Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“What’s got you grinning like that?” Fig asks with a sly grin, elbowing Kristen as the two sit at the kitchen table. The arch-devil had trudged through the door in the hallway that serves as the portal to the Bottomless Pit this morning, pajamas on and hair unbrushed, asking what they were making for breakfast.

Baby had followed her in, immediately going to antagonize Boggy until Adaine threatened to have the frog swallow him. The imp let out an uncomfortably pleasant scream and disappeared, probably back to his hot tub in the Bottomless Pit. But sometimes he just turned invisible and ran around the house.

The wizard sat beside them, quietly flipping through a book while she haphazardly shoved pancakes in her mouth. Lydia was at the stove cooking breakfast and Sandra Lynn was sitting at the counter talking to Jawbone about something as he brewed another pot of coffee. An average morning in the O’Shaughnessy-Faeth-Abernant-Applebees-Barkrock household.

Kristen shrugs. “I dunno,”

Fig narrows her eyes. “Okay, if you say so.”

Kristen goes back to her pancakes, very aware that there’s a blush creeping up her neck. She glances back over at Fig again, the girl still staring at her with a suspicious look.

“You can tell me, y’know. Whatever it is.” Fig whispers, leaning over and hooking her chin over Kristen’s shoulder.

The cleric smiles and nudges Fig’s head with hers, carefully avoiding getting poked in the eye with a horn. “I know.” She glances around, and when she realizes no one is paying attention to them, leans her head even closer to Fig’s. “ Later ,” she whispers.

Fig grins, that mischievous smile that Kristen has seen countless times. “Hell yeah,”

When they all finally finished breakfast, plates loudly placed in the dishwasher after Lydia called them out on just leaving their dirty dishes in the sink, the three girls all retreated to their own rooms, knowing that the day would mostly be filled with more homework. And a party at Fabian’s that night, but their parents didn’t need to know about that.

“Hey kiddo, can I grab you for a second?” Jawbone asks on their way out, putting a hand on Kristen’s shoulder.

She shrugs. “Yeah, what’s up?”

He glances around before guiding her into the living room, away from prying ears. “I just wanted to have a little talk with you,”

“Okay…” Kristen’s eyes narrow, having absolutely no idea where the conversation is going, or what he would even have to tell her that Fig and Adaine couldn’t be there for. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No! No, you didn’t do anything wrong, kid.”

She frowns. “Then what—”

“I just,” Jawbone interrupts, not wanting her to spiral about anything. He sighs and runs a hand down his face. “I’m trying to think of the right way to say this. This is your home, and I want you to feel comfortable here, and I don’t want you to think that you need to ask permission for something to come over. That being said ,”

And Kristen really doesn’t like where this conversation is going.

“I’d like you to keep us—or at least one of us, if you’re uncomfortable with all three of us knowing—in the loop if someone’s gonna, y’know, stay over.”

Kristen’s face goes bright red and she looks anywhere but Jawbone, suddenly becoming incredibly interested with the rug that she’s standing on. “I didn’t think that you wo—”

“And listen, y’know, I really do think that Kipperlilly’s a good kid, but I’d like to be aware if—”

Her head shoots up, looking at him with wide eyes. “How’d you know it was Kipperlilly?”

Jawbone looks at her with knowing eyes and taps his nose. “Kristen, I know all of your scents. I meet with Kipperlilly four days a week, I know hers too.”

“Oh,”

They stand there in silence, Kristen not sure if she should continue to stand there uncomfortably or duck out of this conversation.

He pats her shoulder. “Not saying that she can’t sleep over. Just…let me know next time, okay kid?”

Kristen nods, absolutely mortified. Jawbone gives her a reassuring smile before turning to go back into the kitchen.

“Oh, Kris,” he says quickly, looking back at her. “Don’t worry, I won’t uh, I won’t tell the girls about it.”

“Thanks, Jawbone.” Her shoulders drop as she exhales, relief filling her body. “It’s not that I’m not going to tell them, it’s just complicated and I—”

He waves her off. “Don’t worry, you don’t need to explain anything to me. I trust you, I know you’re a good egg,”

She smiles, a real one that isn’t uncomfortable. Of course, she then immediately thinks about what they had been talking about, and that embarrassed look comes back. “I’m gonna, uh, I’ll see you later,” she mutters before darting off to her bedroom.

***

Kristen is sitting cross-legged on her bed scrolling on her crystal when there’s a quick knock on her door, Fig immediately cracking it open and popping her head in.

“Can you tell me whatever had you smiling like an idiot this morning? I won’t tell anyone, I promise,”

The cleric sighs and throws her crystal on her bed with a sigh. “Fine, but only if you’re serious about not telling anymore.”

Fig dramatically puts a hand on her chest. “You wound me, I am but your loyal german shepherd, my President.”

Kristen snorts. “Of course, my wonderful and loyal guard,”

The tiefling smiles and closes the door behind her before running and jumping on top of Kristen, tackling her onto the bed.

“Your landings are always so clean,” Kristen grunts as Fig elbows her in the stomach.

“Sorry,” she says with a laugh. She adjusts until she’s laying next to Kristen and knocks their feet together. “Okay, spill.”

Kristen groans and puts her hands over her face. “You legit can’t tell anyone, though. Not yet. And you can’t like, judge me or anything.”

Fig grins. “Oh so it’s tea , even better,” Kristen looks at her with pleading eyes and Fig’s smirk turns into a soft smile. “Cross my heart, Kris.” She traces an ‘x’ over her chest. Kristen sighs.

“ Fine . So I was in the courtyard yesterday morning, just minding my business, and then Kipperlilly came up and scared the absolute shit out of me because she did that fuckass rogue thing where she just appears behind you—”

“And she’s just scary in general,” Fig adds with a snort.

Kristen’s face flushes again, and damn it, she really needs to figure out how to stop that from happening. “But I had been telling Lucy and Buddy earlier this week that I was planning the career fair, and that it had been moving slowly since Riz has been touring colleges all week, and so Kipperlilly said that she had mentioned it and asked if I wanted help and I said sure.”

Fig frowns. “Why the hell would she just ask you if you wanted help? Should I be worried about something, I can take a break and come hang out at school with you guys if you think that’d be best. Y’know, just to see if everything’s okay? Then I can be there if something happens.

What Kristen wants to respond with is well yeah, but then we made out for over an hour and then it all made sense . But she thinks that she should probably give a bit more context than that.

“Turning over a new leaf, I guess. Don’t worry about it,” she says with a shrug and an air of casualty she hopes calms Fig’s worry. “But she came over last night, and—”

“She was HERE ?”

Kristen cringes. “Yes?”

“And we didn’t know?”

She shrugs. “You guys were all busy. Also you only half-live here now, so you don’t get to be shocked that she was here when you weren’t even here,”

Fig sticks her tongue out in retaliation before knocking her foot with Kristen’s again. “You’re wild,”

“Oh, I’m not done,”

The tiefling turns over on her stomach, propping herself up on her elbows to look at Kristen intently. “Oh?”

Kristen takes a deep breath, steeling herself slightly. “She came over and we were working on everything until like eleven and then her dad called and asked when she would be home and something stupid in my brain told her that she could just sleep over—stop hitting me I’m telling you a story—and then she apologized for trying to kill me a lot last year and I was like ‘it’s fine we all have shit’ and then she asked if I was worried that she would try to kill me again and I said no and then I asked her why she came over and offered to help me and she was giving me a bunch of bullshit reasons and then kissed me and I kissed her back and then we made out for like an hour and a half and then she left through my window this morning.” She heaves, taking a deep breath as she realizes that she hadn’t actually taken one since she started talking again.

Fig stares at her, eyes wide and jaws dropped.

“So…yeah,”

“WHAT?” Fig screeches.

Kristen winces at the loud noise, somehow not preparing herself for the sheet volume of Fig’s reaction. Which, by now, was something that she should have done. “Yep,” she says, popping the ‘p’.

Fig exhales loudly. “Wow. Holy shit. Like, holy shit , Kristen,” the cleric hums in response. “Like, did you like her before this? Did you know that she liked you? When did you start to like her? Does anyone know ?”

She shrugs. “I mean Fabian knows that I…like her,”

Fig whacks Kristen on the shoulder again with an over dramatic gasp. “Fabian knew before me? What the fuck, man,”

“He asked me, point blank! What was I supposed to do, lie?”

Fig lets out a ‘hmph’ and pouts. “No, I guess not. Was he just like ‘do you like Kipperlilly’?”

“He more so asked me what was going on between us because we kept ‘eye fucking in the hallway’, and then told me that he thought we should have sex.”

“You and Fabian?”

“Gross, no!” Kristen cries out, shoving Fig’s arm. “Me and Kipperlilly,”

“Kris, this is wild , you know that, right?”

She groans and drops her head back onto the bed. “I know , I know. It’s fucking insane. But…I don’t know, I just…” she smiles then, unable to stop the grin that appears on her face.

Fig squeals then, kicking her feet against the mattress. “Damn, you like her, like her.”

Kristen puts her hands over her face and groans again. “Yeah,”

“Are you gonna tell everyone else?”

“That’s a funny joke,”

“I’m serious!” Fig says with a smile. “If you like her and you guys have already fooled around, then there’s really nothing else to say about it, is there? How was it? Was it good? Was it bad? What are you guys gonna do now, are you gonna see each other again? Are you gonna hang out? What are you gonna do at school?”

Kristen laughs at the rapid-fire questions and puts a hand on Fig’s head, pushing her away. “Calm down, you’re gonna short circuit.”

“I’m invested now!”

“I don’t know , we both established that we, y’know, like each other. And we said that we’d see each other on Monday, so I guess that’s a good thing,”

Fig kicks her feet on the bed again, Kristen bouncing on the mattress slightly at the sheer force of it. “This is so exciting, Kris,”

“You’re not, I don’t know, upset?”

The tiefling frowns. “Because you like Kipperfuck? I mean…no? If you had told me that last year, then yes, duh, but…I think they’re okay now. I mean, based on what you guys all tell me. And Gorgug and Mary Ann are already dating, so this isn’t that weird. I mean it’s weird , but it’s not bad.” She knocks her head against Kristen’s shoulder. “Plus, I want you to be happy. That’s most important,”

Kristen smiles and nudges the girl with her knee. “Thanks.”

“But if she hurts you I will kick her ass and unleash all of hell on her,”

“Oh good, thank you for defending my honor,”

Fig salutes her then, a grin on her face. “Until the day I die, my President.”

***

While Kristen isn’t sure how to tell all her friends yet, she knows that if she doesn’t tell Fabian he’s going to flip. They had just talked about it after all, it feels only fair to tell him something had actually, you know, happened.

kristen

i have…news

kristen

but u cant tell anyone

kristen

only fig knows

kristen

and also tragically jawbone

fabian

oh????

fabian

ok spill!!!!

kristen

do u just want to come over

fabian

lol sure

fabian

be there in 20ish i just need to finish helping gilear build this stupid fucking crib

fabian

might set it on fire later though idk

kristen

PFFFFFFF

kristen

lmao

kristen

tell ur mom i say hi xox

fabian

no <3

She wonders if it’s a slightly bad idea to already tell people about what happened. But she also knows that Lucy has already definitely gotten a run-down from Kipperlilly, so she guesses it’s okay if they tell a few people.

