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"So... I hear you have a stray cat locked in your room?" Sav commented as they walked out of the gym as a group. Their feet left dusted streaks through the snow, and Nic could feel it slowly freezing every last one of his toes.
"Yeah, I sent you a picture," Kieran laughed, and Nic through down his arms in exasperation. "What?"
"You still haven't added me on Snapchat, and you won't accept my friend request on Facebook," he whined, all while Sav snickered at him from around Kieran. Nic scowled at her and said, "You're just a little home-wrecker aren't you?"
Sav tugged down her eyelid with her finger and stuck her tongue out at him, only to be swatted back into position by Bev. "All right, that's enough. We aren't talking about that right now," Bev chided them, glaring at Nic. They were all too aware that Leo walked in front of them a ways away, highlighted around the edges by the lamp posts dotting the streets, and catching snow in flecks of orange light against his beanie.
Something about Leo being broken up with felt... hollow to Nic. He felt like this rigid shell represented something of just... a guy who was far more innocent than Nic gave him credit for. There was nothing particularly grand about their breakup, and perhaps that was what made Nic think that relationships were fickle things and it didn't matter whether your attachment to a partner lasted one month or two-hundred seven months.
He wondered if Leo's breakup would have felt more significant than this had he been dating Olivia for two-hundred seven months. He wondered if his own breakup would feel so hollow like this. Shouldn't there be some empathetic pain on his part? How would Leo mourn this? Would he watch 27 Dresses like Nic always did after breakups?
Kieran was showing Milo pictures of the cat while Nic walked forward, jogging a little to catch up with Leo. They walked in silence together for a while. Their feet scrunched in tune with Milo's high-pitched squealing over the nameless cat.
"I feel like..." Leo started, voice stuffy. He cleared his throat a little. "I feel like I'm broken up over something so idiotic. You know? I have midterms to worry about. Not some relationship that probably wouldn't have lasted all that long to begin with. And then, logically, my brain is beating me up for wasting this month and a half on a girl who wouldn't even be there in the long run. You know what I mean?"
Nic thought about Kieran and how he assumed that Kieran would never even consider going on a date with Nic. He just assumed that it would never pan out, but that was before he realized that squishes felt like long-term commitments with people Kieran appreciated enough to keep close. An attachment like that would extend far beyond the bargain of sexual attraction that may or may not fade. "If you think like that you'll never find anyone to stick out in the long run. You gotta take chances like that sometimes," Nic told him.
"Yeah, well, what do you think's gonna happen to you and Kieran then?" he asked, softly, since if they talked loud enough the others would be able to hear. But for now, it was just the two of them.
"What do you mean?" he said.
"Well... every relationship either works out, or doesn't. You break up, or you don't. What do you think's gonna happen?" Leo said.
Nic spent far too much time letting this question swarm the interior of his skull. Late nights tended to do that to him, and he'd tell himself that those times he felt guilty for having such "disgusting" thoughts about Kieran, knowing that his boyfriend would never approve. His boyfriend would never fantasize about him like that, and that just seemed... okay to Nic. He didn't mind that so much as he did the outcome of their relationship. In the long run.
"Well... if Kieran gets sick of me, I... hope that we'd be able to stay friends. And I could still be his squish. And I'd go off and... date other people and Kieran would just do whatever Kieran does without me," he confessed. "Which... now that I think about it, wouldn't be all that different from what he does now. He doesn't seem to depend on anyone to maintain his happiness."
Leo snorted and muttered, "Wouldn't that be the dream."
Yeah, that sounds pretty good, Nic admitted to himself, more than once. If only I didn't feel like some part of my happiness was tethered to Kieran. If that string ever snapped, Nic wasn't sure what part of him would break completely. He hated to admit that he depended on Kieran enough to wish that even after their possible breakup scenario, he'd still want Kieran to be a part of his life. But he could think about that another time.
* * *
Midterms were going on, and everyone was panicking. They were wrapping up figure drawing, and Nic merely had to spray his charcoals before turning them in on Monday. He cleaned up the shnibbles that gathered on the edges of sketches he tore out of his sketchbook, and spent far too long in the studio putting together the portfolio of crap he made over the past three weeks. It was such a dull, boring task to be bothered with on a Sunday, and on top of it, he was dreading seeing Kieran again.
Seeing Kieran meant seeing Ellen's moped. Which meant a cold, bitter drive through Portland. To an unknown building where snobby rich guys would bid on a nude portrait of Ronan.
God. That sounded like a complete and utter shitshow that Nic wanted no part of.
So he spent his morning forcefully ripping pages out of his sketchbook and picking ones suitable to be graded. There were others in the studio cleaning up their final pieces of Eliana that looked far better than any of their beginnings. It meant that a lot of people ended up scrapping their sketches of Kieran, just simply because he was the first model and the drawings back then weren't their best. Many of Nic's drawings passed with flying colors when it came to those featuring Kieran, so his portfolio consisted mostly of Kieran and Eliana.
