Work Text:
They're supposed to be doing homework: a group project due at the end of the week. They’re sitting on the floor of his room, a bag of chips in the middle of their circle of books and notebooks and pens, when Udo suggests a break. Specifically, he says they should play a game.
“Truth or Dare.” His expression remains neutral, but he and Zofia share a look that Falco immediately does not trust.
“Isn’t that a game for parties?” he tries - it’s the best he can come up with quickly - though his words are drowned out by Gabi.
“Yeah!” she cries, tossing aside her notebook and leaning forward, the familiar competitive gleam shining in her eyes. “We deserve a break.”
“We’ve been working for fifteen minutes.” Falco grips his pencil tightly enough that he thinks it might break. He knows that this will not go well for him in some way or another.
“Gabi, do you want to go first?” Zofia has a grin on her face that can only be described as 'shit eating’ when she asks this. Gabi nods, face a mask of concentration. Zofia continues, mouth pulling even farther up at the corners, teeth bared, “I dare you to kiss Falco.”
The blood drains from his face at the words while Gabi squawks, "What?!" A kiss from her is something he's (reallyreally) wanted...but not like this. Not as a dare: an action that she's compelled to do as opposed to wanting to.
Zofia feigns innocence as she says, "It's a dare. You have to do it. Actually, I double dog dare you."
Gabi turns to Falco, and he's almost afraid to look back. When he does, he finds that her expression is one of firm determination. She glares at him, and his stomach drops. She must not want to do this in the least. Before he can protest and try to call the whole thing off, she lunges.
Gabi kisses with the same ferocity that she does everything. The problem is, she's clearly never done it before. Not that Falco can say he has, but he's certain that a kiss shouldn't hurt this much as their teeth crash behind closed lips. She withdraws, eyes widening. Then she smirks. He barely sees it through his warping vision.
"You really liked that, huh? Your nose started -"
"Gabi," Udo interrupts with a dumbfounded expression, "it's his lip."
Falco realizes when blood drips down his chin onto his hand that he's bleeding. He reaches up to touch his lip. It's tender and wet and his fingertips come away bright red. He hadn't even noticed.
"Shit!" Gabi cries, scrambling to reach the box of tissues that he forgot to put away the night before. "I'm so sorry!"
He winces when she presses the tissue to his lip. Her face is close and now concerned and he takes a moment to look at her. Her hair falls in her face, slipping from her bun as she snaps at Udo and Zofia - though he doesn't hear what she says because white noise fills his ears - and the smear of red on her lips (which shouldn't be enticing because it's blood but he can't stop the thought) and the shades of brown in her large, round eyes, framed by darker lashes and -
"Gabi," Zofia simpers, "you're blushing." The white noise dissipates with those words. How had his missed it? Her cheeks shine pink like his mother's prized peonies growing in the backyard.
"I'm not!" she snaps, scrubbing at Falco's chin and grabbing his hand to wipe away the blood there. She ducks her head as she does so, hiding her face with her hair. He barely has time to think about how they're holding hands because she lets go and leans back a little to toss the bloody tissue. He feels a prickle on his lip. She scrubs at her lips with the back of her hand, and he might feel something in response to that - something bad, negative, ruinous - but a voice pulls away from those thoughts.
"Here." Udo’s voice comes from his left. Falco looks to see that he's holding an ice pack, half covered with a rag. He hadn't even noticed that Udo left. That must have been what Gabi had been snapping about. Before he can take the ice pack, Gabi snatches it away.
"I'll do it," she says. Falco winces as she aims for his face again. She pauses. "Sorry. Does it hurt?"
"A little," he croaks out, even though his lips are only tingling still from the touch of hers. She frowns and stares at them for a long moment.
"Sorry," she whispers - a soft tone that he's never heard from her before - touching the worn material of the rag to his face. Then the room falls silent.
"Um," Udo says, but Falco doesn't acknowledge him, can't look away from the enticing sight of Gabi's flushed cheeks and her teeth snagging her bottom lip. "Maybe we should...go."
They look over at Udo and Zofia at the same time, and they look so smug to be infuriating: if he had room for other emotions than the ones that fill his throat.
"What -" Gabi starts as the two gather up their things in record time.
"We'll finish the project tomorrow!" Zofia singsongs.
"If you two aren't too distracted!" Udo calls over his shoulder. The door shuts neatly behind them.
After a beat, Gabi and Falco turn toward each other, so slowly that he wonders if time is lagging.
"Uh," she says, eyes dropping to his lips. "You're not bleeding anymore." She withdraws the rag, which now bears a smear of red.
"Yeah," he says through cold lips that he can barely feel. They fall silent again. He takes a deep breath in and swallows all of the feelings stuck in his throat. He misses the way she follows the motion when he closes his eyes.
He needs to apologize, too. She didn’t want this. He imagines himself yelling at Zofia and Udo in the morning, which gives him the strength to proceed. He doesn’t have a chance to let the words spill past his lips because Gabi leans forward and presses hers to the corner of his mouth, avoiding the split in the middle.
His eyes fly open and his vision swims because she’s so close and her eyelashes are so long they’re almost tickling his face. He shivers when she does: he from her warmth and she likely from the chill. She pulls back, eyes fluttering open.
“It feels nice,” Gabi says as he stares and stares. The words sound defensive: she’s unsure and he doesn't know what to do or say.
"Yeah," Falco repeats, and she looks at him - really looks at him - like it's the first time she's seen him in a very long time. He scrambles internally because she’s never acted like this and ohgod she actually kissed him without being dared to, does that mean -
She’s kissing him again, throwing herself at him with enough force to knock him backward, while managing not to click their teeth together and open his lip. Falco wouldn’t have noticed if it had, he thinks, because he still hasn’t felt as much of a twinge of pain past the initial pang of their lips crashing the first time. Her lips warm his and he has absolutely no experience with this but she's so eager: eager enough to crawl into his lap and throw her arms around his shoulders.
It's little more than repeated soft presses, again and again and again. He stops trying to think about what he should be doing and wraps his arms around her waist to pull her closer.
"Falco!" Colt calls through the closed door, rapping his knuckles on it. "Reiner says he saw Udo and Zofia walking home without Gabi. She better not be in there with you with the door closed." He then pauses, and adds, "Well, she actually better be in there because Reiner is ready to call the police."
Gabi and Falco don't hear the words, even though the door is thin. When Colt knocks again before opening it, their eyes fly open. She works to pull herself away, though not carefully: her ring yanks on his hair from where her fingers has been threaded through it, and, worse, she manages to knee him in the stomach. Gabi gasps out an apology as she dives for her phone, missing Reiner’s call: the third in a row.
Colt sighs, but when Falco looks up at him through the tears in his eyes, he smiles. Gabi gathers up her stuff while Reiner's voice booms through the phone. He watches her reddened lips move as she spits out excuse after excuse, giving Colt a pleading look as she lies about what happened. He shakes his head and waves his hands at the same time. Gabi's shoulders sag in relief, and she starts to run out the door.
She pauses for a moment, phone cradled between her ear and shoulder, and looks back at him. The wave she offers is oddly tentative, almost uncertain. Still dazed from everything, he waves back. She smiles as she turns and rushes out.
Colt walks into the room, stepping over the open book lying on the floor, and snags a tissue. He offers it to Falco, who then realizes for the second time that he had been bleeding without noticing it. Now that Gabi is gone, he feels the first sting of pain when he touches the tissue to his lip.
"You know, if I hadn't seen you two kissing," Colt says, holding out a hand to pull Falco to his feet, "I would have thought she had just kicked your ass.”
Falco puts a hand on his sore stomach and grimaces. “I think she did.”