It’s just so new , and she really doesn’t want to fuck things up. Yet.

So Kristen waits for Fabian, her leg bouncing up and down as she sits on her bed until there’s a knock on her door and the boy pokes his head in, a grin on his face not unlike the one Fig had on earlier that morning. “Okay, what’s so big that you had to tell me in person?”

“How was the crib?”

Fabian flops onto the bed beside her. “You’re deflecting,”

“I am not !”

He looks at her with that look , the one that she just can’t lie to, and she groans again. “Promise to keep this like, super confidential though? At least for right now.”

He sighs. “Yes, I promise that I will not tell anyone about whatever drama you have to tell me about, okay?”

She narrows her eyes and puts out her pinky. Fabian over exaggeratingly rolls his eyes, but hooks his pinky with hers.

“Good?” He asks, their pinkies locked together.

She nods and gives his finger a squeeze before releasing it. “Yeah, we’re good.”

He sits up then, grabbing her pillow and hugging it to his chest. As much of a ‘Maximum Legend’ as he says he is, Kristen does find it pretty amusing how whenever they hang out his posture reverts to ‘middle schooler at a sleepover’.

“So you remember the conversation that we had the other day…the one about me and Kipperlilly?”

“Yes, I remember something that happened four days ago, Kristen.”

She flips him off and continues, laughing as Fabian gives her the finger back. “Well she offered to help me plan the career fair because Lucy told her I was stressed about it or something. And she came over last night and we finished super late so I told her that she could just sleep over—”

“And then you guys had sex,” Fabian says with a laugh, an amused and joking smile on his face. Kristen’s cheeks redden and she says nothing, simply looks at him with her brows raised. His jaw drops. “YOU TWO HAD SEX?”

She grabs him and slams a hand over his mouth. “Holy shit, I don’t need the entire town to hear that! And we didn’t have sex , we just made out for like an hour and did some…other stuff,”

Fabian licks her hand to get her to remove it and she quickly takes it off, instead hitting him on the shoulder. “Gross!”

“I can’t believe that you two actually hooked up, oh my god, what—how was it?”

She snorts. “It was…very good,”

“Hell yes, Kristen!” He gives her a high five, making her laugh again.

“So yesterday morning she snuck out through my window,” Fabian gasps dramatically and she rolls her eyes. “Fuck off, what else was she supposed to do? But we've been texting all day and I just…I dunno, it’s insane, right? Like, it’s insane! But now I know that she likes me and I like her and she knows that, and what am I supposed to do now?”

Fabian purses his lips together and hums. “I think that maybe you just…I actually don’t know, that’s a good question,”

She groans again. “No, you’re supposed to tell me the answer!”

“Yes, because that’s my forte. If you want answers, go to The Ball.”

“Oh yeah, because I’m gonna text Riz that question. No, he can’t know yet, he’ll freak out. He might be okay with Mary Ann now, and I think that he thinks Oisin and Adaine’s awkwardness about whatever’s going on there is as funny as the rest of us do, but he still really doesn’t like Kipperlilly. I mean, it makes sense, but I don’t think that I can tell him that we might, I dunno, go out?”

Fabian scoots closer to Kristen and nudges her side. “So do you want to actually date her?”

She squeezes her eyes shut for a moment, Fabian asking the question that had been a constant thought in her mind for the past 36 hours. She thinks that the concept of dating Kipperlilly is crazy, but god damn it, she really likes her. She likes making her laugh, she likes her small and crooked and genuine smile, she likes the way that she runs her nails along Kristen’s scalp when they make out, she likes the intensity in her eyes when she’s talking about something she’s passionate about. She likes her . And the more she actually learns about her the more she realizes how much she can’t get her out of her mind.

“Damn Kris, you’ve got it bad,” Fabian grins, and Kristen realizes that she hasn’t actually said anything in a minute. She’s just been staring at her ceiling, brows furrowed in thought but a small and stupid smile on her face.

She throws an arm over her face and sighs. “I know , it’s annoying,”

“Listen,” he puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. “The Ball will get over it, everyone will be fine. We trust you, y’know? We know that you wouldn’t purposefully do anything stupid that would endanger us, even if you unintentionally do shit like that all the time,” he laughs when Kristen punches him in the arm again. “But if you really do like her, then I say go for it.”

“You know, sometimes you say the most heartfelt shit, dude.”

Fabian snorts. “I’ve got range, Kris.”

“Clearly,”

***

The stupid, shit-eating, triumphant grin doesn’t leave Lucy’s face the entire hour it takes Kipperlilly to recount last night, trying to tell Lucy every detail—well, almost every detail—so that she wouldn’t forget them. She feels like there’s so much pent up energy buzzing around in her body that if she doesn’t talk to someone else about anything or just spend an hour running around she’s going to explode. And she doesn't love to run.

“I just don’t really know how to do this,” Kipperlilly says with a groan, trying her best not to listen to the tiny voice in her head that tells her that sharing anything with anyone is a weakness. 

Lucy hums in acknowledgement and puts a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “Kipp, I know that it’s scary, but it’s exciting! And it’s not like you can do something wrong ,”

Kipperlilly gives her a look then and Lucy waves her off. “Okay, no, it’s not like you can do anything right now that would absolutely fuck up whatever you two have got going on.”

When the rogue continues to stare at her flatly Lucy groans. “I give up,”

“It’s just…I’m trying to stop my brain from going fifty thousand miles a minute and I can’t ,” she flops backward onto the couch, a small thud coming from the cushions.

Lucy grins again and squeals. “I’m so gonna hold this over your head forever,”

“Please, god, no. I’m already going to have everyone else doing that, I can’t have you doing it too,”

“That’s an argument for another time,” Lucy says casually, but Kipperlilly already knows it’s a fight she’s going to lose.

She glances up at Lucy again, moving her head up from the couch. “I just don’t know how to, y’know, date. God that’s so fucking stupid,”

“It’s not stupid! What would Jawbone say about the negative self talk, hmm? You’ve worked on this.”

Kipperlilly grumbles something under her breath that’s probably not very nice, but Lucy knows that she’s just frustrated at the long healing process she’s going through with her rage issues. Not unwilling, just frustrated.

Lucy sees something flicker in Kipperlilly’s eyes, and anyone other than the proclaimed ‘Kipperlilly Whisperer’ probably wouldn’t recognize it, but the cleric knows that it’s a hint of self-consciousness. 

“Hey,” Lucy starts. “Everything is going to be fine. This is exciting, this can be exciting!”

“It’s just…” Kipperlilly starts, trailing off and staring down at her interlaced fingers. She takes a deep breath, and Lucy knows that she’s practicing the breathing exercise that Jawbone gave her. “I’ve never…been in a relationship. And Kristen has , and I don’t want her to think…”

She groans again and squeezes her eyes shut. 

Lucy squeezes her shoulder again. “It’s okay, Kipp. Take your time.”

After another couple of minutes Kipperlilly takes another deep breath. “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I don’t want it to be, like, incredibly obvious. I don’t know how to be in a relationship, I don’t know what the fuck you’re supposed to do, or not do, or—”

“Kipp,” Lucy starts, wanting to snap her out of her quickly moving downward spiral. “I think that you just need to tell her that. Point blank. It’s not a bad thing, but if it’s stressing you out then you just need to talk about it. I mean hey, I’ve never been in one either, but I think that open communication is part of it.”

Kipperlilly sighs. “Can’t you just tell me that I should shove it all down and pretend those emotions don’t exist?”

Now it’s Lucy’s turn to give Kipperlilly the same flat look she was on the receiving end of earlier.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Kipperlilly grumbles. 

“Just get Ruben to give you a bardic before you go talk to her about it,” Lucy says with a laugh, bursting into giggles when Kipperlilly immediately looks mortified. 

“Holy shit, absolutely not. We are one hundred percent not doing that,”

“C’mon!” Lucy cries out through laughs. “It’d totally help,”

Kipperlilly shakes her head relentlessly. “If I have to go to Ruben to ask him to help me with this I’ve truly hit rock bottom,”

Lucy shrugs. “Just saying,”

“I’d rather drown in lava again. Text Riz, maybe he’s back in town,”

The cleric breaks into another fit of laughter again, falling sideways on the couch. Her laugh is infectious, and soon enough Kipperlilly can’t help but laugh as well.

Chapter Text

When Kristen gets to school on Monday her stomach does continuous somersaults. She and Kipperlilly had had…quite the eventful weekend, but still, she isn’t really sure how to go about things at school

If she thinks too much about it she may actually throw up or keel over in the hallway, so she thinks it’s probably best to not obsess about it too much. But that’s easier said than done.

She’s trying to shove her backpack in her locker (unsuccessfully, since she apparently has too much shit in it to actually fit) when someone clears their throat on the other side of the door and raps lightly on the metal.

“Hey,” Kipperlilly says, smiling when Kristen moves the door to look at her. “Thought I’d give you a heads up that I was here, y’know, since I seem to scare the shit out of you every time.”

Kristen frowns. “Not every time.”

Kipperlilly says nothing, but gives her a look that says c’mon .

“Okay, maybe every time,” Kristen huffs. She grabs a couple notebooks out of her backpack and successfully shoves it in her locker, forcefully closing the door to make sure it actually stays in there. “What’s up?”

Kipperlilly shrugs. “Just wanted to say hi, I guess,”

Kristen grins. “Hi,”

"Hi."

“You already said that.” Kristen says, eyebrows raised.

Kipperlilly rolls her eyes, although that radiant smile stays on her face. “Fuck off,” she mutters, no real malice in her voice.

“Do you have class right now?” Kristen asks, looking around the hallway as most people are heading from one class to another.

“Nope, I have a free period. I was gonna go to the library and work on some stuff."

“I also have a free period.” 

“Oh wow, I definitely didn’t know that.” Kipperlilly says flatly.

Kristen snorts. “Okay, stalker,”

Kipperlilly hums. “Just observant."

Kristen moves to nudge her foot against the rogue’s. “Want some company?”

“I mean, I guess." Kipperlilly sighs dramatically, although a blush creeps up her face.

“C’mon weirdo,” she laughs as Kipperlilly rolls her eyes again, but trails after her as they both walk toward the library.

***

“Why is Kristen talking to Kettlefuck?” Adaine asks with a frown, nodding down the hallway where Kristen and Kipperlilly are leaning up against the lockers.

Fabian glances over at the two and tries to quickly think of a reason that wouldn’t prompt any more questions. “Um, I think that Kristen mentioned that they’re paired together for a project for some class. So it’s probably related to that.”

Adaine stares at them for another moment before shrugging and turning back to Fabian. “That’s tragic for her,”

Fabian huffs a laugh. “Yeah, totally,” he watches Kristen close her locker and, with a smile, go with Kipperlilly down the hallway, the two girls laughing as they go. Yes, this was clearly a great excuse.

Although, after the clusterfuck that was last year, he couldn’t help but smile at how happy and light Kristen looked. They definitely don’t need any more complicated stressful things happening this year (although he really doesn’t want to jinx anything).

“They seem…friendly.” Adaine comments, her head tilting to the side as she observes them.

He shrugs. “Kristen’s a friendly person.”

The wizard’s eyes narrow. “Do you know something I don’t?”

