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It was not lost on Chloe that she had a tendency towards obsession. A frustrating and endless habit of fixating on a select handful of things in her life. Fencing, of course, was a big one. Not just the concept of it, but also the perfection of her own artistry in the sport, down to the specific angle of her wielding wrist at any given time. Blade craftsmanship was another, along with the butterfly life cycle, Auradon history, and lately (decidedly most irritatingly) her roommate.
It wasn’t just Red in her entirety that Chloe found herself enthralled by; it was small things that she picked up on instinctively over time. The way Red’s hands were slightly calloused at the base of her palms, which drew Chloe’s attention frequently because the girl had an atrocious habit of cracking her knuckles repetitively throughout the day. It was in the way Red occasionally used those rough hands to grip at Chloe’s forearm, kneading the muscle there mindlessly as her focus was elsewhere.
It amused Chloe that, even though Red acted tough and independent, she subconsciously constantly craved any manner of physical contact. Chloe was also fascinated by the way Red held intense eye contact with whomever she was speaking to, a habit that flustered Chloe in their everyday conversations. When Red looked at her like that, with dark and attentive eyes, she worried that her roommate could see how desperate Chloe was for her attention.
Red had also recently become very fond of briefly gripping Chloe’s chin between her thumb and pointer finger with a small squeeze, and smiling in a way that curled one side of her mouth up farther than the other. She did this whenever she found Chloe’s general “good-ness” particularly delightful which, inconveniently for Chloe, was very often. This specific action, every time without fail, caused blood to rush in Chloe's ears and her heart to thrum threateningly in the base of her throat. It was humiliating, really.
Their collective expedition in Wonderland should have clued Chloe in to her slightly more than friendly feelings toward her red-headed friend. Even in the moment, she’d known that she was over-reacting. Every word against Red that left her mouth had made bile rise up in the back of her throat and her stomach churn uncomfortably, but she’d been so inexplicably upset that she didn’t know what else to do. It was a bit ridiculous really, because Red was allowed to make friends with whomever she wanted.
The way Chloe had acted towards the VKs, and honestly all of their companions, had been uncalled for and she knew it. She’d been suffocating without Red’s undivided focus on her, in ways she couldn’t articulate properly. She’d done some extensive introspection since their foray into the wild forest, and now tried very hard to not let the her enthrallment with Red impede upon her ability to act like a normal fucking person.
This commitment was not made easy by Red’s recent inclination towards Luis. Her roommate had not explicitly told her that she and the Madrigal boy were romantically involved, but Chloe could infer. They spent a considerable amount of time alone together, and one didn’t have to look very far to reach the conclusion that the two must be dating, or having some sort of unofficial fling. The latter, frankly, sounded more like Red anyways.
As much as Chloe adored her, she could also admit that her roommate had issues with commitment. Not that she blamed her, though. Despite the fact that they’d changed her former tyrant of a mother into the docile and doting woman she should have always grown up to be, Red’s memories were still of the previous timeline. No amount of extra-dimensional remedies could take away the fact that Red still occasionally flinched at her mother’s embrace, or that she was terminally emotionally distant.
—--------------------------------
“Hey, Red.”
Red’s only response to Chloe entering their shared dorm at around 3:30 was a salute from on top of the covers of her bed, where she was engrossed in her computer. Chloe set her fencing duffle bag on the floor next to her desk and tugged her team sweatshirt off, wincing at the smell of her own sweat.
She might have gone overboard in practice this afternoon, but lately Swords and Shields was the only thing that could distract her racing mind from agonizing over Red’s most recent body language, or any of her other general misery surrounding her roommate.
“Can you come tell me if I sound stupid?” asked Red suddenly from the other side of the room, gesturing to her open laptop that had a pathetically blank document open. A document that Chloe knew should be much fuller, considering she was almost certain it was the paper that was due tomorrow in their shared history class.
“Can I shower first? I stink from practice,” Chloe responded, already grabbing clean clothes from her drawers.
“I don’t give a shit Chloe, I’m used to it.”
Chloe side eyed her at that. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Red grinned at her with a wink and a hot flush passed across Chloe’s body, whether from embarrassment or Red’s slight flirting, she couldn’t say.
“I’m kidding! You only stink sometimes. But I don’t mind, I get you’re kind of a jock,” she mused with a funny quirk of her head.
Chloe scoffed, “In no world would I describe myself as a jock. That’s more Luis’s specialty.”
She hoped she didn’t sound bitter.
“Hey! It's not a bad thing. And, sure, Luis is like a muscly tourney player, or whatever, but you’ve totally got your own thing going on. Swords and Shields is like your life. Sometimes I think you love it more than me,” she said with mock sadness, which was quickly forgotten when she seemed to remember she’d asked Chloe for help. She lifted up her laptop and waved it haphazardly in Chloe’s direction, which was childish, but got the message across. Chloe begrudgingly padded over to the side of Red’s bed and rested one curled knee on the edge as she took the computer from Red’s hands.
“Please don’t tell me this is the paper that’s due tomorrow for history.”
“Okay, I won’t tell you,” said Red cheekily.
Chloe sighed and read the intro paragraph (the only paragraph), in which Red somehow used the word ‘moreover’ three times.
“Okay-” Chloe started, only slightly exasperated, “What prompt are you even doing?” This earned a dramatic groan from Red.
“Can you not tell?” she asked, to which Chloe just stared at her.
“I picked the third one, or whatever. The one that was like, um, asking what we think the most influential sub-kingdom in Auradon is. And, before you ask, yes I already have my sources. I just have been procrastinating the actual… writing… of it.” Red cringed at her own words.
“I get what you’re trying to say here,” Chloe gestured towards the measly writing, “I think. And I think you can run with it as long as you have good examples, but, for the love of all that is good, please use an online thesaurus to find synonyms.” She rested the laptop on her knee and added some suggestions to Red’s few sentences.
“Send me a link to this and make me a commenter and I’ll mark it up later when you’re done. But only if you finish before 10:30 tonight.”
“Aye aye, captain. Now go shower, you do stink,” she said as she took the laptop back and playfully shoved Chloe away with a palm on her sternum, thumb grazing her skin by the collar of her athletic tee. Chloe threw her hands up, not dignifying Red with a response, took her clothes into the bathroom and shut the door.