That might have been due to bias on his part, and his distaste for Ronan now.
Nic sighed dreadfully as he recalled the obvious lack of sleep reflecting under his eyes. He could feel it sinking in there, as if preparing to drill empty holes where his eyes were supposed to be, focusing on work instead of drifting off time and time again. If he started to think about Ronan now, he'd never get anything done. The last thing he wanted to do was drift off into an unresponsive daze, drawing the first thing that came to mind—Kieran, or Ronan.
He was in the midst of slotting his portfolio into his bag when someone knocked on his desk. "Hey, you there or is this just an imitation of you? Because if so, I'm impressed by the resemblance," his boyfriend said, smiling as he leaned over Nic's desk.
Nic watched Kieran glance around the room and sigh, "God. I wish I could spend every day in Ryce."
"Pff, yeah, and I wish every day I could sit in that greenhouse. It's so warm and cozy. I'd get to chill with all my succulents."
"Yeah... hey, but I bet we could pot your succs up soon so you can keep them in your dorm," he confessed and when Nic snorted, he said, "What?"
It took a moment for Nic to recover. "Please don't say that again."
"What? Succs?"
"Kieran, c'mon."
"What, it's just short for succulents. What's wrong with it?"
"You're way too ace for this. C'mon, you gotta know how perverted that sounds in my head right now," Nic said, and Kieran gave an innocent shrug.
"Just means that you really want whatever perverted form of 'succ' you're thinking of," he replied, pushing away from the desk to wander around towards Nic. "Which, by the way, not giving to you. Because that's incredibly disgusting and I don't see why people are okay with the idea of blowjobs and are disgusted by the idea of sharing straws or mixing their food together. Like, if you're willing to put a dick in your mouth, you literally have nothing to lose. You might as well just eat your food off the floor if you're hygienically okay with eating dick."
By that point, some of the students in the room started looking at them oddly, and Nic went bright red. "Okay, we are not talking about this right now."
"But admit that you're okay with eating dick and not okay with eating your food off the ground."
"Well, I mean, I'm sure there's more germs on the floor than there are—"
"So you're fine swallowing the thing I piss with?"
"Kieran!"
"It's an honest question!"
Nic ran his hands through his hair, a panicked look on his face. How was he supposed to respond to that when he frequently thought about Kieran's dick? The fact of the matter was this: he had drawn evidence of Kieran's penis, and the fact that it was a decent-looking penis was proof of Nic's ultimate hope to one day lick it.
"I hope you realize..." Kieran started, suddenly grinning like a goddamn manic hyena, "that I'm just teasing you. Because I love seeing you get all flustered."
Nic opened and closed his mouth for a solid minute. "You're such a dick."
The second Kieran let out that breathy, demonic laugh, Nic's blood chilled in his veins. By that point, Kieran was now standing beside him, and barely had to move to lean in and whisper, "And you want to swallow me, don't you?"
Nic knew Kieran just wanted the satisfaction of seeing Nic squeak, turn red, and insist, "N-No! No I don't!" He was sure that was exactly what Kieran was waiting for, so he forced himself to school his expression, despite the obvious tension in his neck and humming in his chest as he turned to Kieran, eyes half-lidded.
"You're in dangerous territory right now," he all but purred, and snickered at the suddenly pale look on Kieran's face. Nic pinched him in the side and said, "I wouldn't do that unless you begged for it."
"I-I wouldn't!"
"I know. And that's the sad part," Nic pouted, turning his puppy-eyes back to his work.
That just got Kieran seething, "You little shit!" all while Nic giggled to himself and mentally high-fived himself for being so smooth. It wasn't every day he was capable of teasing Kieran and getting away with it.
Kieran sat in a flustered mess at Nic's desk while he packed away his things. He was still scowling as they walked out of the studio together while Nic said his goodbyes to his classmates. They trekked down the stairs in silence as he tugged on his gloves and zipped up his jacket. At the ground level, he asked, "What're you thinking about?"
"I'm just annoyed that you played me like that. How dare," Kieran huffed, tugging his scarf up over his lips as he glared at Nic. "I'll get you back."
"Please don't. Sexual frustration is worse than general frustration," he pleaded. "And I feel bad every time I think about it."
"About what?"
"Don't make me say it."
"Please tell me in vivid detail what pornographic situation you put me in because I would like to know. Please tell me it's not doggie style. You don't seem like the kinda guy who's into that."
"Kieran! C'mon, I'm trying not to think about it and—Oh, God, you just put the image in my head," Nic groaned, slapping his hands over his face while Kieran laughed maniacally. He ran off in a victorious pursuit of the brick ledges on the sides of the sidewalk, and climbed them to avoid Nic's sexually frustrated fury.