“Nope.”

“ Fabian, ”

“I don’t!” He says with wide eyes.

Adaine purses her lips together. “You’re truly an awful liar, you know that, right? Your voice gets higher and you stop blinking,”

He scoffs. “One, I’m a fantastic liar. Two, I’m not lying about anything, so you just said something hurtful for no reason.”

“Fine, don’t tell me. I’ll go find Riz and get him to find out,” she says with a shrug, turning away to go down the hallway toward the rogue classroom.

Fabian groans and tips his head back against the lockers. “Damn it, fine, but don’t go get The Ball,” Adaine turns back to him with a triumphant grin. “But you can’t tell Kristen that I told you or she’ll never tell me anything ever again.”

“I promise!”

He looks around the hallway and, with a huff, grabs Adaine’s arm and pulls her out the double doors toward the courtyard. “We need less witnesses,” he says when she makes a sound of protest.

“What, are you confessing a crime to me?”

He snorts. “No, but I don’t know how much they—just follow me.”

They get to the picnic table that they usually sit at, the courtyard mostly vacant due to the fact that most people should be in class.

“I’m skipping class for this, you know,” Adaine says with a frown, although she doubts that Tibera will really notice her absence. Plus, she can always feign oracle duties and she’ll be fine. Fabian was also skipping, but Terpichore is usually fine with his late attendance as long as he gives her an actual reason—plus, he’s arguably one of her favorite students, which doesn’t hurt.

Fabian waves her off. “You’re fine, this is more important.”

She hums in agreement. “Don’t tell Tibera you said that,”

“I’m the Oracool of Dance, I have credibility with her.”

“I don’t think that’s true…”

He frowns. “The amount of mean things you’ve said to me in the past three minutes is astounding,”

She rolls her eyes and sits cross legged on the bench. Boggy hops up into her lap, getting comfortable and closing his extremely large and round eyes when Adaine rests her hand on his head, stroking the space between his eyes gently. “Okay, spill. What’s up with Kristen and Copperpenny?”

Fabian sighs. “You need to promise that you won’t tell her that I told you,”

“Yes, again, I promise that I won’t.” She puts her pinky up, and although Fabian rolls his eyes, he hooks his pinky with hers.

“So you know how they’ve been like, totally eye-fucking each other since the school year started?”

Adaine’s jaw drops. “They’ve been what ?”

“C’mon, you can’t tell me that you haven’t noticed. You’re supposed to be one of the smart ones!”

She flips him off and rolls her eyes. “I’ve noticed Cottoncandy staring at Kristen a couple times, but I never thought of it as, y’know, eye-fucking…”

Fabian sighs and throws an arm around her shoulders. “Oh sweet, naive Adaine,” she flips him off again. “It’s constant, it honestly makes all of us uncomfortable. You probably just haven’t noticed because you keep staring at Oisin.”

She whacks him hard on the shoulder, almost knocking him off the bench. “I have not been!”

“You most definitely have been, but that’s fine if you want to be in denial for now. Kristen and Kipperlilly finally got out of that state, so I guess you two are next,”

She pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to move past Fabian’s jabs at her about the crush that she most definitely does not have. “So you’re telling me they’re, what, dating now?”

Fabian shrugs. “I’m not sure if dating is the right word, but I think they hooked up this weekend, and I’m fairly certain that if we go try to find them right now we’d be scarred,”

Adaine’s eyes widened. “They WHAT?”

“They hooked up, what, do I need to have ‘the talk’ with you? So, when two people think that the other one is hot, they’ll go and—”

“Shut up, that’s so clearly not what I’m shocked by. I didn’t…why would Kristen like her? Why would they—”

“Hook up? So you see, when two people think that the other one is hot, they—”

This time Adaine shoves him hard enough that he topples off the bench, landing unceremoniously on the ground. “ Ow ,” he groans, laying on the grass.

“Why wouldn’t she just tell us? No, sorry, let me amend that—why would she tell you but not any of us?”

“Because I asked? I don’t know."

She snorts. “What, you just asked if she and Copperbitch were hooking up?”

“Well, no, I asked her what was going on with them because I was sick of them staring at each other and told her that they should have sex, so she told me on Saturday that they did something , I think they just made out though because she wouldn’t give me any details even after I kept bugging her about it, which was annoying.”

Adaine frowns and leans more against the table, trying to wrap her head around all the information while Fabian gets off the ground and wipes the dirt off his pants.

He pouts. “If these have grass stains on them you’re buying me new ones,”

She waves him off. “There’s no stains, you’re fine. You’re also not freaking out enough about this, like, why the hell do they like each other? Why does Kristen like her ? Why wouldn’t she tell us!”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to ask her about that. But I mean, I think you know why she wouldn't just blatantly tell us that she thinks Kipperlilly is hot.”

“But are they dating now?”

Fabian shrugs. “Not sure. Again, I think they’ve made out like, once. But given the amount that Kristen was grinning like an idiot when she was telling me about everything, I’d think that it’s not gonna be a one-time thing. So either just wait until she tells you, or I guess I can try to tell her that she should just tell everyone, because it’s really not a big deal,”

Adaine huffs. “It’s just, I dunno, fucking weird. Like, can we really trust her? Because I don’t know if—”

“I think it’d be pretty hypocritical for us to be cool with Gorgug and Mary Ann dating but not the two of them. And we’re friends with Lucy too, plus I don’t know whatever the hell you and Oisin have got going on, but if you like him but feel weird about the two of them then that’s just weird.”

She frowns. “I know you’re right, but it’s annoying.”

“I’m always right,”

“Wow, what an incredibly incorrect statement.”

Fabian groans and flops back in the grass, grabbing Adaine’s wrist at the last second and pulling her down with him as she laughs. 

***

“Are you going to do homework, or are you just going to stare at me while I do mine?” Kipperlilly asks, her voice smooth and calm, still looking down at her laptop.

They’re seated at one of the study tables in the library, books spread out on the table. Most of them are Kipperlilly’s, as Kristen never knows where any of her things are, but there are a few slightly crumpled handouts scattered amongst Kipperlilly’s pristine textbooks. They had been there for the past thirty minutes, and as far as the rogue knew, Kristen hadn’t touched any of her assignments. What she has done was stare at Kipperlilly while she works on an essay for her History of Melee Weapons class about the practical uses of a dagger. Which, as her weapon of choice, was going to be an extremely long paper.

Kristen shrugs. “I dunno, you’re better to look at than my homework is.”

As hard as Kipperlilly tries to keep her face in a neutral expression, to stay focused on the work that she is trying to do, a blush creeps up her face and her lips quirk up. She rolls her eyes and tries to fight off the smile, but it keeps growing. “Yeah, okay.”

Kristen nudges her foot under the table. “Take the compliment,”

Kipperlilly knocks her foot back. “Do your homework,”

She quickly looks up at Kristen then, her eyes bright and curious and maybe a little bit starry-eyed. Kristen is still looking at her, a small smile that only grows when the rogue finally looks away from her laptop and up at her. As much as she doesn’t want to admit it, her heart stops for a split second whenever Kristen looks at her like that, soft eyes and a radiant smile.

“What?” Kristen asks, and Kipperlilly realizes that she has just been staring at her, not saying anything. She scrunches her nose and waves Kristen off, trying to downplay the way something tugs on her heartstrings whenever she sees her walking down the hallway.

“Nothing,”

Kristen hums in response, clearly not believing her, but not wanting to push or question anything. She knocks her foot against Kipperlilly’s one more time before finally turning her attention to her own notebook.

Kipperlilly should be glad that she can go back to her assignments with no interruptions, but she immediately misses the way that she could feel Kristen’s eyes on her. It doesn’t make her on edge, like someone else’s would, but instead feels like a comforting weighted blanket. She watches that little wrinkle that Kristen gets between her eyebrows when she’s concentrating on something grow as she becomes more focused, chewing absentmindedly on the end of her pencil. She drums her fingers on the table as she scans her textbook, and it should really make Kipperlilly annoyed, an interruption from the quiet that she prefers, but instead it calms her.

She isn’t sure how long she spends trying—and failing—to not stare at Kristen, but all of a sudden the cleric inhales sharply and closes her textbook, casting it aside and looking up at Kipperlilly.

“I need to find a book. You wanna help me?”

Kipperlilly frowns. “That’s not at all descriptive. What kind of book? I know that the books here are sorted by—”

“I don’t know, a cleric book. Help me look for it?” And when she sees the way that Kristen’s eyes sparkle, the way she raises her eyebrows suggestively, a grin grows on her face.

“You’re a bad influence, y’know?”

Kristen shrugs, that mischievous smile still on her face. “You like it.”

Kipperlilly doesn’t bother with an actual answer, instead simply rolling her eyes. She still has some semblance of her put-together image, and doesn’t really need to verbalize telling Kristen that she quite enjoys her being a bad influence on her. 

The cleric grins, her tongue between her teeth, and stands up to grab Kipperlilly’s hand. As she drags her through the back stacks of the library, Kristen’s grip on her hand tightening, Kipperlilly has the quick and fleeting thought that she doesn’t know if she’s ever been happier than she is right now.

God damn it, she thinks, even as Kristen all but pushes her against a shelf. Lucy’s going to have a field day with this.

They leave the library half an hour later with no more homework done, slightly swollen lips, and one less third level spell slot from Kristen from another much needed Healing Word.

***

Kristen’s laying on her bed that night, scrolling on her crystal when she hears the first small clanking noise from outside. She brushes it off as the wind blowing an acorn or something into her window, the gigantic oak tree outside her chapel providing some good ammo for windy days.

Then there’s a second, and a third, and a fourth, and Kristen doesn’t really think it’s wind anymore. She can’t open the stained glass windows, obviously, but there’s a small side window that she pulls up and sticks her head out of. That might be a bad idea, given that she’s a famous adventurer who has now made herself a very large target by shoving her head outside, but she’s not really thinking about that right now.

“Four rocks? Really Kristen, I thought you would have come after the first two.” Kipperlilly says, arms crossed as she leans against the base of the tree.

Kristen grins. “You could have just texted me instead of throwing rocks at my windows like some old cliche movie.”

“Thought this would be more fun. I do have impeccable aim,”

“Oh believe me, I know. What’s up?”

A blush begins to creep up Kipperlilly’s neck but she shrugs. “Just wanted to say hi,”

Kristen’s smile grows. “You drove all the way over here and threw rocks at my window because you wanted to say hi?”

“Maybe.”

The cleric glances behind her into the empty bedroom, then around at the yard outside the church. It was at the edge of Mordred, so there was really no other room that had a good view of the area outside the Chapel. Unless Adaine stood in a very specific spot in her tower, but Kristen seriously doubts that Adaine is scanning the landscape at 7pm on a Monday.

“Give me two minutes,” she sees Kipperlilly start to grin before ducking back into her room. She grabs her crystal and her sweatshirt, the cool September air meaning she can no longer just walk around in a tank top. She slides on her sneakers and, with another check that her door is closed, goes back to the window.

She has one leg out when she pauses for a second, her lips pursed. “Now I am famously very dexterous,”

Kipperlilly snorts. “Oh, of course.”

“And I guess I haven’t really used any spells today other than healing Fabian’s paper cut from lunch because he kept whining about it, and then, y’know, the library, so if I need to give myself a quick Cure Wounds I can.”

