Chapter Text
Katie yanks her wrist free from Ewron’s grasp and instantly the flutter in his heart drops like a dead weight into his stomach.
“Ewron!” She shouts, eyes on him and him alone, floating the flutter back into place. His name is a euphonious harmony over the loud pounding of the music that vibrates around them. Stood only a near foot away, Ewron can see the angry glint in her eyes as she squints at him over her glasses. “What is your issue? Why would you blow up my HQ. Are you kidding me? I thought we were friends. You said I could trust yo-”
He cuts her off with a single step forward. An excuse to come closer. An excuse to use his hushed voice he knows sounds good. “Katie, I didn’t actually blow up your HQ.”
“Then…” She says breathlessly, glancing around a little crazed. Her hair falls gingerly over her shoulders, in both color and delicacy, and it makes her look casual, unprofessional. A product of everyone's ‘much needed night off.’ Ewron likes it almost as much as her reaction, his lips parting on their own accord.
Even their friends' spare glances from across the club go entirely unnoticed by her. She’s too busy trying to understand him and it makes his breaths come heavier. All he wants right now is to eat her expression and savor it forever.
“What the fuck? Why did you say you did?”
“You look so cute when you are angry.”
She gets even cuter. Super cute.
“You have got to be kidding me.” She says under her breath, then louder, “I am going back to the party.”
No, his insides weep. The tears turn hot and boiling as her attention leaves him and the back of her pink blazer taunts him under the array of colored lights, receding. Why does she leave him so fast? Why does she want to go back to everyone when she could be here with him? Heat and tension and a million emotions running high, like a fix of a drug after hours of withdrawal.
Beyond her, their friends idly chat, moving awfully to the beat, a drink in each of their hands, and a smile on each of their faces. All dressed to the occasion. All out to steal her attention from him.
Don, who probably has more presents and who-knows-what to give her.
Tina, who is too defendant over a woman nowhere near her formal alignment.
Ash, who keeps her around even though she’s completely useless.
Mike. Haiper. Graf.
And they aren’t even the worst offenders.
Right on cue, a perfectly punting-sized egg jumps into the chair next to Tina and Ewron’s frown grows tenfold. It kicks its short, pointless, legs and reaches for the girl's chilled glass sitting on the bar in front of them.
Isn’t that thing like two weeks old? How is it even in here?
An unwelcome surge of anger festers under his skin as he watches the scene. Sees the stupid thing drag the drink toward itself. Then rolls his eyes as Multi’s face dips into the picture just in time to stop him. He lifts Nacho up into the air and spins him around, harsh words clearly being said even from so far away.
A pity, Ewron thinks.
A drunk federation member? A possible harm come Nacho’s way? Multi fucking up?
Pity.
Katie hasn’t noticed, there’s no way she has or she would be nothing but a pink blur across the dance floor.
Don’t let her notice. She takes one more step and Ewron rushes forward: He can’t let her notice.
His fingers closes around her arm and she rounds on him with an addicting intensity.
“What?”
“You have a kid with Multi?”
Panic floods her face, barely satiating him. “It’s platonic!”
“You’re just so platonic with everyone aren’t you.”
She tilts her head in that stupid way she always does. Where her hair slips from behind her ear and her eyebrows curdle with confusion. Condescending, almost. Twisting the narrative in that little brain of hers, reallocating all the stupidity of every situation on him, when they both know it truly originates from her. Jumping through hoops and over hurdles just to avoid taking responsibility. “Well… yes.”
And god, for a long, life-gripping moment, he can’t look away. Doesn’t want to, because what if her jumpy brain moves on and she skips back to the other side of the room, forgets all about him, and finds another person to argue with? Her object permanence turning off until he manages to find something else good enough to reclaim her attention.
Unwillingly, his eyes flicker over to a certain pair behind her and Ewron wants to scream.
She doesn’t get it.
Never has.
Even if he told her outright she’d probably still fail to actually get it. He doesn’t want to have to tell her—he wants her to want just as badly as him that she understands at her core what he’s been doing all along.
