would it be ok

“i agree,” elliot nodded. she couldn’t deny that, and wouldn’t want to, either. many of the people she cared about most were among those most hurt by the past year, and while she had come out mostly unscathed, it hadn’t been easy for her either. “well, now you get to leave, and you’ll probably get to sit wherever you want to.” she didn’t think getting to leave was a particularly good thing, but she was aware that it was to other people. “she owns a bunch of casinos? damn.” her jaw slackened as she tried to think about how much money they must have. “did you get to hang out in them when you were little? or is there like a ‘no kids’ thing?”

“i’ll miss parts of it,” yara observes as she takes a sip of her champagne, but she’s never been the type to love school so much as she’s the type to just want to do well in school for the sake of it. “oh, yeah, that’s kind of her thing.” yara kind of forgets that saying something like that pretty much points out that she’s like, more than comfortable with money. “in vegas, kids can go into casinos they just can’t be around and hang around the game stuff. but her places are really chill, her whole thing is like... vegas, but make it a safe space.”

– “YEAH, SOMETIMES THINGS WORK OUT,” CLAIRE NODS, there’s a small smile on her lips at that – because she is happy ! though she wouldn’t say things just worked out idly, there was a point where she took matters into her own hands. the two of them have come a long way from a point where claire ended a friendship because of fear of that kind of intimacy. “ fuck that stupid book, ” she wants to give cole conner two broken legs. has anyone seen the guy ? “ but that…matters a lot. sounds like he’s not a total waste of energy. ” they’re on the same page. 

“it must be exhausting carrying that weight.” she doesn’t consider a lot of the guys she knows to be awful, but she will give yara the trophy of chivalry over most- or maybe it’d be a crown. she’s not sure, but regardless yara is up against all boys. that gives her an advantage to start off with. “and i humbly accept my undefeated victory and continue my winning streak.” no one does ever end up wanting to fight her, but she’s competitive enough to look the other way. “i know. i should’ve been more considerate in hyping this place up.” she truly does feel for yara, and she doesn’t want her to think she’s minimizing how awful that must have been. “you know me with change,” she tells her sheepishly because yara absolutely would. “i bet everyone you miss will miss you, too. obviously, i will miss you most of all, but they’re gonna be stiff competition.” and she’s only being slightly dramatic. “besides, i can just force you to come over to my apartment. we can get all of our favorite snacks and spread them all over my bed like we used to in so we can divide and conquer. not everything will be different.”

“it is, but someone’s gotta do it.” yara can’t really imagine a world where she’d ever have the desire to fight mari, not even when they’d gone their separate ways romantically. it’s like wanting to fight a puppy or something. “you’re not wrong for hyping it up, mari. overall, i’ve had a good four years.” she means that, and she doesn’t want mari to think she totally hates it here now or something, she just can’t say she’d be eager for another year if it hadn’t been her last year. “you think so? think you’ll miss me more than aidan?” she’s just teasing, she knows how mari is, but she also thinks she’ll probably have more opportunity to see mari than people still going to gallagher, which is a weird concept to wrap her mind around. “and you can come over to mine sometimes, yeah? we gotta take turns visiting.”

seb’s  gaze  drifts  off  a  second  before  he  mumbles  a  “  mhm . ”  totally  unsure  if  these  are  official  stats .  “  uh ,  you  know ,  the  place  everyone  gets  their  stats ,  yara .  keep  up .  ”  does  a  little  tut ,  completely  playful  despite  trying  to  keep  his  expression  neutral .  seb  will  laugh  at  her  threat  though ,  a  nod  of  agreement ,  almost .  “  you  know ,  i’m  just  trying  to  do  a  good  thing ,  help  you  out  a  bit  so  you  can  remember  your  graduation  so  clearly  for  the  future ,   but  fine ,  fine …  i’ll  get  someone  else  to  film  it .  ”

“the place everyone gets their stats,” yara repeats with a serious nod, in a good mood for several reasons, and because she wants to be comfortable around aidan’s friends. and sebastian is funny and seems mostly harmless. he’s still a man though. “you can record my graduation, but i’m not gonna puke.” she literally refuses, she will mind over matter the fuck over her own nausea. “save your film for when you and your boys graduate.” as if he’d be using film in 2021.