“Kristen. ”

“What!” She laughs at the flat look Kipperlilly gives her. “I’m just being honest,”

The drop is only a few feet, the raised first floor of the chapel high enough off the ground to make Kristen a bit nervous, but low enough that it’s not a super high drop.

Somehow, she sticks the landing. Well, as best she can, which means wobbling a little bit and almost tripping as she steps on the untied lace of her shoe.

“That was so graceful, wow.”

She flips Kipperlilly off, frowning when the girl starts laughing. Kristen brushes it off then, smiling and leaning down to kiss her. It’s a quick, fleeting thing, but Kipperlilly follows her up just the smallest bit when Kristen pulls away.

Her heart skips a beat.

“So,”

Kipperlilly smiles a little awkwardly. “So.”

“You wanna hang out?”

The rogue’s grin is radiant then. She shrugs. “If you want to,” Kristen gives her a knowing look and her face reddens even more. “Yes.”

“Cool.”

“Very cool.”

Kipperlilly holds up her car keys and raises her eyebrows. Kristen remembers the phone call she had heard Friday night, the rogue talking to her dad and telling him that she would see them on Tuesday.

Kristen gasps dramatically and gives her a knowing grin. “Kipperlilly Copperkettle, are you booty calling me right now?”

“ No ,”

“Hmm.”

The rogue rolls her eyes. “Fuck off, I wanted to see you, but also my parents aren’t home so if you don’t want to hang out here again we can—”

“Oh you are so booty calling me right now!”

“I mean I can go–” Kipperlilly says, walking backwalk a couple steps. Kristen knows she’s goading her, knows that she’s just trying to annoy her, but she instead grabs Kipperlilly’s face in her hands and leans down to kiss her properly.

When Kristen finally pulls away she simply turns and starts walking toward where she knows Kipperlilly parked her car. “Are you coming or what?” She calls over her shoulder, glancing back at the rogue that’s staring at her blankly. She rolls her eyes and rushes over to Kristen, quickly grabbing her hand and all but dragging her to her car.

***

Ivy makes a sound of disdain as Kipperlilly keeps talking, a frown on her face. “The amount of crossover all of you are starting to have with the Bad Kids is horrific.”

They are all shoved into a booth at Krom’s, straw wrappers littering the table because Lucy and Ruben won’t stop blowing them at people.

One hits Oisin in the face and he sighs, picking the paper off his lap and putting it back on the table. “C’mon guys,”

“What! It’s funny ,” Lucy says with an amused grin, flicking the paper toward him again. He uses a menu to shield himself, the wrapper falling flatly onto the table instead.

“I don’t think we’re spending enough time on the fact that Kipperlilly slept over at Kristen’s house this weekend.” Ruben says, immediately hitting Ivy in the forehead with a straw wrapper afterward.

She frowns and nails him in the head with Oisin’s car keys.

“What the freak, Ivy!”

“You hit me, I hit you,” she counters, leaning further over the table.

He scoffs. “I hit you with paper!”

“If you guys don’t stop fighting I’m going to hit you both with my car.” Kipperlilly groans, pinching the bridge of her nose and squeezing her eyes shut.

Mary Ann looks up from her phone then, her expression still incredibly neutral. “I would pay to see that.”

“Okay, it’s settled. After this, Kipp will hit Ivy and Ruben with her car and then we’ll all go over to Lucy’s and watch the latest episode of Solace’s Got Talent.” Oisin says, clasping his hands together.

Buddy frowns and looks around at the group. “I think y’all resort to violence too quickly.”

Ruben groans and tips his head back against the booth. “But I don’t want to get hit by a car,”

“I’ve been hit by a motorcycle, it’s not that bad.” Mary Ann says flatly, looking back down at her phone.

Lucy chokes on her soda, coughing and causing Kipperlilly to whack her hard on the back. “Holy shit, that was good,”

“So what now, are you guys dating?” Oisin asks.

The rogue groans and puts her head down on the table, a very mirrored image to them making fun of her at Basrar’s the other day. “I don’t know . I mean, we haven’t been out of an actual date yet, so I guess no, but we’ve hung out and established that we like each other—”

“And almost got kicked out of the library yesterday because you two were making out in there during your free period,"

This time it’s Ivy that chokes on her drink. “You WHAT?”

Kipperlilly sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “Yes, thank you so much Lucy for pointing that out, now we don't need to talk about it anymore!"

Oisin shakes his head. “No, we definitely need to talk about this more.”

“But why ,” she sighs in response, once again flopping her head down on the table.

“Because it’s a big deal!” Lucy puts a hand on her back and pats her reassuringly. Kipperlilly, clearly not happy with the response, groans again.

Ivy snorts. “Oh this is fun, we’ve never been able to make fun of you for this shit before.”

Kipperlilly raises a hand and flips Ivy off, her head still on the table.

“I hate all of you.” She says, her voice slightly muffled. The rest of the group bursts into laughter, and Lucy leans down to rest her head on Kipperlilly’s back.

“You love us,”

“I’m doubting that right now.”

Oisin grins. “Guys, she does love us!”

Kipperlilly moves to sit back up, batting Lucy’s head off of her in the process, despite the cleric snickering and trying to dead-weight on her.

“No, you guys are the bane of my existence,”

“You say the nicest things, Kipp.” Ruben grins. 

She rolls her eyes and slumps back in the booth, her movement slightly hindered by the fact that she’s squished in between Lucy and Mary Ann. 

“So are you gonna ask her to Homecoming?” Lucy asks then, glancing over at her best friend as her face reddens.

She starts stuttering, Lucy clearly voicing a question that she’s had rattling around in her brain for the past few days.

“I don’t even know what we—we haven’t really actually talked about things yet, and I don’t really kn—”

“Homecoming’s not for a few weeks Kipp, you’ve got time to figure it out.” Oisin says over her panic, trying his best to assure her that it’s not an absolutely dire thing for her to figure out right now.

She sighs, visibly relaxing, her shoulders dropping. She gives him a small, genuine smile, one that she’s trying to become a lot better at giving her friends, and straightens up in the booth.

Ruben looks around at the group at a slight standstill and clears his throat. “So…can we actually work on homework now? I wasn’t lying on the way here when I said I needed help with this worksheet.”

Kipperlilly snorts and waves her hand, signaling him to pass it over to her. He slides the paper over and she scans it for all of ten seconds before humming in understanding. Give me your pen.”

“Can you just explain it to me?” Ruben whines, but passes over the pen that’s almost always shoved into his back pocket.

She waves him off and grabs it. “It’s easier like this,”

“Why are you complaining that someone is offering to do your homework, last time I asked Kipp to do mine she almost stabbed me.” Ivy comments offhandedly, typing off something quickly on her crystal.

The rogue rolls her eyes and quickly shoots her a glare. “Yeah, but you just ask because you don’t want to do it.”

Ivy opens her mouth to retort, but hesitates and instead just shrugs. “I can’t argue with that one.”

They all start bickering again, Buddy trying to calm everyone down while Kipperlilly quickly works on Ruben’s homework, explaining things to him when he asks questions—she does want him to actually get something out of it, but if she has to spend one more night sitting and trying to painstakingly guide him through an assignment she’s going to lose it.

Right as she slides the paper back over her crystal buzzes, a message lighting up on her screen that, unfortunately, makes her immediately grin like an idiot.

“ Ooooh , who’s texting, Kipp?” Oisin grins.

She huffs and picks up her crystal, pointedly ignoring her friends.

Kristen

are u busy tomorrow night?

Kipperlilly

Hmm, it depends on who’s asking.

Kristen

ok don’t be all mysterious now i’m trying to ask you on a date

Kipperlilly

Oh really?

Kristen

yup

Kipperlilly

Then yes, I can be free.

Kipperlilly

I have tennis practice until five, but after that I don’t have anything.

Kristen

ok cool

Kristen

i’ll pick you up at 6 then

Kristen

:)

Kipperlilly

Since when do you have your license?

Kristen

hey i got it this summer!!!!

Kristen

jawbone painstakingly taught me how to drive

Kristen

also riz is such a backseat driver

Kipperlilly

I’m not sure I trust you behind the wheel of a car

Kristen

hey ok i’m a decent driver now!!!

Kristen

ask jawbone tomorrow!!! i did all my hours!!!!

Kristen

and i’ve only run into like four things!!!

Kipperlilly

You do realize that the goal of driving is to run into zero things, right?

Kristen

youre sooooooo funny

Kristen

they were all things that weren’t moving it’s not like i’ve hit people

Kristen

gorgug’s hit fabian with his van like three times

Kipperlilly

I don’t even want to know.

Kristen

lmao

Kipperlilly

Ok so what have you hit then?

Kristen

one time i ran into the bushes and one time i did back into another car but it’s not my fault it was a really small parking lot, and then one time i ran into a pole

Kristen

and then i ran into another car

Kristen

i guess that one was kind of moving it was at a stoplight tho so idk if that counts

Kipperlilly

Yes, I think that one counts.

Kipperlilly

How tf did you run into a pole

Kristen

i scraped the side of it!!!! also not my fault!!! 

Kristen

don’t tell jawbone gorgug fixed the side of it before we gave it back to him

Kipperlilly

Omg

Kipperlilly

Kristen.

Kristen

what!!!! it’s like new now!!!!!

Kristen

i’m being bullied

Kipperlilly

Is the bully in the room with us

Kristen

cant believe this

Kipperlilly

You’ll live

“Dang, Kipperlilly is whipped.” Ruben says with a smirk. She ignores his comment, not bothering to give him any sort of snide response, but that just makes all of her friends snicker. 

“She’s not denying it,” Ivy mutters as she continues to pick at her now-melted ice cream.

“We say all of this with love, Kipp!” Oisin says, reaching over Mary Ann to pat her on the shoulder. She sighs, but looks around at all of them. Ivy sighing as Lucy blows another straw wrapper into her bowl, Oisin laughing and then immediately stopping when the ranger shoots him a death-glare. Mary Ann staring down at her phone and typing something, the tiniest hint of a smile on her face. Ruben leaning over to say something to Buddy that had him laughing a little too hard for what was probably a really lame joke.

And she realizes, despite all of their jabs and comments about whatever she and Kristen were doing, about all of the snide quips they’ll all say to each other that on first glance can seem kind of rude, she really does love all of her friends. Up until a couple months ago she kind of thought that none of them really would have cared if she lived or died, but now, despite everything they had been through, she really did feel like they were a family.

Although maybe it’s because of everything that they had been through. Nothing says lifelong friendship like copious amounts of trauma-bonding.

Chapter Text

Kristen paces back and forth in the living room, waiting for her friends to hurry up and get here so she can not throw up. Which she’s fairly close to doing at this point. She does spend a few minutes typing off a couple texts to Kipperlilly and grinning like an idiot at her phone, but luckily there’s no one else to see that and make fun of her. 

When they finally all show up, Fabian and Riz from practice, Gorgug and Adaine from the library where Adaine was quizzing him for a test he has on Wednesday, and Fig from somewhere in Hell, Kristen just about drops to the ground from exhaustion. After an hour of anxiously walking in a circle, she’s fucking tired.

