Top Bunk

DAY 20

⌚ 12:57 AM

El's footsteps are heavy, crunching the grass beneath her. She doesn't care about stealth - not when her mind is muddled with too many thoughts. Dirt gets in between her exposed toes and beads of sweat start forming at her nape and her breaths are short but she doesn't slow her pace. El barely even notices her underwear is pretty much exposed - her pajama shirt doesn't do much covering up when she's running for her life. There's no one to see it, anyway.

"Finn?" She pounds on his door. "Open up! Finn!" El lets herself cry (for the seventy fourth time in the last twenty hours), hot tears rolling down her cheeks and neck.

The door creaks open a crack and a blue eye peers out at her. It widens, then the door swings open, revealing Finn in only a pair of boxers, hair mussed. El is enveloped in a tight embrace. She trembles within his grip and buries her face into his shoulder (she's too tall to do this at his chest).

Finn shushes her as he gently leads her into his cabin, his arms a protective shield around her.

El feels numb. They stay like this for awhile. El sobbing uncontrollably into Finn's chest and Finn cradling her like a child. El doesn't know how long it takes her to calm down, but eventually she does.

"I-I'm sorry," she sniffs, "for b-bothering you this late. I don't - I don't know why I came here, to be honest."

Finn lets go of her slowly, only keeping his hand on the small of her back. He smiles at her, his eyes brimming with sadness. "Grace told you, huh?"

El dabs her eyes with her fist to rid them of tears that haven't fallen. She nods.

"What happened?" he asks slowly.

She tells him. Everything. Except the parts with she and Grace discussing Lionel. She edits those slightly. El's eyes have finally run out of tears, she figures, since she can't find it in herself to cry anymore. All that's left is awkward half-wheezes and whimpers.

"Oh, Gracie," Finn says, shaking his head. His tone is a cross between amused and thoroughly disappointed. "She told me that she was planning to do this, you know," he tells El. "Tonight, she said. I just didn't think she'd the both of you drunk and vulnerable...wow. Stupid move."

"She told you?" El snaps. Then it dawns on her. "You knew!" she accuses. Her cheeks are searing hot.

Finn's hand leaves her back, as if she's burnt him.

"You goddamn knew and you didn't tell me!" El says in a whisper-scream. "Why?"

"I was sworn by the bro code." He gulps.

"The bro code?" she hisses.

"Yeah...Grace is my bro."

El rolls her eyes. "Don't even get me started on how sexist the bro code is. Why the fuck did Grace agree to that? She should have known the misogynistic nature of - "

"El," Finn says way too calmly. "Grace didn't call it the bro code. She just told me to swear on my life that I wouldn't tell you she likes you. She wanted to tell her yourself." Then, muttering to himself, "And that obviously backfired."

El sighs - maybe in relief, maybe something else. "Don't use the bro code. Ever."

Finn's face breaks into a stupid grin, suddenly. "You know Grace told me the exact same thing then. You both have a lot in common, if that wasn't obvious enough."

Now, El is definitely blushing. She blames it on what little alcohol is left in her bloodstream. "How long did she, uh...?"

"Have a crush on you?" Finn's grin has somehow turned into a smirk in the space of two seconds.