—-----------------------------------
After Chloe’s shower, and a bit of chemistry homework at her desk while Red typed furiously on her computer, the pair headed to eat dinner with their unlikely group of friends. Chloe simultaneously loved and loathed these nightly meals. On one hand, she adored the company of so many people. As much as growing up in Cinderellasburg was a dream, it had also been a bit lonely at times. Chad had been at Auradon beginning when she was relatively young, as they had a considerable age gap, so it had just been her and her parents in the castle most of the time. She’d had lots of private tutors and one-on-one lessons, and not very many close friends.
“Hey princess! and…other princess,” came Luis’s voice as he caught up to them in the hallway with an arm around Red’s shoulder and a friendly nod for Chloe.
“Hey!” Red greeted him with a bright smile. Chloe nodded at him in return and hoped that she didn’t look nauseous.
The downside to dinner was that Red and Luis would inevitably have interactions of some sort, and Chloe would have to sit and pretend that she wasn’t five seconds away from gauging her own eyes out at any given moment. She felt bad about it, too, because he really was a sweet guy and he hadn’t done anything wrong. Honestly, she could understand why Red would like him. If Chloe were into… that.
“S’up sparkles.” Chloe felt an amicable clap on her back as Hazel sauntered up next to the three of them, Squeaky and Squirmy in tow. Although the pirate girl still very much enjoyed getting on Chloe’s nerves, she appreciated Hazel’s company especially when it saved her from being alone with Red and her star-crossed lover.
“Hazel.” Chloe greeted.
Later on, Pink was expositing enthusiastically about the latest piece in her music class that was occupying all of her time. Chloe found it very funny that the exuberant and flamboyant girl was related to her chronically dry and sarcastic roommate; though, she supposed maybe the original Red of this timeline might have been a bit different.
Chloe’s attention turned to Red who was next to her but a slight distance away at the large, round table. Out of the corner of her eye, Chloe took in the fact that Red’s eyebrows were perpetually up at her hairline for Pink’s whole spiel as if she, too, could not believe that they were related. This fact made Chloe smile despite herself.
Her gaze lingered on Red’s right eyebrow that had a small nick of a scar on the side closest to her ear that Chloe had wondered about since they’d met. It migrated to the nose ring that red hadn’t “consented to” but had yet to take out, which suited her very well, in Chloe’s humble opinion. Red’s hair was removed from the half-up half-down style that she usually sported for convenience, and was instead tumbling messy around her shoulders. Chloe loved this because, for a girl who still had so many walls up, Red’s loose hair made her seem younger, more unguarded.
When she realized she’d definitely been staring for far too long, and Pink’s speech was nearing its end, she snapped her gaze away. No one had seemed to notice her mooning over Red except Hazel, whom Chloe made eye contact with. The girl raised a brow at her and huffed out a quiet laugh to herself before looking away. Chloe burned with shame at being caught.
She was careful not to look Red’s way for the rest of the meal.
—--------------------------------
“So how long have you wanted to jump Red’s bones?” Hazel caught up to Chloe as she ran to her locker to grab something on the way back to her dorm. She’d told Red to go on ahead.
“Hazel, what the hell!” Chloe whisper-yelled, head swivelling frantically to see if anyone might’ve heard. When she confirmed that no one was around, she said “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She began rummaging around her locker aggressively, trying not to think about the fact that she might go into cardiac arrest.
The pirate looked at her incredulously. “Are you serious?”.
Chloe clenched her jaw and focused on the stack of binders in her locker that was suddenly very interesting. She willed Hazel to retreat to her cave or whatever other evil place she had crawled out of this morning with the goal of making Chloe miserable.
“Are you in denial, or have you not even figured it out yet?”.
“We’re not having this conversation.”
“Ah, so the first one.”
Chloe slammed her locker with a loud clang and whirled around in Hazel’s face. “Does it bring you joy to humiliate me, or something? Normally I’m fine with your teasing because it seems like it’s harmless, but right now it feels like you’re fucking with me on purpose”. Hazel looked slightly bewildered, and Chloe was overreacting, she knew she was overreacting, but she was terrified that if Hazel could tell then Red could too.
“Geez, Charming, relax. I wasn’t trying to set you off, I’m sorry.” Hazel sighed, “I’m not great at being a shoulder to lean on for…that kind of stuff. You just looked kind of sad, and I know Red’s got whatever is going on with her and Luis. I’m sure it sucks, so. Yeah.”
Hazel rocked back and forth on her feet, pointedly looking anywhere but Chloe. It was sweet, in the way that Hazel could (apparently) be sweet.
“It’s fine, Hazel, I’m sorry I blew up at you I’m just-” she paused, searching for a way to explain.
“I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Please don’t say anything. To anyone.”
Hazel mimed zipping her lips and throwing away the key. Chloe nodded her appreciation with a tight lipped almost-smile. At that Hazel stalked away in the direction of her own dorm, with her typical swagger.
—--------------------------------
“Took you long enough” Red snarked from where she sat on the floor with her laptop, legs crossed and back against the foot of her bed.
“Sorry, Hazel kept me for a bit. You know her.” Chloe said with an exaggerated roll of her eye that she hoped Red wouldn’t read too much into. She couldn’t help the flush of shame that blanketed her with a clammy heat.
Red gave a slight inquisitive look from under her brow without moving her head up, cracking her left knuckles with the thumb of the same hand.
“You two have been very chummy recently,” she said in an odd tone that Chloe couldn’t quite read.
“That could’ve been a great pirate pun if you’d heard yourself,” Chloe commented only slightly avoidantly.
Red laughed with a small puff of air out of her nostrils. “My own comedic prowess never ceases to amaze me,” she said with a smile, “But seriously, what made you change your tune about her? I mean, I know you don’t hate her anymore, but…”
Chloe didn’t really understand why Red was pushing on this, and thought for a very brief minute she’d somehow heard their conversation, which would absolutely mean Chloe needed to kill herself immediately. She quickly catalogued internally which of her knives was closest to her at the moment.
“I don’t know, Red. I mean look at us, I pretty much felt the same way about you when we first met. You and Hazel are kind of similar, in a way. I guess she’s more inclined towards violence, but…” she trailed off, mouth opening and closing around words she couldn’t form.