“What’s this clandestine meeting about?” Fig asks, wiggling her eyebrows. She glances over to Riz and scrunches her nose then. “You look like shit,”

He sighs, a little hard to do with his swollen lip. “Fabian hit me in the face during practice,”

“I told you to move!” The other boy exclaims, looking at Riz with wide eyes. “You’re The Ball, you’re so quick, I didn’t think it’d actually hit you!”

“Well,” Riz shrugs. Kristen sighs and flicks her hand out toward him, cool magic surrounding him and healing his lip. 

His shoulders drop and he sighs in relief. “Thanks Kristen.”

She winks at him. “I gotcha”

Fig has procured a bag of cheese puffs from seemingly nowhere, getting orange dust all over the couch cushion as she wipes her fingers on it. She’s also at some point flipped upside down, her legs propped up on the back and her head hanging off the cushions. Adaine keeps trying to make sure she doesn’t choke.

“Why do I feel like you’re about to confess a crime to us…” Gorgug says to Kristen, shoving his hand into Fig’s chip bag and laughing when she tries to bat his hand away.

Kristen shrugs. “I just wanted to talk to you guys. We never catch up! What’s new, girlies?”

The five of them look at her skeptically, although Fig and Fabian seem to be trying to stop themselves from laughing.

“Yeah, we spend every day together, but sure, we never catch up.” Adaine says with a snort.

Kristen groans. “ Fine , damn it, okay, I have something that I need to tell all of you.” She glances at Fig and Fabian, clearly nervous, but Fabian gives her a thumbs up and Fig winks at her, and she’s really grateful for the Bardic at this moment.

“So Gorgug and Mary Ann are dating, we know this, and Oisin and Adaine are—”

“Kind of friends!” Adaine interrupts loudly, her face immediately flushing. They all look at her and burst into laughter and she flips them all off and sinks lower into the couch.

“Yeah, sure, ‘kind of friends,’” Kristen grins. “But um, I wanted to tell you…I think I need to tell you that, um,”

“For god's sake, Kristen, just tell them,” Fabian groans. Fig throws a chip at him.

She sighs. “Kipperlilly and I are dating. Well, I think maybe dating, we haven’t actually had that talk yet, but, y’know…” she trails off, wincing as she looks at her friends’ faces. When none of them start freaking out she starts freaking out, incredibly confused by their reactions.

“Why do none of you seem shocked by this when I’ve only told Fig and Fabian?” Kristen asks flatly, looking between all of her friends. But from the look on Fig and Fabian’s faces, she thinks that she already knows the answer.

Adaine winces. “I was…possible, maybe, potentially told about it.”

Kristen’s eyes dart to Fabian and she frowns. “C’mon, man!”

“Why do you immediately assume it’s me!” He says, his jaw dropped.

Fig rolls her eyes. “It was you, I’m not taking the blame for this,”

“I saw the two of you making out in the library and then asked Fig enough times about it that she told me,” Riz says with a grimace, making Fig drop her head into her hand.

“Yes, okay, I’ll take the blame for that one.”

“Mary Ann told me,” Gorgug says, slightly confused, looking around at the rest of the group like he’s surprised this isn’t supposed to be common news.

The cleric sighs. “Damn it, Mary Ann,” she says under her breath.

“Why wouldn’t you just tell us right away?” Adaine asks then, a frown growing on her face.

Kristen shrugs and shoves her hands into the pockets of her sweats. “I mean, if I had just come out and told you point blank, are you telling me it would have been received well?”

Adaine hums in response. “Fair point, never mind.”

“So you guys are really dating now?” Riz asks, a frown still on his face. He doesn’t really know what to think about all of this—he had extensively talked to Fig about it, which had helped him go from absolutely freaking out to just being confused.

“I think…yes?” Kristen says hesitantly. She scrunches her nose. “I don’t know, we haven’t had the exact ‘are we dating’ conversation, but we’ve been texting nonstop and hanging out together during our free periods and she slept over the other night and threw rocks at my window on Monday until I came outside, and we’re actually going out tomorrow.”

Fig makes a noise suspiciously close to an excited squeal. “She threw rocks at your window? That’s romantic as fuck, dude,”

“Kris, you just explicitly described dating,” Adaine says with an amused grin.

The cleric groans and tips her head back to rest against the wall. “It’s…yeah, I guess you’re right. We just haven’t said that yet.”

“No way to really know unless you ask, K,” Fabian says.

Gorgug hums in agreement. “That’s true.”

“God damn it,” Kristen grumbles. 

Fig snorts and reaches her hand out until Kristen laughs and walks over to grab it. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Can we go get dinner now? I’m starving,” Adaine groans. They were going to go right when Fabian and Riz came over after practice, but obviously Kristen’s news took precedent. But the other five were okay with it—or at least over the shock of it since they had known for a few days, so now they were just hungry.

***

When they enter Krom’s to find all the Rat Grinders at a table heckling Kipperlilly while Lucy and Ruben blow straw wrappers at everyone, they know they’re in for an interesting evening.

Given that they enter everywhere with a cacophony of noise and chaos, the other seven teenagers look up and right at them. All of them, sans, Kipperlilly, immediately have shit-eating grins on their faces. Well, not Mary Ann, but that’s a surprise to no one.

Kipperlilly turns bright red. Kristen turns a similar shade, only growing redder as her friends immediately start elbowing her and making fun of her.

“Fuck off,” she grumbles to all of them, stomping off to a booth while Adaine quickly and subtly points to Lucy, sending off a Message spell.

We’re about to bug the shit out of Kristen about this, it would be greatly appreciated if you guys would join in because it would be extremely funny for everyone except for the two of them.

Oh, that’s an absolutely fantastic idea.

“Hey guys,” Adaine says out loud to her friends. “We should go sit at that one,” she nods to the giant ‘U’ shaped booth toward the back of the soda shoppe, one that could comfortably fit eight or nine, uncomfortably fit thirteen.

Fig immediately cackles and grabs Kristen by the arm to drag her over. “Fantastic idea Adaine, one of your best.”

“I hate all of you.” Kristen says, shooting daggers at the five of her friends who are apparently hellbent on killing her by embarrassment alone.

Fabian slings an arm around her shoulders. “You love us, Kris,”

“Not by choice.”

He laughs. “Of course, we’ve trapped you with our friendship!”

“I feel pretty trapped right now, yes.”

Fig snorts and gives her a quick wink, another Bardic in this troubling time. “We love you!” She shoves Kristen in the booth then, ignoring her groans of protest.

When the Rat Grinders drag Kipperlilly over with them Kristen once again considers ditching all of her friends or just imploding in her seat. That’d be easier.

Gorgug and Mary Ann immediately start whispering about something, Kristen seeing more emotion from the kobold than she ever has. Their relationship was…weird. It didn’t really make any sense to her, but hey, Gorgug was happy and that’s really all that matters to her.

Somehow they fit all thirteen of them in the booth. Yes, the Bad Kids and the Rat Grinders still didn’t super get along, but a shared goal of making fun of one of your best friends really brings people together.

They had shoved Kristen and Kipperlilly in the middle, much to their objection. Oisin, Ivy, Lucy, Adaine and Fabian sat on one side, Ruben, Mary Ann, Gorgug, Fig and Buddy took the other.

“You should all come to our party on Friday,” Fig says, mouth full of onion rings once they all finally get their food.

The Rat Grinders all look at Fig, slightly surprised that she would just invite them. Sure, a couple of them had gone to some of the Seacaster Manor parties over the summer, popping in when they knew that it was going to be an absolute rager and there wouldn’t be any attention called to themselves, but they didn’t think that they would actually be asked to be there.

The rest of the Bad Kids nod, not really that phased by it.

“It starts at 7, but you guys can come whenever,” Fabian shrugs. He elbows Kristen, a grin on his face. “Feel free to help us set up.”

“You’re just trying to get more free labor,” Adaine chastises, looking to her side and frowning. “What did we say about tricking people into helping you set things up so it’s less work?”

Fabian winces. “That it’s really fun? The more the merrier?”

She simply rolls her eyes and looks away from him, but then makes direct eye contact with Oisin and looks down at the table.

“Sounds fun!” Buddy says first. All of the Rat Grinders exhale a bit, not wanting to be the first one to say anything. Did they want to go to a party with everyone and actually act like normal teenagers? Yes, of course. But they were all a little bit wary to accept the blatant peace offering that the Bad Kids were offering them.

Although that peace offering might have been sealed when they all shoved into a booth together to annoy the everloving shit out of their friends.

“It’s gonna be fucking rad,” Fig adds, grinning with her tongue between her teeth. “Are you coming, Kipperlilly?”

“She and Kristen hung out last night, so she already did.” Ivy says casually. Kristen chokes on her drink, Adaine’s jaw drops, and Lucy bursts into laughter. Kipperlilly’s face turns beet red and she immediately turns to hide her face in Kristen’s neck.

“I’m going to kill you again!” she yells out to Ivy, her voice slightly muffled. Kristen snorts and puts an arm around her, holding her closer to better hide her from Ivy.

The group all starts ribbing the two of them again, making stupid teenage jokes that have Kristen wishing so badly that she could learn Dimension Door. 

But even as she blushes profusely and groans and Kipperlilly desperately tries to burrow herself into Kristen to get away from this interaction, she couldn’t help but think that it was really nice to be able to just act like stupid teenagers.

The group eventually moves on to talking about other things, parties and classes and tv shows and stupid stories that make at least one person at the table almost snort milkshake out of their nose.

Kristen keeps an arm around Kipperlilly and traces patterns absentmindedly on the girl’s shoulder. At one point Lucy starts talking about how they all used to tease Kipperlilly freshman year for having a crush on Kristen, and the rogue’s eyes widen.

“Okay! Next story, moving on,”

Kristen’s face erupts in a gleeful smile. “Your what ?”

Kipperlilly groans and puts her face in Kristen’s side again. “Fuck off,”

“No, no, no, no, I want to hear more about this!”

“Do we have a story for you,” Oisin says dramatically. Kristen looks between all of the Rat Grinders with a shit-eating grin. The Bad Kids are all equally delighted.

Ivy swings an arm around Lucy’s shoulders and leans into her, looking at all of the Bad Kids intently listening around the table. “C’mon Luce, let’s paint them a picture,”

“ So , it was the beginning of second semester freshman year—”

Kipperlilly groans again. Kristen laughs and holds her tighter, now running a hand up and down her back. 

“I’m going to kill all of you again,” she mumbles.

Ruben snorts and knocks his knee against Kipperlilly’s under the table. “Sure, Kipp.”

They listen with elated grins as Lucy, Ivy, Ruben and Oisin take turns telling them about how they would constantly rib Kipperlilly for staring at Kristen in the hallway, or the cafeteria, or how she could never seem to shut up about the girl with the cheery smile and the corn-cob staff.

It’s only later that night when they’ve all left Krom’s and gone back to their houses, Gorgug dropping Fig, Adaine and Riz off before heading back to the tree, Fabian racing off on the Hangman, and Oisin shoving Ivy, Lucy, Ruben, Buddy and Mary Ann in his car, that Kristen and Kipperlilly actually talk about it.

“So…” Kristen starts, looking at the rogue with a grin that Kipperlilly knows means she’s never letting this go.