“i’m not sure she had much of a choice. like, what would her alternative have been? telling people, i guess, but i think she had to wait until it seemed safe to do so.” apparently elliot was on the laura sutton defense squad tonight. “i’m not saying she didn’t make mistakes, i just think there was no good solution.” she did agree that letting people sit wherever they wanted was probably the least they could do. “oh, that’s cool! i’ve only been once, but my aunt lives in reno so i’ve been there a bunch. that’s, like, way closer to santa rosa, but i think of it as basically being baby vegas, so.” she wasn’t sure how far apart reno and vegas were, just that it was far, but she thought the vibe was similar. 

“i don’t think her choices were wrong,” yara clarifies. “i just don’t think there’s any denying how this hurt people either.” and yara’s not exactly the most emotionally mature all the time but she is enough to acknowledge that almost everyone involved in all this had been tied up in a way that went beyond choosing sides. still, gallagher hadn’t protected her most personal information, and she won’t forget that. “vegas is cool. i can see why it’s so appealing to tourists. my mom owns a bunch of casinos so i guess i’m just kinda desensitized to it all now.” though it does mean she prefers city life to a quiet environment.

      Aidan can’t help but stare as her smile grows, still entranced by how much it lights up the room whenever it makes an appearance. He notices her eyes on him as well with a warm, fuzzy feeling, something so entirely foreign to him yet so profoundly right. “Me too.” He nods, smile mirroring hers. He lets her lead him down the hall, glancing down at her as she begins speaking again. “Oh, wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He assures — since when did he become such a sap? — and then blinks. “Shorter than you? That’s possible?” Smile turns teasing, one dark eyebrow quirked. The idea of meeting her mother feels so nerve-racking and normal it scares him a little, in the best possible way. It’s the promise of something real, the idea of the both of them holding meaning in each other’s lives beyond a simple college romance. 

“ decent stuff. we gettin’ those fancy burgers? ” what her mum has planned is probably very different to the kind of pool parties he’s used to, and he can count on one hand when he’s been on his best behaviour. this will just have to be one of those times. “ you speak to him? ” cole, he means. and he’s still walking, albeit barely, which means she probably hasn’t done anything more than that. tigs is waiting patiently for his turn, but he’ll go after yara. “ you can say that ‘cause you’ve got fuckin’ nandos in dc. ”

elliot’s hopes were rarely up as well and the comment made her smile. “that makes sense. i can’t imagine why it would matter much to her.” or to anyone, unless they had planned on handing diplomas out in a very specific order. and if they didn’t like where people weer sitting there wasn’t much they could do about it - you can’t really discipline someone who’s practically gone already. “gobs?” she laughed, forehead crinkled with confusion. “are you from the south? or just your neighbor?” 

“plus, while i understand her motivation for not being upfront about the double agents earlier on, her keeping it under wraps did screw over some people. i think she’ll live if i sit next to my friends.” yara doesn’t really see this whole situation in black and white, but her shit did still get leaked, so like... she’s gonna sit next to satomi. also as a sidenote at my graduation we all just had cards with our name on it so you could switch seats because they just read your name off the card when you went up and mailed you the diploma anyway. “no, i’m from vegas.”

“More means a lot of different things, Yara!” Yara is not giving her much information, but that only means Noah will keep on asking and prying till she gets it. “Did you kiss? Did you go out on a date? How did he ask you to come here together?” She has more questions but she’ll let Yara answer these first. “That sounds good, though. Where do you want it to go?”

yara waits patiently for noah to get through all of her questions, trying to decide which ones she’s actually going to answer. she definitely skips over answering if they kissed or not, wading into safer territory instead. “no, i guess this is our first date. he just asked me over text, we’re not really... i don’t know, i don’t like a lot of fanfare over things.” just being asked like that had been enough for her. “dunno. guess i’ll find out. but... i like where things are headed right now.”