“...she can be nice when she wants to,” Chloe settled on.
Red’s reaction to this was muted by the mask of indifference she often wore when she was uncomfortable in a conversation, and Chloe didn’t really know what she’d said to earn that. Her roommate then simply shrugged her shoulders with an ‘I guess so’ look on her face and switched the subject.
“Okay so, how does this supporting paragraph sound?”
—-------------------------------
Chloe was exhausted in her 8:00 AM chemistry class the next morning because, despite the boundaries she’d set, she inevitably was up until 1:00 in the morning helping a frustrated Red edit her paper. It felt like someone had stuck their thumbs in Chloe’s eye sockets and pressed hard until they finally hit the back of her skull, and this feeling was enhanced by the stoichiometry sheet currently in front of her.
Max, who was sitting next to her, seemed to feel exactly the same way. He was dragging his hands down his face furiously and bouncing his knee rapidly under the table.
“Diboron silicide…” he mumbled under his breath, “this fucking class is about to make me commit silicide.”
Chloe angled her half filled sheet towards where he sat with his empty one and nudged him to look. He glanced at the answers she was providing him and then up into her eyes with more appreciation and affection than she’d ever seen from him towards anyone.
“Chloe. Have I ever told you you’re my favorite HK?” he asked with a glimmer in his eye and a hand on her shoulder.
“Yeah yeah, just be subtle about it. This is pushing it for a goody-two-shoes like me, I’m not in the mood to be caught,” she said with a mixture of humor and deadly seriousness.
He nodded sagely and wrote down her answers with a respectable air of non-chalance. Chloe shook her head fondly. She imagined that if the Hatter boy and Red had been closer when they were both in Wonderland that they could’ve been great friends, if not the perfect partners in crime.
When the bell rang and she’d finally finished her worksheet, and ostensibly so had Max, she gathered her things into her backpack and walked with him out into the hallway toward their next classes. They went their separate ways eventually, as Chloe had history and he had literature.
As she walked into the classroom she placed her printed and stapled essay into the bin designated for the submission and walked to her desk. Red was running late, which was incredibly typical. She didn’t have the greatest attendance record, or the best turning-her-work-in-on-time record for that matter.
It wasn’t that Red wasn’t smart. Chloe actually considered Red to be one of the smartest people she knew, she just also happened to be very attached to working on her own schedule. Also, her roommate was definitely more inclined towards math and science.
Chloe would die on the hill that Red was dyslexic, actually, but she was waiting for the right time to broach the subject.
Chloe knew Red was standing behind her before she even saw her because she recognized the way she smelled. She wasn’t really sure if that was creepy or not. Red always smelled like something warm and spiced, though Chloe didn’t know how since she had never seen Red use perfume.
When her roommate’s hands came down on her shoulders with a “BOO!”, she only jumped slightly at the roughness of the contact.
“I don’t understand how you always know!” Red said exasperated, as she slid into the seat next to Chloe. Her roommate was giggling with slightly flushed cheeks, presumably from the sheer anticipation of sneaking up on her, and Chloe had to fight to keep a matching grin off of her face.
“I told you I have eyes in the back of my head,” she said with a haughty cross of her arms.
“Har-har,” Red replied.
When class had begun and everyone had turned in the physical copies of their essays, Chloe eagerly took out her binder full of lined paper and began taking notes on the first lecture of their new unit. For the moment, she could push her exhaustion aside with the sheer power of her love for history.
Red, clearly, did not feel the same. She claimed that taking notes was “stupid” and stopped her from actually learning anything. Chloe found it hard to see the correlation, but just let her have it.
Red’s preferred activity during class was taking Chloe’s right hand in her own and screwing around with it. She’d try to crack Chloe’s knuckles, and would always be left unsatisfied because her joints weren’t as pliable as Red’s own, so she would then settle for pulling Chloe’s one ring on and off over and over again. This was fine in theory, as Chloe was left handed, but disastrous in practice because it was incredibly distracting to have Red constantly touching her.
One of the things Chloe disliked the most about her incurable obsession with Red was how constantly out of control she felt of her own body. Red made Chloe’s heart race to the point of discomfort, had her feeling slightly nauseous when she’d be jokingly flirtatious, and made her palms so incredibly sweaty. Chloe hoped Red couldn’t feel this while she performed her ministrations.
“When’s your next match?” came a whisper in her ear. Chloe had to suppress a shiver as Red’s lips grazed the shell of her ear.
She cleared her throat as quietly as possible, “Next Thursday, why?”.
“Luis and Robbie wanted to go. They told me to invite you to the Tourney game this weekend, too.” Red whispered back.
Chloe pressed her lips into a thin line and attempted to swallow down the bitter jealousy that was threatening the back of her tongue.
“Sure, Red.” she said evenly. Red simply squeezed the hand she was holding captive.
—----------------------------------
The rest of the week crept by at a snail's pace. Chloe had a pre-calculus quiz on Friday that she had enlisted Red to help her study for on Thursday night. Unfortunately, when the assessment rolled around she found she remembered the way Red’s hands had brushed hers when she took Chloe’s pen much clearer than she remembered the subsequent explanation of the limit definition of the derivative. Still, she managed.
In an incredibly uncharacteristic fashion, Red was the first one up on Saturday morning. Chloe awoke to her roommate shuffling around in her dresser, seemingly oddly agitated in her process of picking an outfit. Chloe couldn’t help but wonder if she was stressed about impressing Luis for his big game. The thought made her stomach curl in on itself.
“You’re up early,” she piped up and Red seemed to startle, not realizing Chloe was awake yet.
“Pink texted me that my mother is visiting this afternoon.”
Chloe blinked, “Oh! That’s… good?”
Red just stared at her.
“Bad?”
Red pinched the bridge of her pierced nose in a way that made Chloe think the second option was closer to the truth.
“I don’t even know what I’m doing. When I got the text I immediately thought about needing to find an outfit that wouldn’t piss her off, and then I remembered that that’s not even a problem anymore. Now I just feel stupid.” She let out a short, self-deprecating laugh.