“You’re never gonna let me forget about this are you?” She says with a sigh, crossing her arms and leaning against the side of her car. 

The cleric grins, her tongue between her teeth, and shakes her head. “Nope, absolutely not.”

“Fantastic,”

“Although I will say,” Kristen starts, “the stalking and attempted murder didn’t make me think you did, so you’re in the clear for that.”

Kipperlilly stifles a laugh. “Fuck off,”

“Nothing like light stalking that says ‘I think you’re hot’,”

The rogue flips her off, but the ends of her lips quirk up. “ Listen ,”

“Sorry, I don’t think I’d say light stalking,” Kristen corrects herself, laughing again when Kipperlilly huffs. “I mean, I read your notes with Jawbone and broke into Ruben’s house last year.”

“But light stalking sounds a lot better than full on stalking.” Kipperlilly points out, trying to find anything to make it seem a little…less awful.

Kristen shrugs. “Minor details now, I guess,” she moves to lean against the car with Kipperlilly. She pokes her side and her smile brightens when the rogue laughs, unable to stop herself. 

“Maybe if I had actually gone up and talked to you freshman year our death and attempted-death counts wouldn’t be so high,” Kipperlilly shrugs, a teasing grin on her face.

“I dunno, when I was a freshman I was still trying to convert everyone I met to Helio, so maybe it’s a good thing that we didn’t talk then.”

Kipperlilly snorts. “Oh yes, please preach the word of Helio to me. I’m so hot for you, take me now.” she says flatly. Kristen starts laughing and Kipperlilly can’t help but smile.

“I thought you were hot too, y’know,” Kristen says offhandedly, fixing a flyaway hair in Kipperlilly’s ponytail. The rogue pulls back and looks at her with narrowed eyes, calling her bluff.

“You’re just saying that,”

Kristen shakes her head. “Dead serious. I mean, when I met you last year was I immediately annoyed? Yes—okay, don’t flip me off I’m going somewhere where this. But I mean…an intense, smart girl that’s kind of mean, good with a dagger, and seemed kind of obsessed with me? C’mon, I’m not an idiot.”

“That sounds really kinky when you say it like that.”

Kristen smirks, leaning down closer to her. “Who’s saying it’s not?”

Kipperlilly’s eyes darken. She surges up and kisses Kristen, the cleric immediately grabbing the rogue’s face and holding her close. Eventually Kipperlilly breaks away, laughing when Kristen makes a noise of protest and follows her down, her lips chasing after Kipperlilly’s.

“I really do need to go home, I don’t know if you know, but we have school tomorrow.”

Kristen waves her off. “Unimportant, we have so many other important things to do,” she tries to lean back down again but Kipperlilly puts a hand on her chest and pushes her back with a grin.

“ Kristen ,”

She sighs and leans against the car again. “ Fine , fine, you’re right. Drive me home, we’ll make out in your car, and then you can go home. Deal?”

Kipperlilly shakes her head, a stupid grin on her face. She goes up on her toes to press a quick kiss to Kristen’s cheek before going around the driver’s side.

“Are you gonna tell me what we’re doing tomorrow?” She asks, drumming her fingers on the steering wheel.

“Nope,” Kristen says casually. Kipperlilly hums in irritation, ever the planner. The cleric laughs and puts a hand on her leg, not missing the way that Kipperlilly’s hands tighten on the steering wheel.

“It’ll be fun, I promise. Well, I hope that it’ll be fun.”

Kipperlilly smiles softly and glances over to Kristen quickly. “It’ll be fun,”

“You’re putting a lot of faith in me.”

She snorts and takes a hand off the steering wheel to place it on top of Kristen’s. “I do have faith in you.”

Kristen knows that she’s blushing, but she still tries to play it off like she doesn’t want to kick her feet and put her face in her pillow. “That’s pretty gay of you.”

The rogue snorts. “Oh sorry, should I have told you that? Fuck.”

“How could you have kept this from me?” Kristen gasps dramatically.

“Well I guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” Kipperlilly shrugs.

The car is silent for a moment before the two start laughing again, Kipperlilly turning out of the parking lot as Kristen’s hand still rests comfortably on her thigh.

Chapter Text

"So what are you guys gonna do tonight?” Adaine asks as she picks at her salad. The five of them are sitting at their usual table in the cafeteria talking about mundane midday updates and vehemently trying to avoid Simeon du Vayne as he prances around the cafeteria.

Kristen scrunches her nose as a glob of mustard falls out of her shitty school burger and she throws it haphazardly back down onto the tray. She glances up at Adaine then, just registering the question, and raises her eyebrows. “Why, so you can show up and do a really bad job at stealthily spying on me?”

The wizard scoffs as Fabian snorts. “Hey! That was one time freshman year, and we just wanted to make sure that Tracker wasn’t going to wolf out and try to kill you.”

Riz nods, his head buried in a notebook as he scribbles something out, almost unreadable in his chicken scratch that rivals Kristen’s.

“Well now I’ve been in rooms alone with Kipperlilly enough times that if she wanted to try to kill me again she would have by now,” she says with a grin. 

Adaine frowns and waves her off. “I don’t like your face when you say that, it makes it seem like some weird kinky thing that I absolutely do not want to hear about.”

“Get your mind out of the gutter, Adaine,” Kristen chides, even though she immediately starts laughing. “I’m just saying that I’m fine. And if you really want to know, there aren’t supposed to be any clouds tonight so I’m taking her stargazing.”

At the same time, Adaine, Gorgug, Fabian and Riz all let out a really loud ‘awwww’ that draws the attention of a couple tables close to them. Kristen’s face immediately flushes and she tries to shush them, slapping a hand over Fabian’s mouth.

He licks her hand and she pulls it away, her nose scrunched as she immediately wipes her hand on his shoulder. “Gross, man!”

“That’s adorable,” he says with a knowing smile that kind of makes her want to push him off of the shitty lunchroom stools.

“First she’s throwing rocks at your window and now you're stargazing, I’m gonna throw up.” Adaine groans, although there’s still a smile on her face. 

Kristen lets herself smile, that giddy feeling that stopped her from sleeping last night coming back with full force. “Yeah, yeah, okay.”

“Are you gonna ask her to homecoming?” Gorgug asks, looking up from the machine that he had been fiddling with. Cloaca squawks as he twists the screwdriver weirdly, and he frowns before setting the screwdriver (and the homunculus) on the opposite end of the table.

The other three ‘oooh’ again and Kristen flips all of them off as she shoves a slightly cold french fry into her mouth. “I mean, yeah, but I don’t know how. We still need to have the ‘what are we’ conversation, and it’s literally only our first date so everyone needs to stop freaking out about it.”

Riz looks up from his book to pat her hand. “I think you’re the one who’s freaking out about it, K,”

“Okay, you don’t need to read me like that.” She frowns and slumps over, putting her elbows on the table and resting her head on her hands.

Adaine reaches a hand out and, after a sigh, Kristen grabs it. The wizard gives her a reassuring squeeze and Kristen feels herself relax a little bit. “It’s gonna be fine. Just don’t overthink it.”

“That’s easier said than done,”

“Especially for you,” Fabian adds. Kristen throws a french fry at him.

Riz snaps his notebook closed and casts it aside, finally focusing on the lunch in front of him, the lettuce of his salad definitely getting a bit soggy from the dressing that had been on it untouched for the past ten minutes.

“Are we gonna have to go to homecoming as a big group, then? Like…us and the Rat Grinders?”

“I mean I would like to go with my girlfriend, so yes.” Gorgug says flatly.

Adaine grins and drums on the table excitedly. “Have you figured out how you’re gonna ask her yet?”

Gorgug hesitates and Adaine groans and rests her head on his shoulder. “Come on , let me live vicariously through you!”

“Okay, okay, fine. If this is stupid you can tell me, but I was thinking of just like…sending her a letter on Quoki Pets.”

The table is silent for a second before they all erupt into another round of ‘aww’s’.

“That’s fucking adorable, I’m gonna vomit.” Fabian says, a grin on his face that makes Gorgug roll his eyes, but a blush creeps up his cheeks.

“Yeah, yeah, okay,” He waves them all off, laughing when Kristen puts all her weight on him, leaning against his shoulder as she keeps badgering him. “Let’s go back to you asking Kipperlilly, huh?”

Kristen frowns. “Stop putting the attention back on me, I don’t want it.”

“When has that ever been true,” Adaine comments, eyebrows raised in slight disbelief.

“Hey!” Kristen scoffs. “You must be mistaking me with Fig.”

Fabian hums. “Okay, Saint Applebees.”

“President Applebees,” Riz adds.

Kristen opens her mouth to retort, but instead just pouts and focuses on her shitty school lunch again. “Fuck off,”

They go back to chatting about classes and homecoming outfits and their plans for the party this weekend, Fabian making all of them promise to help him clean up this time.

“Last time you all left me with so much shit to do,” he grumbles.

Adaine rolls her eyes. “Oh come on , I had all my mephits and unseen servants clean that up, you did like, one thing.”

“Get wrecked,” Kristen says through a mouthful of french fries. Fabian flips her off and ignores everyone as they “oooh” at him.

When lunch dismisses and they all part ways to go to their classes, Fabian and Adaine trailing off to one of their electives while the rest of them go to their core classes.

Kristen takes her normal seat in the cleric classroom, Lucy and Buddy already seated as the girl drums on his desk excitedly, a giant smile on her face.

“What’s so exciting?” Kristen asks as she ungracefully drops her backpack down on the ground and slides into her seat. Lucy immediately turns to her with that same giga-watt grin but Buddy looks down, fiddling with his hands in his lap as a blush grows on his cheeks.

Lucy glances back at Buddy then and puts a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, if there’s anyone you can talk to about this, it’s Kristen.”

“Well now I’m invested,” Kristen says, scooting forward in her chair. “But also you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to, I’m just nosy.”

“No, no, I want to tell you,” Buddy says with a sigh. He scrunches his nose and glances up at Kristen. “I was just telling Lucy that…” he groans and tips his head back. “Luce, can you just tell her?”

Without missing a beat, Lucy leans forward and grabs Kristen’s forearm excitedly. “He told me that he has a crush on Ruben!”

Kristen’s jaw drops and she looks past Lucy at Buddy, who was scrunching his nose and looking anywhere but the two girls. She stands up and tackles him in a hug, the boy letting out a quick ‘oof’ as she squeezes him. 

“Yes! Yes, man, that’s so awesome.”

“But I don’t think that I’m gonna do anythi—”

“If you start spouting some more shit about how Helio wouldn’t want you to be gay, I’m going to banish you again.” Kristen says flatly, and Buddy immediately closes his mouth and just looks at her with a slightly exhausted look on his face, like this had been keeping him up for who knows how long. “I’ve met him, and he’s the most frat boy-ass dude you’ve ever seen. I don’t think that I’d trust him to hold my drink at a party, but that’s besides the point. It’s our fuckass families that instill that shitty homophobia in us, okay? Absolutely nowhere in the Book of Helio does it say anything about not being cool with the gays. I really doubt that if he was homophobic he and Sol would have basically begged me to come back, okay?”

Buddy and Lucy stare at her with wide eyes and slightly dropped jaws. “Wait, hold on—” Lucy starts. “They begged you to come back? I don’t think that I knew that.”

