Chapter Text
“Okay, okay, wait- Lils, what did you just say?”
Yet another Pop Music Club meet spent lounging around doing nothing. These are some of Cater’s fave moments- a little blip of peace in his life, a pocket outside of time and space where he can drop the mask and just exist.
Today, they’re sitting around gossiping about their exes. Kalim doesn’t have much to contribute with his own stories- dating isn’t really in the cards for someone as bougie as him, Cater guesses- but he’s more than happy to play the part of the peanut gallery, gasping and interjecting at all the perfect moments- perfectly exemplified by a well-timed splutter of confusion. “Did you say his name was… Charlemagne?” He asks, brows drawn in disbelief.
Lilia’s smile widens, his fangs glinting in the light. “Indeed I did. We were lovers for quite some time… But, time comes for us all, and we departed as friends,” he says, his eyes deathly serious despite the catty grin.
“...Are you being FR? That was his name?? Lils, I’m totes sorry, but that’s such a ridiculous name. Please tell me you gave him a cute nickname,” Cater pleads, trying- and failing- to keep his laughter to himself. It has the unfortunate result of him choking on his sour candies.
“Of course I did, who do you take me for? I called him Charlie more often than not,” Lilia says with a dismissive wave of his hand. There’s a beat of silence, before he chuckles to himself. “...Though, it was rather amusing to see his reaction whenever I did call him by his full name. He always looked quite spooked!”
Cater sighs, shaking his head. “You can be supes cruel sometimes, Lilia, you know that?”
Lilia just smiles. What would have once been a friendly grin looks almost wicked now. “Kheehee… Perhaps you two ought to be grateful that your names are already short,” he says- and takes a very long, obnoxiously loud, sip of his tomato juice. Aaand there goes any tension he might have built up.
“You know, Lilia’s story had me thinking… You haven’t shared very many stories of your own, Cater. Do you have any others you wanna tell us?” Kalim asks, shifting topics with ease. He blinks for a second, wracking his brain. Does he have any other stories?
…No, he doesn’t. He’s moved around waaayyyy too much for something as serious as that.
“Nope! Cay-cay’s track record is squeaky clean. I was always too busy keeping up with school and my hobbies for stuff like that, LOL,” he chirps, popping another candy into his mouth. Lilia follows the movement silently, eyes narrowing slightly. #Weird.
Kalim blinks. “Really? You’re so outgoing, though! I’m kinda surprised, in all honesty,” he says, a smile growing on his face. Cater blanks- should he be offended by that??? Was that supposed to be a compliment????? Error 404, instructions unclear!
“Wowww, thanks, Kalim. Now I know how you really feel about me!” He jokes, and… Okay, yeah, he really can’t keep himself from laughing now. Kalim’s face morphs from a friendly jest to an expression of pure horror, and Cater relishes every second of it. If he were a crueller man, he would snap a pic of it and immortalize it in their GC forever.
“Wh- No! No, no, no, that’s not what I meant at all! Oh my gosh! No!” He splutters, hands waving frantically in every ‘stop’ motion Cater can think of, along with several fancy new ones. Even Lilia has begun to laugh now- though, that’s probably to be expected.
“JK, JK. DW, Kalim, I know you didn’t mean it like that. But maaan, you should’ve seen your face!! I’m lowkey regretting not taking a pic of it now, NGL,” he laughs, leaning over to pat Kalim sympathetically on the shoulder. Kalim just sighs, shaking his head a little, while Lilia’s laughter dies down into quiet giggles.
Cater settles back into his spot, a gentle smile of his own forming. Sure, the Pop Music Club might be that in name alone, but Cater is okay with that. It feels cozy with it being the three of them- a safe haven for him to kick back and chill in.
His smile grows as Kalim makes some joke or another, and… Lilia is staring at him again. Seriously, what is going on?! Does he have something on his face or what?? This is the second time Lilia has fixed his attention on Cater, and for all his extrovertedness, he's starting to get the heeby-jeebies from it.
Lilia frowns, ever-so slightly, and he can feel his skin start to crawl. The prefect called these chills goosebumps, once upon a time, didn’t they? That’s what these are. He has no idea why he’s running through random trivia right now, but it’s the best idea he can come up with to keep himself from… Sevens, he doesn’t even know.