      𝚑𝚎𝚛  𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚙𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚎  𝚌𝚊𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚜  satomi  to  let  out  a  light  laugh  .  “  more  than  friends  sounds  complicated  but  okay  .  ”  sure  they  enjoy  giving  yara  a  hard  time  about  it  but  it’s  because  they  care  !  “  is  that  not  an  american  thing  ?  i  don’t  fucking  know  .  i  heard  it  in  one  of  those  cheesy  american  movies  forever  ago  .  ”  they  let  out  another  laugh  .  “  but  are  you  ready  for  post-grad  life  ?  ”

“Well, it’s a great choice. Fits the theme so perfectly, too!” It’s been nice to see what people are wearing, especially because some got really creative with their outfit. Noah’s smile widens at the information. “More as in…? I need more information, Yara! Spill!” 

yara’s kind of walked into this one and she’s tempted to just distract noah by continuing to talk about people’s outfits, but she has more than one brain cell, so she knows that won’t work. “i mean, what does more mean to you?” noah will have to pry the fact that her and aidan have already slept together out of her with torture. “we’re just... into each other and seeing where things go, i guess.”

– “YEAH, I WOULD SAY THAT I WAS MOSTLY BEING A DRAMATIC SON OF A BITCH,” she sighs, a sheepish smile on her lips as she runs her fingers through her hair. claire’s never thought highly of aidan on the pretense of…hating natasha’s guts, and she met him while he was dating her, but this change of pace looks good for him. he clearly hasn’t got a type, though. “ does sort of feel like an ALTERNATE UNIVERSE version of you, ” claire remarks with a wry smile, “ as long as he’s cool and knows who’s in charge…so, uh, you know, good for you. ” she means that. “ sounds like our moms would get along, ” claire snorts in amusement. 

“i wouldn’t get your hopes up.” it seemed to her like most people at this party were drinking copious amounts. “you think people won’t care because sutton is leaving?” she didn’t quite understand, but that was probably in part due to the fact that she was somewhat sad that sutton was leaving. she didn’t actually know the woman, but she appreciated her. “oh, okay. that sort of makes sense to me. there are definitely frostings that seem to hard to do that, but if it’s softer i get it. and now for some reason i can’t stop thinking about whoopie pies.”

“they rarely are.” yara’s realistic probably to a fault. “i think sutton herself is being a little more lax, all things considered.” of all the things to be a hardass about right before she retires, yara doesn’t really think she’ll care who she sits next to at graduation. monique on one side, satomi on the other, that’s kind of her ideal seating arrangement. “this neighbor i have from the south calls those gobs. could not tell you why.”

“yeah, that sounds a lot more enjoyable.” generally speaking, she didn’t love being told who she had to be around. “i’m not sure who i’d be next to alphabetically, but i’d definitely rather sit with my friends.” most of her friends aren’t in her year, so sitting with them might not work out for her. “well, yeah. do you actually spread the frosting out, though? i don’t get it.” 

“as long as whoever i sit next to doesn’t reek of booze, i’ll survive.” yara’s happy to get drunk tonight but she would very much like to feel and smell sober tomorrow. “i’d sit next to satomi, i feel like maybe we could just sit next to each other and nobody would say anything, we can take advantage of sutton leaving while we still can.” who’s gonna say anything to them, anyway? “when you put the bottom half of the cupcake on top and smush it down, the frosting spreads out.”

“Your mom has great taste.” She can imagine the other dresses were as hot, though she can’t picture Yara in a dress — she can’t recall ever seeing her in one! “That was part of why we switched, it’s funny.” She laughs. “Aidan? Are you… just here as dates or is there more?” Her smile widens. Noah’s nosy, good luck Yara!

“she does, i can usually pick something out for myself but only if i have options to pick from.” yara does actually think it’s a bit cute, even though what noah sees in caden will forever be beyond her. “it’s clever.” she means that. “we are here as dates.” yara pauses, just to drag it out and make noah wait. “and there’s more.”