Chloe softened, “Red…”
But her roommate was very quick to flip whatever switch she always had on standby in order to conceal what she was really feeling. It honestly fascinated Chloe how easily Red could put on that mask. Especially because, in comparison, Choe was an open book. Her mother always told her she wore her heart on her sleeve, and she had repeatedly proven it to be true.
“It’s fine!” Red smiled easily, “I’m going to go get ready,” she said as she whisked away into the bathroom. Chloe sat on her bed and picked at the corner of her comforter, feeling concern for Red settling in the back of her mind.
They didn’t discuss how Red felt about her mother very much, and Chloe never pried. Red wasn’t the kind of person to easily offer up her innermost thoughts or feelings. When Chloe had addressed Red’s “serious intimacy issues” during the whole time travel fiasco, she couldn’t have been more spot on. Her roommate was honestly, at times, completely emotionally unavailable.
And sure Red was tactile, but the way she searched for contact was so disorganized and strange. Despite all of her arm touching, hand-holding, and face grabbing, Red rarely hugged Chloe. Or anyone else. Even when Chloe would see Pink embrace her, Red always looked slightly affronted before she eventually returned the gesture. She also never cried.
When Chloe thought too hard about what Red’s life must’ve been like before they changed things, a deep and hollow sense of grief settled low in her gut. She’d imagine what she would’ve done if they’d known each other then. How she would’ve tried to stand up to Red’s mom, to save her from that place. How she would’ve probably gotten decapitated if she’d made the effort.
A door opening interrupted her thoughts.
“Bathroom’s all yours.”
—------------------------------
The crowd in the bleachers on the side of the tourney field was probably the most irritatingly enthusiastic group of people Chloe had ever been a part of. As if the cheerleaders weren’t enough, there was a row of boys in the front waving their shirts around in circles above their heads with big letters painted on their chests spelling out “AURDON”. Either the second ‘A’ didn’t show up or they’d forgotten how to spell the name of their own school.
Chloe had to admit that a little bit (a lot) of her irritation had to do with the fact that Red was next to her watching Luis bob and weave across the field, dodging projectiles in the kill zone with ease. Her roommate had a wide smile on her face and was sitting with her hands clasped up at her chest with excitement.
Chloe found it even more annoying that Luis was incredible at tourney, and she could easily see why they’d made him team captain this year. He also kept looking up at where she and Red were sitting with a gleaming smile that shone bright even under his uniform helmet.
Chloe wanted to waterboard him.
When there were thirty seconds left on the clock and Luis was charging down the field, flanked by Robby, Red grasped Chloe’s hand in hers and gripped it tight. Her focus was glued to where Luis was approaching the other team’s goal with a searing intensity. She was clearly very invested in this win. Or, much to Chloe’s soreness, the person winning it.
Sure enough, Auradon won the final point right before the buzzer and Red was up on her feet, jostling Chloe violently by the shoulder. Despite Chloe’s complicated feelings it was exhilarating to see Red so thrilled. Excitement was not one of the emotions Red had trouble expressing, but that didn’t make witnessing it not special for Chloe every time. The flush high on her cheeks as she bared all of her teeth in a dazzling smile made Chloe’s heart clench.
She was broken out of her stupor by Red tugging her down the bleachers to meet Luis on the field.
He strode over to them with a matching grin as Red congratulated him. Chloe could tell he was anticipating, or maybe just hoping, that Red would go in for a hug. To Chloe’s satisfaction she didn’t, instead patting him on the back of his shoulder.
When Red looked back at Chloe as if to encourage her to also say something to Luis, Chloe gave a simple “Congratulations!” followed by a tight lipped smile. He seemed to appreciate this enough.
“Hey, I’m really excited to watch your match next week! I’ve never been to any myself, but Red tells me you’re a fan favorite.” He winked ostentatiously and Chloe cringed internally.
She felt kind of bad, because she knew he was only trying to be friendly and make conversation.
“Well, I hope I live up to your expectations.” She responds as amicably as possible.
They’re left making awkward eye contact for a bit before Red interjects.
“Shit. My mom just got here.” She can see the way Red’s eyes flash briefly with panic as they flicker across the phone in her hand.
“I’ll see you guys later.” She says, looking between the two of them before turning on her heel and walking back through the throng of crazed tourney fans.
Chloe nodded to Luis with a small smile and wave of her hand before making her own exit.
Hazel found Chloe as she was heading back to her dorm.
“Hey Charming” she greeted as she spun her heavy metal hook around on her index finger. Chloe wasn’t really sure why she carried the hook around when she very clearly had both her hands. Her mind wandered to Hazel’s father’s shoes that were still in her closet somewhere and she had to hold back a laugh.
“If you keep doing that it’s going to fly off and poke someone’s eye out.”
“Eyepatches are pirate chic.”
Chloe rolled her eyes.
“Was there something you needed?” she asked.
“Just thought I’d be a good samaritan and check up on you. Y’know.” Hazel replied, and sent a very indiscreet sideways glance Chloe’s way.
Chloe looked up at the ceiling of the hallway and prayed for an ounce of patience.
“I appreciate the gesture Hazel, but I promise if I really need you I will come to you. I’m doing fine. I’ve been dealing with the same thing all semester and circumstances have not changed since the last time we talked.” She smiled plainly in the pirate’s direction.
Hazel pursed her lips and nodded thoughtfully. Normally Chloe would speak to people a bit more delicately, but she knew Hazel’s feelings were pretty difficult to hurt.
“So have you read the chapters for English class on Monday yet?”
Chloe almost snorted at how quickly Hazel changed the subject.
“I was going to do it when I got back to my dorm.”
“Okay well text me when you finish it because I can’t understand the old time-y speak in it and I have no fucking clue what’s going on.”
Chloe smiled and shook her head a bit as they neared the door to her room, “Okay, Hazel. I’ll see you later.”
Hazel simply waved over her shoulder as she walked further down the hallway.
—-----------------------------------
It was a couple hours later when Red returned to the dorm room. Chloe had powered through the four assigned chapters of reading for English and sent Hazel her brief interpretation of the text. After this she began her chemistry homework packet. Halfway through said packet she began crying out of frustration, and debated just circling the teardrop on the page as her final answer to one of the problems.
