friends (rick riley and scott holland)(INDEFINITE HIATUS)

prologue

"Shut up." She whispers back, dropping her bag by the door and pulling her ponytail tighter.

Scott grins at her, Rick pulls a face. She lets him wrap an arm around her and kiss her cheek before she nudges him out of the way, taking the space between Rick's legs as he leans away from her to make room for her. Scott takes a seat next to Rick and lays back on the bed, watching through his eyelashes as Gwen grasps Rick's face in her hands. She pulls the ice pack from his cheek, frowning at how tender and reddened the skin looks —— it's certainly going to bruise.

"Look at her. She spends one summer shadowing a doctor and suddenly she's a regular on ER." Rick mumbles teasingly, grabbing her hands when she tries to tilt his head.

Scott snorts, taking the book off Gwen's bedside table and flipping to a random page. "Yeah, well, you refused any actual medical help because you're a stubborn asshole, so let her take care of you."

She kicks him in the shin and tells him to stop going through her stuff as Rick turns to give him a sour look. He huffs slightly when she grabs his chin and makes him face her again.

"What happened, Rick?" She brushes her thumb along his cheekbone.

Rick shrugs dismissively. Stubbornly. "It's fine."

Gwen and Scott exchange a skeptical look over his shoulder.

"It was your dad again, wasn't it?" She questions tentatively.

Tom Riley, Rick's father, is always a tough subject. They're always fighting over the smallest things, and the fights end in someone getting it more often than not —— usually it's Rick, sometimes it's Tom, but it always ends with the boy storming out of the house with his little brother in tow.

He looks away from her and Scott's jaw clenches, and that is enough of an answer for her.

"Oh, Rick..."

Rick seems to melt into her as she holds his face and continues her gentle touches. She gnaws on the inside of her cheek as he pulls her closer to him by her hips, and her chest aches as he quickly blinks away the tears that dare to spill from his crystalline eyes.

She gives him a moment before she speaks again. "Where's James?"

"With your brother."

Gwen nods silently. She'll have to thank her brother (whichever brother he means) tomorrow.

Scott sits up. "Hey, Winnie, where'd you put our clothes?"

"In the middle drawer."

She points to the correct dresser and Scott gets up as she makes her hands busy. Rick lets her push his jacket off his shoulders for him.

It's not out of the norm for Gwen to find herself sharing a bedroom with Rick and Scott. With Rick never really staying at home with his parents for too many nights in a row, and the two of them never feeling right without Scott being there, many days end with her sleeping in some strange hockey player sandwich. Even if she's been busy and sleepovers happen at Scott's house more often than anybody else's, she still has a drawer full of their clothes in her dresser —— and Phillip always lets them in without asking any questions.

She's never found it in herself to complain. It's just a part of how they work together, and she's always been very physical in all of her relationships, anyway. Platonic or not.

"Gwen, seriously?" Scott's exasperation cuts through the comfortable silence.

Gwen stops untying her Chuck Taylors for a moment to look up at him. His old shirt is more of a crop top on him than anything substantial —— so tight and short that it leaves little to the imagination. The bottom of his tattoo peaks out from behind blue fabric, a flock of three birds on his ribs, and she tilts her head, making a face as he narrows his eyes at her.