Chapter Text
"---What are you talking about? I don't even---"
"---better not have done anything to her, Rivera, because I swear to Irene I---"
"---we're best friends, what do you expect---"
"---tell us if anything happened between---"
"---she sure has a weird taste in best friends because you are---"
Oh my Irene, what the fuck is that awful noise coming from?
Aphmau rolls over the mattress, clutching the duvet messily spread across it closer to her chest. She curls into herself, back tight, knees raised to her waistline, trying to block out the commotion and lull back into slumber.
"I don't get what the issue is," someone says, their voice deep and sharp enough that she chalks it up to Aaron's in her sleep-addled mind, "Aphmau was just tired by the time I took her home and didn't want to disrupt the girls, so she wanted to stay here instead. Nothing happened between us."
Oh. It's that kind of morning.
Someone else bristles in reply, almost offendedly, whether it's Laurance or Garroth she's not entirely sure, but it lacks the usual lilt of Garroth's for her to attribute it to him. "The issue!? The issue is that you are near her! No one can trust where you put your hands when you're alone with her, and you were alone with her for almost the whole night!"
"Am I suddenly a pervert now?" Aaron scoffs. "You would find me dead before I even thought about touching her like that! You're insane! Get off of my doorstep!"
"No one tells my best friend to get off of their doorstep except me!"---now that's Garroth---"Aaron, please, where is she!?"
"In the guest bedroom. Sleeping."
"I CALL BULLSHIT!"
Laurance's high-pitched, argumentative squealing makes Aphmau feel like she was hit by a truck, the waves of sharp aches nestled between her eye-sockets and centers of her temples pulsing with the volume of his distress calls. She pushes herself over the edge of the bed, landing on one of her knees and shooting straight up, holding a hand to her mouth.
Footsteps pop closer and closer to her like firecrackers, and somebody swears, hands quickly hoisting her up, up, up off the floor by the naked skin of her underarms. She staggers forward, squeezing her eyes shut, bracing herself on the bedroom doorframe.
"Fuck, okay," Aaron mutters, and before she knows it, she's being ushered into the guest bathroom. He runs a hand through her hair and bunches it at the beginning of her nape, holding it back as she heaves her stomach into the open toilet.
"OH MY IRENE!" One of the boys shouts, horror leaking in his voice. "AARON RIVERA!"
Aphmau feels hot tears well with the skull-crushing surge of pain at both his volume and pitch. She gasps and chokes on the bile swimming up and out of her parched throat, her vision flooding with sparks. She hears Aaron growl, his look of strangled exasperation clear as day in her mind; she can tell he's trying not to scream, too.
"You think it's over, Aph?" He murmurs, his voice low enough to keep them guessing. "Is there more?"
She lazily shakes her head, letting him gently tap the cool, wet corner of a hand-towel over her lips. She grunts as she fully stands, rolling her shoulders and firmly clutching the edge of the sink's marble, and she finally realizes she was only in her shorts and a sports bra. Aaron leaves her side for a few seconds just to return with one of his smaller jackets and a water bottle, tugging it over her shoulders with this cute little crease between his eyebrows in concentration. She weakly smiles at him, taking the bottle and slowly following him to the front door.
"Where is your shirt Aphmau!?" Laurance confusedly yells, seemingly unaware of just how obnoxiously loud his voice was. Like an idiot, she dumbly blinks at him in her best impression of a reply, raising the rim of the water bottle to her mouth.
"Aren't you supposed to wait until marriage for a pregnancy!?" He sputters. She spits out the little water she was able to get, and Aaron physically doubles back.
"Oh my Irene, Laurance, I'm literally just hungover," she groans and coughs, her grip white-knuckled on plastic. "I don't have a shirt on because I don't fare well with heat when I'm drunk. Aaron can actually handle seeing a girl's skin." She rolls her eyes. "You really know how to act around a lady."
The both of them sit there in the doorway, completely frozen, even as it shuts in their faces. Aaron irritatedly sighs, drawing a giggle from her.
"Let's just... put on one of those love~love anime, or something." He massages his brows with two fingers, his eyes screwed shut. "That sound okay?"
Aphmau knowingly smiles at him. "Totally."