Crap, he’s lost the convo thread. What are they talking about again? Something about Kalim’s little sibs? He doesn’t know. Why is Lilia still staring at him!? He knows the guy has a penchant for being a little weird sometimes- honestly, that’s part of why they get along so well, Lilia bounces perfectly off of Cater’s Heartslabyul madness- but this is honestly just ridiculous.
Cater tries to focus on Kalim, he really does, but whatever story he’s telling is just going in one ear and out the other. He keeps flicking his gaze back to Lilia, who hasn’t taken his eyes off of him since Kalim began freaking talking. Ughhhhhhhh. For once, he really cannot wait for their allotted club time to end.
The moment they get up to leave, Cater is snatching his bag from the floor and trying very, very, very hard not to make a mad dash for the stairwell. At the very least, it doesn’t seem like Kalim suspects anything- he still gives them his Signature Sunny Smile as he bids them goodbye, before turning on his heels and leaving… Which means Lilia and Cater are now alone in their meeting room.
OK. This is fine. This is fine. If anything, this is kind of ideal! This means he can talk to Lils about what in the billig, mimsy heck all of… THAT was without worrying about anyone else overhearing.
Or. Well, okay, there is still a chance someone might overhear, but at least the chance of it is low. At least this is a more secluded hallway, right? Plus, Kalim is long gone- one less person he might have to tell about himself.
“Sooo… Lils.”
Lilia hums in acknowledgement, tilting his head. “Yes, Cater?”
He knows. Oh, Lilia absolutely knows. Even if he doesn’t know the details, he knows something is up, and that’s almost worse. No, scratch that, it’s definitely worse. Lilia knows something is up, and he doesn’t have all the details, and something very, very bad could happen because of that.
“...Any reason why you were staring at me so hard during the meeting? It was lowkey weird as heck, even for you. You don’t usually stare like that, YK?” He says, laughing awkwardly. Yikes on bikes, why did he think this was a good idea?! Now he has to stand here twiddling his thumbs while he waits for Lilia to respond, and he doesn’t even know if he’ll like the response!!
Lilia squints his eyes a little, leaning a little closer to Cater before settling back into his seat, still not having gotten up to leave yet. It’s almost like he was expecting a conversation. “I’m not sure how I didn’t notice them before,” Lilia says, a sly tone in his voice, “Considering we are in the same year.”
Cater can feel his blood go cold (ha) as he averts his gaze. Crap. Crap, crap, crap, why why why did he think it was a good idea to open this conversation up????? Lilia knows, he knows. He should have seen this coming since the first time Lilia stared him down. How did he not see this coming???
“LOL, what are you talking about?”
“You have fangs,” Lilia points out pointedly. “Why?” WOW, such a vague question, how is he supposed to answer that?
“Why??? Uhh…” Well, he can’t just out himself, Trey is quite literally the only one who knows the truth, and Cater would really like it to stay that way, but he definitely can’t just brush it off either. Especially not with Lilia. “...I filed them when I was younger! I thought the whole sharp-teeth thing would make me look cool, YK?”
Lilia looks at Cater like he doesn’t believe him. Which… he probably doesn’t. Totally fair, considering Cater is lying through his decidedly-not filed teeth. If he were in Lilia’s shoes, he probably wouldn’t believe himself, either. It does kind of hurt, though, knowing his clubmate has so little faith in him that he won’t believe a puny little lie.
…A puny little lie about something that has affected the greater part of his life. Haaa… Yeah, he screwed himself over big time with this one. A part of him just wants to fess up now, throw his cards down and fold. But another part of him, the part that screeches when Trey gets a bit too close to figuring things out, the part that wanted him to run as far away from Lilia as possible earlier, keeps his mouth shut. He’s standing ten toes down on this, for better or worse.
“...Hey, so uh- actually, #funnystory but I really need to head back to the dorms. I just remembered there’s an unbirthday party today, and Riddle will have my head if I miss it and I really don’t wanna break my collarless streak now, so- BYEEEE!!”
Without waiting to see Lilia’s reaction, Cater immediately swings his guitar case onto his shoulder, and makes a break for it. If Trey slips him a slice of fresh apple pie as a comfort back at the dorm, no one has to know.