It took them longer than necessary to get to Ellen's moped, and they maneuvered around to accommodate the portfolio bag through Arnette's narrow streets and, at one point, onto a brick walkway simply because Kieran wanted to save time. Evidently, Kieran was thorough with his research and found that the art auction opened with free wine and cute hors d'oeuvres, which meant they had a little under twenty minutes to make it for all of the perks. They practically skidded into the Kingsley parking lot with Nic flying off the back seat so he could skid over the ice-slick sidewalks up to the front door. He ran as fast as humanly possible whilst weighed down by art supplies and his backpack full of shit.
Leo was startled by Nic bursting in to drop off his shit and change into something more decent for the occasion. He threw on a navy button up and slacks, tucked in the shirt, fixed the collar, and kicked out his shoes for Leo to see.
"How do I look?"
"Uh, good...?"
"'Kay thanks I'm leaving. Gotta get to the auction on time," Nic said, snatching his wallet and student ID before darting out of the room and down the hall. He stuffed his gloves on, wrapped his scarf up around his mouth and nose, and tugged his hat over his ears so by the time he was on the back of Ellen's vespa, the wind hardly hurt.
They shifted expertly between narrow side-streets, and the main roads that cruised down block after block of identical brick buildings, and overhangs sheltering people in baggy black jackets, hats, scarves, layers of sweatshirts. It wasn't a surprise that there were a lot of homeless people in Portland, and as they tilted around a corner, they passed by one of their cardboard signs written on in Sharpie.
"Hey Kieran?" Nic asked as the vespa slowed in traffic. They stopped behind a taxi waiting at a red light.
"What?" Kieran raised his voice for Nic to hear, turning his head to the side.
"I was just thinking. You said you used to live in Chicago?" Kieran shrugged. "But Bev said your parents live in northern California."
The light turned green again, and they coasted forward as Kieran answered, "Grandparents live in Chicago. I spend my summers there."
"Are there a lot of homeless people in Chicago too?" he asked, and Kieran answered with a shrug. Nic tipped his head forward to rest on Kieran's shoulder, and he squinted against the wind as they pulled into one of the parking garages near the building. They split the cost of parking, and snuck into the first open spot they could find. As soon as the engine cut out, the echoing around the parking structure faded, and left them in a bubble that seemed all too quiet for voices.
And yet, they could hear voices echoing around as Nic hopped off the vespa and heard his boots clap against the concrete. "You hear that?" he asked Kieran, who instantly shushed him, staring intently at his phone before pushing off Ellen's moped.
Kieran walked out to the edges of the cars, cupped his hands over his mouth, and yelled, "We're over here!"
Distantly, Nic heard an excited, "Ooh! That's the boys over there!"
"You asked Ezekiel to come?" Nic hissed, though he smiled as Kieran winked at him as he corrected, "Not just Ezekiel. Eliana's coming too."
As soon as Kieran said it, Nic started to catch the faint sound of Eliana harmonizing with Ezekiel's jazzy voice singing down the ramp. They came trotting between the beams, all while Ezekiel performed elaborate dance-steps, swinging his arms like he was in a musical. Eliana twirled in her long dress, twisting around and singing off-tune before proclaiming, "I used to be in choir back in the day!"
"I'm sure you were," Kieran laughed, hands on his hips as he walked up to them. Eliana kissed him on the cheek and hurried over to Nic, her long fingers topped with sharp red nails that could probably cut through his cheeks in an instant. Either way, she grabbed hold of his face and gave him a wet smack on the forehead.
"Nic! Dear! We heard what happened," she cried out, clasping a hand to her heart. She had on what looked like an expensive fur coat that Kieran blatantly glared at, up until the point where Eliana looked at him—then he was all smiles, pretending like he wasn't offended by the fox fur. "We'll talk to Ronan and try to get him to remove the painting. Don't you worry."
"Thanks, but I doubt he will," Nic confessed nervously. "You don't have to talk to him."
"Nonsense!" Ezekiel all but shouted, startling Nic with a hard hand on the shoulder. "We'll set 'im straight. I'm good at that sort of thing."
"I'm not sure if heteronormativity will solve our problems," Kieran said, and Nic was so startled by the joke that he wasn't entirely sure that it was meant to be a joke. Eventually, though, Eliana burst into loud, obnoxious laughter as she enveloped Kieran in a hug.
"I miss your one-liners! They always get me. C'mon, let's go," she said, reaching over to grab Nic and yank him to her side. For a woman of her age, Nic was surprised by her strength, but perhaps that had something to do with the death-grip on his arm, and her sharp nails. Her smile said it all: She was ready to shed blood if necessary for the sake of making Ronan pay.