She was nose deep in her heavy history text book as Red shuffled into the room. Her roommate kicked off her shoes in a way that made them smack against the base molding by the door, shrugging her jacket off hurriedly before throwing it on the floor. She had yet to turn her face fully towards Chloe so it was impossible to try and read her expression, not that that was usually any help.
“Hey! How was it?” Chloe asked experimentally, pretending to be still somewhat engrossed in her textbook.
“Yeah. Uh, it was good.” Red supplied. The tone of her voice didn’t back this claim up very well.
Chloe pushed her chair out and stood up from her desk carefully.
“Are you sure?” she approached the other girl tentatively, beginning to reach out a soothing hand. “It’s okay if-”
“I said it was fine.” Red snapped, still not turning around. Chloe felt a flicker of irritation at her dismissal that clashed with the deep empathy she perpetually held for Red, both of which pressed against her sternum in a way that was almost painful.
“Red, I’m just trying to help you. There’s no need to bite my head off”
Red whirled around, finally looking at Chloe. The whites of her eyes were slightly irritated, as if she needed to cry but was preventing the tears from welling up and spilling down her cheeks. Chloe suspected this was the case, as she’d never seen Red cry before and wasn’t really sure the other girl ever did.
“What the hell do you want from me Chloe? I’m not in the fucking mood,” she all but spat.
“Clearly you’re upset, Red, I just want to understand so I can be there for you,” she said earnestly and searched desperately for eye contact that Red was pointedly avoiding.
“I don’t have time for your emotional interrogation! Why do you always need to try and dissect my feelings? You’re incapable of minding your own business!” Red’s body language had become somewhat explosive as she gestured wildly and vaguely at every important syllable. She’d taken a few steps closer to Chloe, bringing them nearly nose to nose.
“Am I supposed to apologize for caring about you? I wouldn’t have to”––she put up air quotes ––“‘emotionally interrogate’ you if you would ever just fucking open up to me! I mean honestly, Red, I thought we were close enough for you to trust me even a little bit. You’re never straight forward with me. It’s always games with you, keeping me guessing about what’s actually going on inside that goddamn head of yours!”
A fire blazed behind Red’s dark eyes that Chloe didn’t often see.
“Why the fuck do you even care so much? Why are you so invested in how I’m feeling or whatever the hell my baggage is?” Red finally met Chloe’s gaze, searching her face almost frantically for something Chloe couldn’t fathom.
Chloe’s brain was muddled with anger and hurt. Her eyes locked on Red’s pulse point that she could see hammering in her throat from the exertion of their argument. While she grasped for the right way to word the answer to Red’s question without completely pouring her heart out, her body seemed to be in dissonance with her brain.
In an almost involuntary spasm of her arm, she reached up to the back of Red’s neck and pressed into it with the pads of her fingers—rapidly tugging the only slightly taller girl’s mouth to hers. The angle was a bit off because of Chloe’s fractal panic, which only worsened as she felt Red stutter against her lips, taken entirely off guard.
She was about to pull away when she felt a trembling hand fist the hem of her t-shirt and tug. Red’s lips parted briefly against Chloe’s own before kissing her back roughly. Her other hand came up to grasp Chloe’s bicep to keep her in place.
Chloe let out a strangled noise in the back of her throat and gripped the back of Red’s neck with renewed vigor, sliding her thumb into the spot directly behind Red’s ear.
The kiss was different than she’d pictured kissing Red would be (in the few times she’d permitted her mind to wander that far). Sure she knew Red was generally an intense person, but her other physical contact with Chloe had always been gentle. The way Red was kissing her now was almost aggressive.
Chloe felt the gentle scrape of Red’s teeth against her and shuddered into the kiss, brushing her tongue along Red’s lips tentatively. She tasted a vague flavor of copper from where Red had been biting them, a habit Chloe often chastised her for.
The kiss deepened as Red took the hand that had been gripping Chloe’s shirt and pressed it flat against her bare stomach. Her abdominal muscles tightened reflexively in return and Red hummed against her mouth.
Chloe nails dug into Red’s neck in an effort to suppress the whine that threatened to escape her throat as she realized she would absolutely let Red do whatever the hell she w–
“Hey Red, mom wants to know if–”
The sound of the door opening jolted them apart and Red pushed herself off of Chloe so hard that her back slammed into the dresser behind her.
Pink was staring at them from the threshold of the room, her mouth parted in shock. Her gaze flicked from Chloe, to her sister, and back again in a seemingly endless cycle. She then looked at an ambiguous point on the floor with a pensive expression for an agonizing period of time, before nodding once to herself.
“Well. Just uh, come find me when you’re…” she gestured to the two of them with a wave of her hand, “...decent.” She smiled in an odd manner that Chloe didn’t have the brain power to decipher.
When the door shut Red immediately turned to her desk and wiped her smeared lipstick off in the mirror. Chloe watched her wordlessly for a few moments before interjecting.
“Red can we–”
Red, clearly satisfied with her makeup removal, brushed past Chloe toward the door and left the room wordlessly.
Chloe backed up until she hit her bedframe and slid down to the floor.
“Shit.”
—----------------------------------
They didn’t speak for the next four days. Which was impressive considering they lived together, but Red simply woke up each morning before Chloe and returned late in the evening. Chloe assumed she was spending most of her time with Pink, but a smaller and more annoying voice in her head told her it could also be Luis. Chloe just preferred to ignore Red’s existence and anything that may or may not have happened between them altogether.
This was easier said than done.
Chloe hadn’t realized how much time she actually spent talking to, looking at, or thinking about Red until the girl was nowhere to be found.
Her frustration with her roommate had faded after the first day and the only feeling that remained inside Chloe was an intense and painful longing. Despite how much she had enjoyed their kiss in the moment, she would erase it from existence if it meant she could just have her friend back.
If having Red like that meant inevitably losing her then Chloe was more than happy to love her from afar. If it all came down to it, she could be content watching Red be happy with Luis, or whoever.
The selfish part of her hoped that Red was just as torn up as her about what had happened—because it would mean she at least returned even a fraction of Chloe’s feelings—but the other part of her never wanted Red to be upset about anything ever again.
