, Kira knows this isn’t going to end well. The closet is a narrow space, lined with shelves on all sides (except for the entrance), and they’re going to end up brushing together at least once, probably more like a dozen times, and that can only lead to one possible reaction.

She almost wishes that she’d opted for spending the hours with her dad, reorganizing the history classroom. Almost.

“Well, this should be fun,” Allison says, setting the box on the ground and peeling back the cardboard flaps.

“Yeah. Fun,” Kira says, laughing nervously and grabbing two bottles of cleaner from the box. She finds where they’re supposed to go and, when she turns around, Allison is right in front of her, soft lips turned into a small smile.

Right on cue, Kira’s face heats up.

“Did I just put those in the wrong spot?” she asks, glancing back over her shoulder.

“No,” Allison says, shaking her head. Her long, dark hair whisks around her shoulders when she does it. “They’re fine. Can I kiss you?”

“What?” Kira asks, pretty certain that her ears are playing a very, very cruel trick on her. “Did you just ask if you could kiss me?”

“Yes,” Allison replies, her smile growing a little wider, showing glimpses of her teeth. “Can I?”

Kira nods rapidly, reaches her fingers back and wraps them around the shelves for a little more stability. She doesn’t trust her knees to simply give out, like a heroine in a cheesy romance novel. Thankfully, Allison doesn’t make her wait for it; she leans in and presses her lips against Kira’s, soft as cashmere. She pulls away before Kira can even close her eyes, can even lean into the kiss.

“Was that okay?” she asks. Kira nods again and, taking a risk, reaches one hand away from the shelf and towards Allison.

“Could we do it again?” This time, Allison grins, and no matter how many times Kira has seen that grin over the past two months, it never fails to make her flush.

“Definitely,” she murmurs, taking Kira’s hand in hers and leaning back in.

By the time Kira’s dad comes around to let them know that it’s time to head home, no more cleaning supplies have made it onto the shelves, but a few have been knocked off.

Even though she’s able to officially call Allison her girlfriend, the blushing doesn’t stop.

If anything, it only gets worse. Knowing that Allison’s smiles and comments are directed at her, that they’re meant for her, just makes her flush harder.

Allison finds it endearing.

Kira still hates it. Too much blushing makes her face ache.

Four months after the janitor’s closet, while Kira is kissing her way down the side of Allison’s neck, hands tight to Allison’s hips, Allison gasps out a string of French words.

“Je t'aime, Kira.”

Kira stops in her tracks, lips hovering half an inch above Allison’s collarbone. The words sound familiar, from a song or movie, maybe. She doesn’t want to make assumptions, but she has an idea of what they mean. She leans back slightly, just far enough so that she can see Allison’s face.

“What does that mean?” she asks quietly. There’s a hint of redness gracing Allison’s cheeks, although Kira doesn’t know if it’s from what they were doing before or if it’s a genuine blush.

“It means I love you,” Allison responds, reaching up and brushing a piece of Kira’s hair away from her cheek. “Is it too early for that?”

Kira’s been biting back the words for weeks now, afraid that saying them at the wrong time would scare Allison off.

“No,” she answers, face splitting with a grin that she couldn’t hold back if she wanted to. “I love you too.” When she dives in for another kiss, a giggle slips from her mouth. Her cheeks are burning red but this time, she thinks the reaction is warranted.

“You’re blushing,” Allison laughs, the sound huffing against Kira’s lips.

“Do you blame me?” Kira retorts, nudging her nose against Allison’s. “You just said I love you to me, for the first time, in French.”

“Better get used to it,” she murmurs, sliding her fingers into Kira’s hair and pulling her back down to her mouth.

Blushing is still annoying when it comes about because she embarrassed herself on the lacrosse field, or because her mother is lecturing her, or because she got a poor mark on an assignment.

But when it’s brought on by Allison telling her that she loves her, or whispering significantly more heated things into her ears at the most inopportune times…