* * *
Sav was, more or less, indifferent about a lot of things. She was indifferent about things other people might find "important" or "relevant" to the progression of life for a young woman like herself. Did she care about whether or not her genetic code was passed on? Well, not especially. At least not until she could formulate a feasible contraption to contain a copy of her genome for future purposes... but aside from that! The last thing she wanted was her human genome being enclosed within an awful screaming mess of cells stemming from her uterus wall...
"What are you thinking about?"
She blinked her bleary eyes, glancing over at the sad clutter lounging in her beanbag. She sat against the opposite wall, legs splayed to the side, laptop open but slowly timing out on the ground. Leo stared at her from around the blanket he brought from his own room. Sav was almost certain it was Nic's.
"Um... thinking about how children are a fucking scam," she confessed.
"That is... a cold thought. Bitter, even."
"I'm a bitter person. Can't complain," she said, sighing as she dragged her finger over the trackpad of her computer. She logged back in, and looked up at Leo with tired eyes. "What are you thinking about? I mean, that's why you asked me, right? So I'd be obligated to ask the same...?"
Leo stared at her blankly before saying, "Since when did you figure out how conversations worked."
"I've always known how conversations work. I talk to Kieran about this all the time. Like, how the rules of socializing make everyone come off as mundane and excessively nice when we aren't. You know what I mean? Like, if I had no manners and no ability to comprehend social cues—AKA analyze social situations—you would ask me how my day was, and I'd tell you, and never ask the same. You see?"
"But that just suggests that I asked simply because I was a narcissist and didn't actually want to hear about what you were thinking when I was actually genuinely interested. You looked like you were spacing hardcore," he said, suddenly provoked by the implication that Leo was anything but a civil young gentleman.
"Regardless of whether or not you did... that's how analyzing a conversation works," she replied, raising her eyebrows at him, daring him to question it. He settled to give up the argument in favor of glaring at the door. She looked over her shoulder and around the corner, seeing that there was nothing particularly interesting about the door to grab her attention like it had Leo. "But seriously—what are you thinking about?"
"Olivia," he confessed. "I feel like... everything we did was just so sentimental in the long run."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Like... romantic. And not in our usual sense of romance," he confessed. "Idealistic. Impractical. Why would we spend over twenty dollars to see a movie every weekend. Why would we hold hands when it was fucking freezing outside. We were just sacrificing our own restored heat to hold some... limbs protruding from the ends of our forearms."
"Hand-holding in the winter is such a weird concept," Sav agreed.
"Yeah. Do you think it's weird that I'm suddenly just realizing it now?" he asked.
She considered the notion, and shook her head. They fell into silence for a moment, though Sav knew exactly what conclusion Leo was coming to. It didn't change the fact that she knew what he was like, dating Olivia. She was there to see him happy. Genuinely happy to kiss and share his heat with Olivia because that was what romantics did. They were the sort of people who seemed idealistic. Impractical. Because love wasn't feasible by any means.
So, eventually he did ask. "Does that mean I'm aromantic like you?" he asked.
She had her answer at the tip of her tongue, but she didn't want to make it seem like she'd thought about this far too often, and fumed over it time and time again. So she hummed as if she was thinking before ever getting around to answering his question.
"No. You're just bitter about your breakup and want to justify not being with someone. And it makes sense considering how concrete your mind works because as soon as you have your fun with an abstract concept like romance... you go and overanalyze it and suddenly you think 'Oh, that wasn't as normal as it should have been. Let me just add science to this.' You feel?" she said.
He seemed disappointed by the answer, but nodded nonetheless. She felt... sorry for him. Because he'd go on, probably fall in love with a romantic or sexual relationship again, and get his heart broken. And it wasn't like Sav was immune to heartbreak at all, and she hated to see people like Leo experience it once, knowing that it might happen again and again over something she found to be so capricious.
Leo rubbed a hand over his reddened eyes and reached down to pick up his water bottle. He chugged a bit of it, and Sav analyzed him long enough over these few hours to know that he drank water excessively to avoid crying in front of her.
"It must be nice," he commented. "Not having to worry about being hurt emotionally like this."
"Well, you being a bastard earlier kinda hurt my feelings. So I'm not invincible when it comes to emotional pain. I'm not a robot, Leo," she laughed, and he laughed too. She was glad their earlier spat wasn't a tense subject between them anymore.
He looked away from her, eyes glassy as he confessed, "I... kinda hoped that we'd have something in common. Aside from, like, our usual hobbies."
"But at least now you sorta know what it feels like," she said. "And I know that's a dark way of putting your breakup, and it's not exactly a healthy way to look at romance by any means, but... it's how I think about it for a small part of it. You know?"
Leo smiled painfully at her, fingers playing with the cap of his water bottle. He nodded uncertainly, and looked hurt as he said, "Yeah, I think so. Thanks Sav."
"Any time."