While Pink was (theoretically) the only person who knew what had happened between Red and Chloe, Chloe wasn’t so naive to think that the rest of their friends couldn’t tell something was up. She and Red had been sitting on complete opposite sides of the table at meals and not speaking. Chloe had caught confused looks exchanged between several members of the group. Luis especially seemed taken aback, but he was also the kind of person to get extremely uncomfortable in the face of conflict.
Of course, Hazel was the only one brazen enough to ask about it.
“Okay spill. What the hell is up with you and Red?” the pirate asked with honestly more tact than Chloe expected, trailing her out to the dark courtyard after a particularly tense dinner. Chloe sat down on the nearest bench and Hazel followed her down with an unceremonious grunt.
Chloe let out a long sigh, scrubbing her face with her hands roughly. She didn’t exactly know how much she really wanted to relinquish the other girl. It’s not that she thought Hazel would tell anybody, but she also knew that she was already in a fragile state and Hazel’s presumably crude response would not do her much good.
“Red and I….” she started out hesitantly “had a disagreement, of sorts.”
Hazel simply stared at her, prompting further explanation.
“There was some yelling. And then I did something I probably shouldn’t have. We haven’t spoken in almost five days.” She finished her intentionally vague recounting of that afternoon with a satisfied nod to herself and looked over at Hazel.
The pirate was sporting a very incredulous sneer that made Chloe feel like she was being dissected under a microscope. She shrunk into her own shoulders, wringing her hands in her lap.
“What?” she asked nervously.
“Okay so, am I supposed to like, read between the lines? Or..” Hazel gestured at Chloe with her hand, miraculously not holding the hook for once.
Chloe groaned loudly and ran her fingers roughly through her wild blue hair. She hated that she could feel a lump forming in her throat and tears pricking at the corners of her eyes.
“She’s just so frustrating, I just want to be there for her. I want her to come to me when she’s–” Chloe’s voice broke slightly at the emotion that threatened to spill over. She took a deep breath before starting again.
“I know she was hurting and she just lashed out, but that made me angry so I just yelled right back at her. And she didn’t get why I was so upset about it and so I…” She picked at the skin on the side of her finger and blood welled up in her nail bed.
“I kissed her.” She pressed her eyes shut tightly. “And I know I shouldn’t have and I think she only kissed me back because she felt bad and I think I ruined everything and she definitely hates me and–”
“Chloe.”
“–she’s never going to–”
“Chloe.”
Her rambling halted at the feeling of Hazel's palm on her shoulderblade, thumb stroking through the cotton of her T-shirt in a surprisingly tender gesture from the usually abrasive girl. Chloe gave her a short, wobbly smile.
“I really don’t think Red hates you. In fact I know she really loves you. Whether that be romantically or platonically, I don’t know, but I know you’re her best friend and one of her favorite people in the world. She’s just not very communicative and I think that you might need to be the one to initiate a conversation about it” Hazel implored.
Realistically, Hazel was correct. Chloe knew her and Red's friendship was stronger than she’d recently let herself believe. It had admittedly been easier to resort to the worst case scenario to prepare her in the off-chance that Red really didn’t ever want to speak to her again. Expect disappointment and all that.
Chloe took a deep breath.
“Thanks Hazel. That was actually very insightful.” Chloe huffed out a laugh at her own words.
Hazel didn’t seem to mind the slightly backhanded compliment.
“You’re very welcome. The first session is on the house,” she joked. “Seriously, though, I think I actually give very good advice. You should hear the shit I say to Felix.”
Chloe smiles at her, less shakily this time.
They stand up and Chloe motions to give Hazel a hug. The pirate only glances at her outstretched arms.
“We’re not there yet, princess.”
Chloe nodded sagely, unfazed.
“Noted.”
—-------------------------------
Despite Hazel’s wise words and the extent to which Chloe agreed with them, she’d chickened out on talking to Red by the time she returned to their room.
Her roommate was brushing her teeth in their shared bathroom with the door open when Chloe entered. Red didn’t look up when Chloe walked by the door towards her dresser.
When Chloe approached the bathroom to brush her teeth as well, Red was concurrently slipping out. In an awkward and wordless shuffle, they both reached the doorway at the same time and had to brush by each other closely.
In their brief proximity Chloe could smell the scent that was so distinctly Red, and it made her ache for the time before she’d muddled their relationship with her selfish desires.
She missed the nights when Red would playfully hip check her at the mirror while they completed their bedtime routines. The way she’d go off on a tirade about her latest curriculum related grievances as she put her freshly folded clothes away. Red had a habit of only doing her laundry very late at night because she’d forgotten to start it earlier.
Just to mess with her, Red would sometimes come over to Chloe’s bed after she’d already laid down and use all of her upper body strength to bounce the mattress up and down. It was a bizarre habit that Chloe imagined stemmed from Red’s general undersocialization and also found incredibly amusing. She was endeared because she could tell Red really just wanted to make her laugh.
When she slid into her sheets after flicking the bathroom light off, there was none of this. Chloe looked over at Red’s bed to find, just like the past several nights, that the other girl’s back was facing her.
—-------------------------------
Red didn’t show up for Chloe’s fencing match on Thursday. As a result, Chloe had to make a serious effort to ignore this fact so that it wouldn’t affect her performance. This was easier said than done, and she was getting her ass handed to her by the opponent in the first bout. Her agitation was causing a clammy sweat to crawl up her back and she felt like she was suffocating under her mask.
Her form was off because of how much of her brain power was going into ignoring how emotionally fraught she felt, and the knowledge that she wasn’t at peak form only made her perform worse.
She managed to pull through by the skin of her teeth in the last two bouts but she knew that her coach would likely have words for her later. Normally this would destroy her already admittedly shaky ego, but she didn’t know if anything could break through the haze in her mind that was Red.
It was only after she ripped the helmet off of her head following her third round that she noticed, with a bit of shock and a prick of irritation, that Luis was sitting in the bleachers watching the matches. When they made eye contact he smiled earnestly and waved. Chloe couldn’t recall if she’d remembered to smile back, or if she’d glared at him. She hoped it was the former.
She couldn't fathom why he was there if he wasn’t tagging along with Red. It’s not that Chloe and him weren’t friends, but they’d never been especially close. Admittedly, Chloe probably kept him at somewhat of a distance.