“You met Sol ?!” Buddy says loudly, his eyes widening more.

Kristen snorts. “Oh, yeah. I met both of them and Galicaea when I died the second time.”

“What the hell, I didn’t meet anyone when I died.” Lucy grumbles, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair. 

“Well I didn’t have a God and had just been gored through the heart by a unicorn, so they were both there to convince me to worship them or whatever,”

Lucy exhales loudly. “Holy shit, that’s wild.”

“So you just talked to all three of them? Just like…sat in a room with them?” Buddy asks, scooting forward in his seat.

“Well, I kind of really insulted Sol and Galicaea and then punched Helio in the face and then booked it out of there and revived myself, and then immediately after that was when he had to fight a fuck ton of people to stop the Nightmare King from coming back and I met Cassandra, so it was a wild couple of hours.”

Lucy and Buddy are silent then, blinking at her like she had just told them the most insane shit they’ve ever heard. Which, granted, might have been true. She doesn’t really think about it that much because all of her friends have done super crazy, wild, impressive stuff, but it was pretty cool. At least, after the fact. While it was all happening she really wished that they could just be sitting at Basrar’s.

“So anyways…” Kristen says after another moment of silence. “You don’t need to beat yourself up over being gay. I left for a lot of reasons, y’know? My fuckass homophobic parents and the homophobic hypocritical church, but like…you’re not going to get fucking smited for kissing a dude and also being a cleric of Helio.” She shrugs then, because it’s really as simple as that. 

Buddy takes another moment and then nods slowly. “Okay.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to like, totally shit on your religion. It’s just what happens whenever I talk about Helio.”

Lucy snorts. “That’s fair.”

“But do you guys think that Ruben even likes boys? I know he was really in love with Fig’s, what did you call it, her ‘alter emo’?” Kristen and Lucy both laugh. “But I don’t know if that means he’s straight, or if he’s bi, or what. I just…I don’t think I can just ask , y’know?”

“I’ll ask.” Kristen says flatly.

Lucy purses her lips and puts a hand on Buddy’s shoulder again. “I’ve known Ruben since middle school, and that boy is definitely not straight.”

A laugh involuntarily comes out of Kristen and she quickly stops herself, waving off the other two when they glance at her. “Sorry, that was just really funny.”

“I don’t know if he’s bi or pan or demi or anything else, but he’s written way too many love songs on his ukulele that say ‘he’ to just be into girls.” Lucy finishes.

Buddy sits up a little straighter and nods. “Okay…cool.”

“We’ll back you up,” Kristen winks at him. “But also don’t do anything you don’t want to.”

“If you want me to, y’know, test the waters a bit, I can.” Lucy says with a shrug. “I’ll figure something out.”

Buddy is quiet for another moment before a small smile appears on his face, and Kristen feels herself relax a little bit. The last thing she wants is for him to be uncomfortable with his sexuality or any crushes, she’s had enough of that for fifty people. She opens her mouth to tell him that he should ask Ruben to homecoming, but then Yolanda comes into the room and calls everyone’s attention and Kristen quickly walks back to her seat on the other side of Lucy.

Kristen

we’re not done talking about this ;))))))

Lucy

lololol

Lucy

i will be literally so smooth and casual and cool when i ask

Kristen

since when are you any of those things

Lucy

wtf

Buddy

Haha

Lucy

im being bullied 911 yes hello

Kristen

guys pay attention ur literally being bad students rn!!

Lucy

what did yolanda just say to all of us when she walked in the room

Kristen

uhhhhhhhhhhh

Buddy

Either Kipperlilly’s going to make you way more attentive or you’re going to make her way more laid back

Lucy

AHAHAHAHAHAHAH

Lucy

so real

Kristen

haha ur literally soooooo funny

Buddy

Thank you

Lucy

get wrecked!!!!

***

“Can I still borrow your car?” Kristen asks, popping her head into the kitchen. Jawbone looks up from his papers, glasses perched on his nose.

“Yeah kiddo, keys are on the front table.”

She grins and goes to leave, to avoid any other questions, but apparently today isn’t her lucky day because Jawbone calls after her. “Make sure not to run into any poles, okay?”

She groans. “Who told you?”

“Doesn’t matter who told me!” He grins, and it seems that everyone’s favorite hobby these days is giving her shit.

“It was Kipperlilly wasn’t it.”

Jawbone scoffs dramatically and puts a hand to his chest. “Now Kristen, whatever things people tell me during our session is confidential!” He winks and she groans.

“It was an accident ,”

“I believe you, kid.”

Kristen frowns. “I got Gorgug to fix it!”

He snorts and takes his glasses off to wipe the lenses with his shirt. “Look at me, do I seem mad?”

“…No.”

He slides the half-moon glasses back on and gives her another smile. “Keys are on the table.”

She looks at him hesitantly for a moment, not really believing that he’s done shitting on her. When he gives her another wink and goes back to scribbling something down on some student forms she exhales and quickly goes to the front door.

Have fun on your date! Adaine’s voice says in her head. Kristen jolts for a moment and then sighs and looks up and points to where she knows her tower is.

Lol thanks, I’ll tell you about it tomorrow!

Is that your way of telling me not to wait up? 

It’s silent for a second and then another message from Adaine appears in her head. 

If we were texting I would have put a winky face, but clearly I can’t do that here. They should add that to the Message spell. But then I guess that would just be texting.

Kristen snorts. Winky face received, thanks. And yes. Winky face.

Gross.

You asked!

And I regret doing so. Have fun.

Thanks girlie.

She grabs the keys off the front table and leaves, the cool evening air hitting her as she exhales loudly, her shoulders dropping. Even when she woke up with the sun, when she was supposed to be worshiping everything it brought, she couldn’t help but relax when the air turned cool and the sky turned a beautiful gradient of oranges, pinks, purples and blues.

She used to think of it as sacrilegious, but now she knows that it was the twilight reaching out to her, a siren song calling her home.

Kristen glances down at her crystal and shoots off a quick message to Kipperlilly, giving her a heads up that she was headed over, and starts the engine of Jawbone’s slightly beat-up car. It takes a couple of tries—she should really ask Gorgug to look at it again—but then it’s smooth sailing and she’s carefully cruising down the streets toward the Copperkettle house. 

***

Kipperlilly is sitting in the living room rhythmically tapping her fingers on her knee, one at a time, hand by hand, something she always does when she’s nervous.

Except she shouldn’t be nervous, she keeps telling herself that she shouldn’t, but that doesn’t stop her brain and body from filling with anxiety.

Breathe in for five, hold for six, breathe out for seven. She hears Jawbone say in her head, a response to yet another outburst.

It hadn’t been a particularly big one, but she had been stressed about college applications and her dad had said something that had hit just the right nerve to have her lash out and stomp off to her room, chest heaving and hands shaking.

The healing process wasn’t a linear one, which, to someone that was very much a perfectionist, was just another thing that caused a lot of irritation.

The doorbell rings then, snapping her out of her spiral, and she immediately tries to take another cooling breath as she feels her racing heartbeat in her chest.

She opens the door and can’t help but smile when she sees Kristen standing on the porch looking as equally nervous as she feels. 

“Hi.” The cleric says, fidgeting with her hands.

“Hi.” Kipperlilly parrots back. They stand there for a moment, staring at each other, both internally panicking a little bit.

“You have your glasses on again.”

Kipperlilly nods, eyebrows raised. “Correct, I do.”

“I like them.”

“Oh.”

Kristen clears her throat. “Um, you ready?”

“Yes,” Kipperlilly says quickly, and then immediately scolds herself for being so incredibly eager. “Yeah, let’s go.” She says then, trying to sound a bit more casual.

Kristen, of course, sees right through that, grinning and shaking her head before putting a hand out. Kipperlilly knows her face heats up as she grabs the cleric’s hand. She lets Kristen pull her out the door, only stopping to let her lock the door, before guiding her out to the car.

“Are you going to tell me what we’re doing now?” Kipperlilly asks, eyes narrowing. Kristen opens the passenger side door for her and grins.

“Nope.”

She scrunches her nose and gets in the car, trying to stop herself from smiling as Kristen laughs and gives her a quick wink. 

Kristen starts the car and looks over to Kipperlilly, a little bit of nervousness on her face. And Kipperlilly relaxes a little bit at that, the way that she’s clearly just as nervous. 

***

“This is a field, Kristen.” Kipperlilly says flatly, looking at the cleric as she gets out of the car to see nothing but grass and a couple of trees.

Kristen scoffs dramatically and walks around to pop open the trunk. “C’mon Kipp, you wound me. This—” she takes a large blanket and a small picnic basket out of the trunk. “Is one of the best places to see the stars. Y’know, because we’re far enough away from the light pollution of the main city.”

Kipperlilly grins. She looks at Kristen, then up at the sky, then back to the girl in front of her, looking slightly hesitant. “I’ve never been stargazing.” She says, because she’s not really sure what else to say. She thinks it might be a little dramatic to say ‘ this is one of the sweetest things anyone’s ever done for me ’, because that seems a little much for a first date.

“C’mon,” Kristen tries to rearrange the things in her arms to free up a hand, but Kipperlilly snorts and moves to grab something. 

“You’re going to drop something, it’s okay if you don’t hold my hand all the time.”

Kristen frowns. “But I want to,”

Kipperlilly forces herself not to look completely giddy at that, ignore the urge to put her face in her hands and excitedly scream. “Sweet, but dramatic.” She says instead with a smirk.

Kristen shrugs. “I’ve been told that I can be dramatic, so,” she adjusts again, getting a better hold on all the things in her arm and grabs Kipperlilly’s hand, leading her out into the field.

Ten minutes later they’re laying on a blanket on the ground, Kristen pointing out stars with one hand as the other one finds its place wrapped around Kipperlilly’s shoulders. The rogue is tucked into Kristen’s side, head resting on her shoulder, trying her hardest not to have a heart attack from how fast her heart is beating. 

“Sorry, hold on, is your pinky glowing?” Kipperlilly asks, brows furrowed in confusion. She grabs Kristen’s hand and examines the finger with the detail she does everything.

Kristen snorts. “Yeah, it does that.”

Kipperlilly looks up at her flatly. “What a great explanation, thank you so much.”

“You know what Copperkettle?”

“What?” Kipperlilly asks, raising her chin, a goading, challenging tone in her voice. Kristen grins and grabs the hand that was holding her finger, pressing a quick kiss to the back of the rogue’s hand. 

Kipperlilly adjusts, scooting impossibly closer to Kristen. She grabs her hand again and runs her fingers over the slightly-shimmering pinky. “You gonna tell me about this now?”

“ Fine ,” Kristen says with a sigh. Kipperlilly glances up at her, not wanting to push for something that Kristen didn’t want to tell her, but the look on Kristen’s face was one of fake exasperation. She gives Kipperlilly a quick wink. “It’s not that complicated, Adaine took the tip of my pinky when I died the last time so she could resurrect me.”

The rogue frowns. “So she just cut part of your pinky off? That’s…morbid. Didn’t you get resurrected like, right away? I didn’t think you were in active combat then.”

Kristen shakes her head, just now realizing that Kipperlilly doesn’t actually know the whole story of how she died in the Nightmare Forest. She swallows, her throat suddenly dry. She and her friends may all joke about their many deaths, but that one is still something that Kristen occasionally has nightmares about. 