A craving squeezes inside of Ewron and he looks at her, really looks at her. Almost laughs as he realizes her idea of ‘a night off’ outfit is her pink suit undone an extra button. Then falls into the depths of the blue of her eyes and the way her lashes stick together near the corners and flusters, furious, as she looks at him expectantly. Impatient and huffy, a subtle sheen of gloss coating her lips. Something drastic shifts inside of him when she moves like she wants to look over her shoulder—a raw helplessness that horrifies him.
She’s going to go back to them.
They are important to her. A priority that supersedes him. That she won’t ignore for him.
No matter how badly he wants her to.
“You are so dumb.”
“I’m—because I have friends?”
“Yes.” He breathes. “You pay too much attention to them. They distract you.”
“Distract me from what exactly?”
From him, he thinks.
“From everything,” he says. “Probably the reason you’re so shit at everything.” He laughs. Indignation leads his words. Why does she choose them over him? “No real alliance: You place your eggs in every single basket, yet none of them ever sprout to anything meaningful.”
“What the fuck?” Katie frowns, the creases on her forehead growing, for him, because of him, as she stares at him harder. God, fuck. It all goes running through him like an adrenaline high. Activating every organ, lighting up every endorphin, sitting him on the ledge of the highest cliff of the highest mountain. His breaths feel worth it, his blood pumps faster. He can see clearer.
This is where he’s meant to be: arguing with her—with Katie.
“You touch your friends, you say I love you to your friends, you have kids with your friends-”
“Platonic kids! Kid. Singular! Me and Multi have one kid that we co-parent.”
“I do not care!” Ewron shuts down. “We do not have kids! I thought we were besties.”
Her face twists in utter confusion and her voice takes on that tone he hates. Simple and flat. “You’re upset because we don’t have a kid?”
No, he almost says. But once he thinks about it, he instantly realizes, yes, that’s part of it. Not because he wants a kid, but because its existence would force her to acknowledge him, to be with him, to collaborate with him. He could pull the craziest shit ever and she’d have to put up with it because Katie is unable to not get attached and they would be a package deal.
He could stage a kidnapping of the thing just to get to spend the day with her.
“Actually, yes. Kind of.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.” Katie responds unhelpfully. “I can’t just ask the federation for another kid.”
“There are other ways to have kids, you know.”
He sees the moment she realizes what he’s implying. The dark turn to her eyes and the part in her lips at the small shock that follows quickly after. For a split second he forgets where he is, and the anger he’s supposed to be feeling. She stares into his eyes and he doesn’t dare look away, meeting blue on blue, under a rainbow of colors, and Ewron’s heart leaps into his throat.
She swallows. Ewron’s nostrils flare with his breath.
Is she… thinking about it?
It’s almost enough to make him give in right there, to make him close the distance and back her against the wall and kiss and kiss and kiss her. Grab at her waist as he prays for the others to take notice. To see that she’s his. She always has been and always will be. Child or not. Affiliation or not. Friendship or not. They will never beat him and she will always come back to him. It doesn’t matter that Tina takes her side or that Don gives her gifts or that Multi is the father of their child. He is Ewron. And she is his.
Before Ewron’s desires can win there's a sick explosion of laughter, hearty and beautiful, and it slaps Ewron back into the reality he wishes with everything in him he could change.
It’s selfish and stupid, but he’s thought about praying to Ghosty for it once or twice. But he wants Katie to want him. So badly that it isn’t even a question. There should be no need for a higher being for her to look at him like she did just seconds ago and drop to her knees and beg him for anything he’s willing to give (which is everything).
“Good one, bestie!”
“I’m so funny.” He doesn’t laugh, can’t bring himself to, can’t take his eyes off her as she moves around freely, like she’s not even affected.
“Phew, don’t joke like that. You scared me.” She says effortlessly, like she doesn’t feel their tension. “We are besties without a Nacho. And one is enough for me. That boy is a handful, let me tell you. Oh, god.” Her face falls. “Nacho. Where is he?”
Fireworks burst over the dance floor.
“Nacho! Nacho stop!”
Like the moment never even happened.