He was waiting in the stands still when she returned from the locker room.
“Hey!” he said with another wave. She could tell by his sporadic body language that he was slightly uncomfortable. She didn’t blame him.
“I uh, I watched the whole match. You really kept me on my toes! Didn’t know if you were going to pull through” he said with a small laugh. Chloe pressed her lips into a thin line, incredibly aware of how poorly she’d performed, and slightly peeved that Luis of all people was there to witness her miserable failure. He seemed to pick up on her internal dialogue.
“But I know you’re like an amazing swordsman; swordswoman? Anyways I’m sure next time you’ll mop the floor with them,” he finished, slightly out of breath. His eyes were darting all over her face.
“Thanks Luis. I appreciate you coming,” she replied.
He visibly relaxed, as if he’d been waiting for her to bite his head off.
“Yeah uh, Red was supposed to come with me but she texted and said she wasn’t feeling well. But I still wanted to come and show my support.”
Chloe nodded, unsure of what to say. She couldn’t tell if he was prompting her to say something about Red. Chloe assumed he must have picked up on the rift between them lately.
“We haven’t talked much today,” she settled on. It wasn’t entirely a lie. The full truth would be that they hadn’t talked at all in many days, but she’d already been through this conversation with Hazel, and she definitely didn’t want to start crying in front of Luis.
“Hey I just wanted to say that Red’s been really sad lately.”
Well apparently they were going there.
“She hasn’t said anything to me about you, but I’m sure you know we can all tell. Now I don’t know what happened, but I do know that Red loves you a lot. She tells me all the time that she doesn’t know what she’d do without you.”
Chloe huffed out a laugh at that. “I don’t really think Red needs me. The last couple of days have made that clear.”
“Chloe…” he reached out and touched her shoulder. It was slightly jarring but she tried not to react. She wasn’t repulsed by him or anything, but she hadn’t necessarily expected an attempt at physical comfort.
Chloe extrapolated, “Listen, she’s never said that to me. She doesn’t tell me anything about how she’s feeling so I’m not really sure what exactly it is that I provide for her. It seems like you’re much more important to her than I ever could be.”
As soon as the words left her mouth she realized how jilted she sounded and cringed inwardly. The knowing look Luis gave her made her feel hot with shame, and she wished she still had her fencing mask on so he couldn’t see how her face was crumbling.
He opened his mouth to say something and then hesitated. His brow furrowed a bit before he seemed to gain confidence in whatever he was about to say.
“I might be reading this wrong Chloe, but I want you to know that there isn’t anything going on between Red and I. I admit I did like her when we first met, but she kind of shut it down after we got back from Wonderland, and since then I’ve really just been her friend.”
Chloe just stared back at him, rethinking the many times Red had returned to their dorm after hanging with Luis and the tight feeling she’d had in her chest after every one. All the times she’d made herself sick watching the two of them laughing together. The reluctant resentment she’d had toward the boy.
Luis just smiled back at the bewildered look she was giving him.
He clapped her shoulder genially. “Talk to her. She’s too proud to do it herself.”
And with that, Luis left her standing in the hallway outside of the gymnasium.
—----------------------------------
Unlike the past several days—in which she had been careful to make little noise in her and Red’s shared dorm—Chloe threw her fencing duffle onto the ground where it hit the corner of her desk, helmet making a loud thunk on the wood. Red jumped from where she was sitting at her own desk hunched over her laptop. She turned around briefly to look at Chloe but snapped her head back to her computer just as quickly.
Chloe, feeling uncharacteristically brazen after her conversation with Luis, all but marched up to Red’s desk and closed the other girl’s laptop. Red pointedly avoided Chloe’s gaze and suddenly appeared very interested in the ballpoint pen she was holding, capping and uncapping it with a repetitive flick of her thumb.
Chloe’s heart was already pounding as she stared the other girl down. Her momentary bravado had already all but worn off and she suddenly felt the urge to throw up; however, it was too late to turn back.
“You don’t have to say anything, but I just need to get some stuff off my chest,” she started.
Red’s eyes slowly met hers and Chloe thought that she’d never seen Red look so small. Red always took up space in any room she was in. She was commanding and bright and impossible to look away from; but at this moment, staring up at Chloe with dark eyes, she looked terrified.
Chloe swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry. For what I did. I don’t…” she trailed off, picking at the hem of her T-shirt. She was going to say she didn’t know why she’d done it, but that would’ve been a lie. She knew exactly why she fucking did it.
“I was frustrated with you” she began again. “I was hurt because you wouldn’t be honest with me. And I was hurt because I feel like you don’t ever open up to me. And I want you to feel like you can do that, I want you to be vulnerable with me, I want to know you and help because I-”
She stopped herself. Hypocritically, she was terrified to be fully honest with Red about how she felt. Just because Red wasn’t dating Luis didn’t mean she reciprocated. And Red not reciprocating didn’t mean Chloe would love her any less, but she didn’t want to admit something she couldn’t take back and have it ruin their friendship. Red must know, somewhat, because of the kiss. Maybe if Chloe never addressed it they could just ignore it, and she would just take Red in any way she could have her.
“Red…” her heart was hammering against her rib cage, “you know I would do anything for you, right?”
She tried to put as much emotion behind that confession––if that was indeed what it was––as she could muster. She searched Red’s brown eyes with a singular focus as she uttered the words. Gauging Red’s reaction, as always, was nearly impossible.
The words hung between them for a moment. Red had looked away and was staring at her ballpoint pen with furious intensity, working her jaw slightly. Chloe braced herself for a rejection of some sort.
In a jarring manner, Red stood up from her desk and walked over to the edge of her bed. She sat down on the left corner, and it was a couple awkward seconds before Chloe realized she was meant to take a seat next to her.
When she did, Red was criss-cross and cracking all the knuckles on both of her hands. Her shoulders were hunched in a way that wasn’t at all uncommon for her, but instead of emulating her typical blasé demeanor, she just looked scared.
“It was easier.”
Chloe was a bit startled by Red’s sudden words.
“Wh-” she started.
“It was easier to not talk to you about it. You’re the only one who knows. Other than Max I guess but you’re closer with him than I am.”