Well, both her deaths are. She, Gorgug, Adaine and Riz have had many discussions about their deaths. Fig and Fabian are sympathetic and understand that it’s a traumatic experience no matter how you die, but they don’t get it. Kristen and Gorgug had, unbeknownst to everyone else at the time, held a funeral for themselves when everything had calmed down after freshman year. Then, after the Nightmare Forest, they had done the same for Adaine and Riz, the four of them standing there silently in the grave plot at Mordred at the two new gravestones they had added. 

Kristen and Gorgug hadn’t had actual gravestones at theirs, but when they moved into Mordred Manor, the two of them went out one night and added themselves to the small plot. Zayn gave them some privacy.

Although she has to imagine that the same is true for Kipperlilly and the rest of the Rat Grinders. Joking about their deaths in public and being haunted by them in private. 

“No, uh, it was a little more complicated than that.” She lets out a forced chuckle, although her smile doesn’t meet her eyes. Even in the twilight, Kipperlilly can see it, and she moves to lace their fingers together and squeeze Kristen’s hand in reassurance.

Kristen clears her throat again. “We were a couple days into the forest, and we were looking for this temple that we had seen in some visions. It was massive , this old and decrepit temple to Cassandra, and we split up to try and look around. I found this room with a bunch of old tomes and this shattered image of Cassandra on the wall and this creepy old unicorn skeleton in the corner.

She takes a deep breath. Kipperlilly squeezes her hand again. “I was holding the pieces of this image that had come off the wall, trying to see what she had looked like and when I tried to tap into it, when I tried to offer any sort of prayer, I heard this whisper in my head. I still remember it, the chill that it sent down my spine. ‘What praise will you have in death?’ And then I looked down and there was a horn through my chest. Fabian said he saw the unicorn reanimate and gore me through the heart. The horn came out and I died.”

Kipperlilly stays silent, simply nodding and squeezing her hand. After a moment she takes a deep breath, her thumb stroking over the back of Kristen’s hand. “And so the pinky…”

“Oh, right.” Kipperlilly snorts at Kristen’s quick shift to normal, like she had just forgotten something easy and wasn’t in the middle of what was a clearly traumatic story. “So Fabian left the room to get everyone and then when they came back the archway was gone. Gorgug eventually smashed a hole in the stone wall but when they finally got back into the room everything was like, I think eight hundred years old? Eight hundred and fifty? Like thick layers of dust, that smell when things are closed up for too long, the whole nine yards. But they found a skeleton on the floor and when Adaine cast Identify on it it said that it was mine, but that it was eight hundred and fifty something years old. So Adaine took one of my finger bones so that she’d be able to cast some sort of resurrection in the forest.”

Kristen exhales loudly, the story an exhausting one to tell. “So…yeah. When I finally snapped awake, still mostly dead but not a skeleton or anything, I was missing part of my finger. I also had a giant bloody hole in my chest, but that’s not a super important part of the story. Then I met Sol and Galicaea and punched Helio in the face and then went to find my friends, and when I resurrected myself I got my pinky back. But it glows now, so that’s kind of cool,”

Kipperlilly’s jaw drops. “Sorry, what? You punched Helio in the face?”

“Yeah,” Kristen grims. “It was awesome. I told Lucy and Buddy about it earlier today, they were equally as shocked. I think Buddy was a little more horrified, though.”

The rogue is quiet for another moment before she bursts into laughter. “Holy shit, sorry I’m not laughing at the whole traumatic death thing, that’s horrific and sounds awful but now I’m really only thinking about you decking a God.”

“Hey, I get it. It’s truly the best part of the story,” 

Kipperlilly smiles and shakes her head at Kristen’s ridiculousness before sighing and remembering what she actually wanted to say to her. She puts her other hand on top of Kristen’s that she’s already holding. “You’re really amazing, you know that, right?”

Kristen scrunches her nose and shakes her head. “I mean it was cool, but it’s not super—”

“No,” Kipperlilly interrupts her, not letting Kristen discredit herself. “Don’t do that. Don’t try to brush off all the amazing things you’ve done, okay? I know that…I don’t know if it really means anything coming from me. Hell, I didn’t think I’d ever say it. But I’ve been so… angry , by the fact that you had all done these amazing things, I don’t think I ever really thought about all the traumatic parts of it for what they really are. Not some big character development stuff, not something that gets you ahead as an adventurer, but really fucking shitty things that have happened to you. But you're brilliant, Kristen. And I know that you don’t think that about yourself, but I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re an exceptional cleric, and you always manage to pick yourself back up when really fucking shitty things happen to you, and you—” 

She’s cut off by Kristen quickly cupping her jaw and kissing her, something fast and hard and desperate. When she pulls away Kipperlilly blinks slowly, still caught off guard.

Kristen clears her throat and looks up at the sky, trying to deflect a little bit. “Um, thank you.”

Kipperlilly rolls her eyes and takes her hand out of Kristen’s to take the cleric’s face in her hands, to get her attention back. Kristen looks at her with wide eyes and Kipperlilly steels herself. “I need you to actually listen to me when I say all of that. Because all of it’s true.”

Kristen nods then, but she holds her breath, too afraid that if she makes a sudden movement the moment will be over. And, similarly to that night in her room, she feels like they’re on the precipice of something.

“I’m not very good at…this.” 

Kristen raises her eyebrows and looks at Kipperlilly, a mixture of amusement and skepticism on her face. “You’ve been doing a pretty good job so far,”

Kipperlilly rolls her eyes, but that same stupid smile grows on her face that Kristen’s learned is one that she gets a lot whenever Kristen says something sweet and stupid.

“You know what I mean. I’m not good at the whole…dating thing. I don’t really know what I’m doing. But I want to, y’know, figure it out.” She’s quiet then, looking away from Kristen, her shoulders stiffening as the anxiety she’s feeling wins out for a second.

“Is this your confusing way of asking me to be your girlfriend,” Kristen asks, a wide grin growing on her face. Kipperlilly glares at her.

“You don’t need to say it like that ,”

“Like what!”

“Like you’re making fun of me.” She frowns, and Kristen quickly puts a hand over one of Kipperlilly’s, which is still cupping Kristen’s jaw. 

She looks Kipperlilly dead in the eyes, wanting her to know that she’s serious. “If you wanna ask me, ask me.”

Kipperlilly swallows and her hand tenses slightly on Kristen’s face, but she doesn’t look away from her. “Do you—god damn it, this is so annoying,” she scrunches her nose and squeezes her eyes shut, trying to ignore the way her heart seems to be beating out of her chest.

Kristen laughs, a light sound that gets Kipperlilly to look at her again. “Kipp,”

“Doyouwanttobemygirlfriend.”

The cleric raises her eyebrows. “What was that?”

Kipperlilly huffs. “Are you really gonna make me say it again?”

“I mean, I just didn’t really hear you…”

“You’re such a jerk.” Kipperlilly rolls her eyes, and Kristen just laughs again.

“You’re off to a really good start with this.”

“Do you…” the rogue starts again, looking away to steady herself before looking at Kristen, her honey brown eyes wide. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

Kristen’s grin is radiant. “Yes.”

“Oh, good.” Kipperlilly says with a slightly relieved sigh. Kristen snorts and grabs the hand that’s on her face so lace their fingers together.

“What, did you think I was gonna say no?”

Kipperlilly shrugs, and Kristen really has no choice but to kiss her then, to assure her that she wants this just as much as Kipperlilly does. 

Kristen doesn’t get home until well after midnight, her drive to take Kipperlilly home taking a lot longer than a quick drop off. She creeps in the side door to the kitchen, not wanting to open the gigantic front door and potentially call attention to herself. She really just needs to drop Jawbone’s keys on the counter and then she can bolt to her room, taking the small and winding hallway that connects the main house to her church.

When she sets the keys down with a sigh, her shoulders dropping, a lamp flicks on from the living room and she internally groans.

“Oh good, you’re back.” Sandra Lynn says behind her, and Kristen turns with something between a wince and an awkward smile on her face.

“Hey…girlie.”

The ranger raises her eyebrows and tries to stifle a laugh. “How was your night?”

“Good.” Kristen says too quickly, shrugging with a forced-causality that Sandra Lynn immediately sees through. 

She nods instead. “Good. I just wanted to make sure you got back okay,”

“Thanks.”

They’re both silent for a moment. There’s always been a bit of awkwardness between the two, the uncomfortableness of sophomore year never really going away.

“So,” Sandra Lynn starts, a small smile appearing on her face. “Did you have a good time?”

Kristen can’t stop the megawatt grin that appears on her face. “Yeah, it was, um, really good. Um, were you just sitting here waiting for me?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay, Kristen. I…worry about you.”

Kristen frowns and looks at Sandra Lynn with very blatant confusion and skepticism. They’ve always had a slightly tense relationship, and after sophomore year that was even more awkward. She lived with them, yes, but whenever she needed an adult in the house she went to Jawbone or Lydia. 

Sandra Lynn smiles slightly awkwardly, slightly exhausted. It is late, but Kristen can tell that part of the exhaustion probably comes from the almost-constant worried state all of their parents are in. It’s hard to be the parents of adventurers and not always be slightly terrified that your kids are going to die again.

“You’re my kid, too. You know that, right?”

Kristen freezes. It’s really not what she expected Sandra Lynn to say. She’s not sure what she thought she was going to say next, but the admission that she’s not just Fig’s best friend that also lives with them is an odd one.

She sniffs, not really sure what to say. 

Sandra Lynn raises her eyebrows and goes toward Kristen. After hesitating for a moment she puts a hand on Kristen’s shoulder and squeezes slightly. “I mean it. You aren’t just someone that lives here. You and Adaine, you’re my girls too, okay? I’ve got three daughters, and I’m always going to worry about whether or not you’re all good.”

Kristen’s once again at a loss for words. She does the only thing that she can really think of doing, which is crushing Sandra Lynn in a hug. The elf is startled for a moment, honestly not really expecting her words would be this kindly and positively received, but holds Kristen tightly. 

“You don’t have to worry about Kipperlilly, though. We’re good.” Kristen says softly, her head resting against Sandra Lynn’s shoulder. The woman gives her another squeeze and lets her go, but keeps her hands on Kristen’s arms. 

“I’m glad. You deserve to be happy, you all do. But if anything happens, know that you can—”

“I know.” Kristen interrupts. 

Sandra Lynn smiles and nods. “Good.”

“I’m uh, I’m gonna go to bed now.” Kristen glances back at the hallway that leads to the church, then back to Sandra Lynn with an awkward smile. The woman mirrors the smile and lets go of Kristen. 

She clears her throat and looks slightly uncomfortable again, but Kristen can tell that a hint of that worry and exhaustion from her face is gone. “Goodnight, Kristen.”

“Night,” 

Kristen goes down the small and winding hallway that connects to the church, all the while grinning like an idiot as she thinks about the night. She thinks the way that Kipperlilly so easily tucked herself into her side, the starry-eyed look on her face when Kristen told her what they were doing, her radiant smile when Kristen said ‘yes’.

And since she’s alone in her room, since there’s no one there to make fun of her or give her shit, she flops onto her bed and kicks her feet, that stupid smile never leaving her face.