Chloe kept her mouth shut, not wanting to spook Red during her uncharacteristic moment of honesty.
“I guess it was nice that everyone here knows this other version of me. The version of me that isn’t a bit fucked up by what my mom did. The one that’s not a VK. I like being that Red, cause when I’m that Red I can pretend it doesn’t hurt as much.”
Red swallowed like it hurt and ran a rough hand through her hair.
“But sometimes it’s really hard to forget what it was like. What she did to me. What she did to other people. And it’s impossible to forget when I’m with you.”
Red met her eyes for the first time since they’d moved to the bed, and Chloe could see how pained she looked. How difficult this was for the other girl, to be open like this.
“You know basically everything. You’ve seen the old her. And when you look at me the way you’re looking at me now, I feel like I’m going to fall apart. And I hate feeling that out of control. It terrifies me that you disarm me so much, because every instinct I have tells me to keep everything in.”
For the first time ever, Chloe watched a tear slip down Red’s cheek. She itched to wipe it away but kept her hands in her lap, gripping each other hard. She could feel an ache in her throat at Red’s admission.
“It was simple with Luis, because he doesn’t really know me. I felt bad because I knew I was kind of stringing him along; but, it was so easy to be whoever I wanted to be when I was with him. Eventually he got the hint that I wasn’t going to date him, but he’s a sweet guy and he never stopped being my friend. But yeah, there’s a part of me that he doesn’t know about and I don’t know if I’ll ever tell him.”
A lot of things were making more sense to Chloe now, but she still stayed quiet and let Red finish.
“More than anything, Chlo, I wanted to tell you I’m sorry. I know I’ve been really difficult, and I wasn’t fair to you. It’s just…”
“...you terrify me.”
Red sat up straighter for this final statement and levelled her with the most open, earnest look Chloe had ever received from the other girl.
And because she’s the most awkward person on the planet, Chloe asked “Is that, like, only a bad thing or..?”
Red rolled her eyes.
“I think…maybe it’s mostly a good thing. I know I have, uh, issues with vulnerability, I guess. And you’re just… I feel like it’s so easy for you to express everything. I can almost always tell how you’re feeling–”
Great, Chloe thought deliriously.
“–and I know you may think that’s a bad thing but it’s one of my favorite things about you. Growing up, it was like mind games with my mom to figure out what she was thinking, and I always found out too late.”
Chloe grimaced at this, suddenly a bit angry.
Red continued, “With you it’s just honest. Always. And I’ve never told you how much that means to me but…it does. And I think just being with you makes me a better person, balances out my ridiculousness.”
Chloe thought that she too provided her fair share of "ridiculousness" to their dynamic, but suddenly they were a lot closer than she remembered them being when they originally sat down, and Red’s warm, heady scent was making her feel a bit light-headed. She could feel Red’s noise brushing hers and immediately her hands were white knuckling the comforter.
“You should know I haven’t showered since my match. I didn’t know-…I wasn’t sure if-…” Chloe whispered, and wished to herself that she would just shut up.
“Chloe I don’t give a shit.” Red said, all but against her lips, before closing the distance.
This kiss was nothing like their first, which had been frantic and aggressive. Red’s hand came up to cup the side of Chloe’s neck gently where she could no doubt feel her pulse pounding erratically. Her lips were slow but insistent on Chloe’s, with none of the fire of the previous one. Instead of reducing Chloe to a panting and slightly sweaty mess, it instead filled her chest with an indescribable but vaguely warm feeling. She let one of her hands rest on Red’s knee.
After a few more blissful seconds, Chloe broke them apart abruptly, “When I said I would to anything for you, you know I meant–”
“I know what you meant, Chloe. Jeez, you’d think giving that mouth of yours something to do would make you quit talking so mmphh—”
Chloe cut Red off with her lips
—-------------------------------
When the two of them showed up at dinner, walking shoulder to shoulder and laughing with each other, Chloe couldn’t help but notice relieved glances exchanged between various members of their motley crew. Despite the fact that all of their friends had varying levels of knowledge about the situation, everyone was pleased that they were no longer causing the atmosphere of the table to be slightly awkward. Pink brought her hands up to her chest in a silent clap that was really more of a rapid tap of her fingertips together, sporting a blinding smile.
As everyone eased into the meal and began chatting, Hazel tried continuously to catch Chloe’s eye. When she met the pirate girl’s gaze, Hazel quirked her eyebrow in a silent question. Chloe couldn’t stop a smile forming on her lips, which she attempted to tamp down by pressing them to her teeth. Hazel seemed to understand what that meant and nodded slowly to her with a look of pride.
After dinner, when everyone was breaking off towards their respective dorms, Hazel dapped her up wordlessly before taking her leave. Red snorted next to her.
“I thought you and Hazel were hooking up for, like, a month.”
“What?” Chloe almost shouted.
Red was incredibly amused. Either with herself, Chloe, or both. She pinched her mouth closed but her cheeks were filled with air from the silent laughing that was shaking her upper body.
“Why the hell did you think that?” Chloe asked as they walked through the door to their room.
“You’re definitely into bad girls, Chlo.” Red smirked and gestured to herself, “Case in point.”
“Yeah right you wish you were a bad girl,” Chloe scoffed as she rummaged around in her desk drawers. “And why Hazel, I feel like you’d think I was into Max, considering our whole evil escapade.” She was glad this was something they could joke about now.
“You’re funny,” Red laughed, shaking her head. She was jamming dirty clothes into her hamper that had, until this moment, been all over the floor.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We both know you’re not into guys.”
“I have never confirmed that to you.”
“So I’m right.”
“Well…yes, but how could you know for sure?” Chloe sputtered.
Red snickered, “Your face every time a man opens his mouth.”
Chloe huffed out a laugh and rolled her eyes. She supposed this was the emotional honesty Red had been praising her for having. “Whatever,” she shook her head fondly as she sat at the edge of her bed.
Red came over and put her hands on Chloe’s knees, leaning her upper body on them and grinning cheekily in Chloe’s face. “And, since we’re being so honest with each other now about everything, you should know I actually really like it when you’re gross and sweaty from practice,” Red confessed, smile only growing wider.
Chloe’s heart thudded loudly.
“You’re disgusting.”