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“Campbell, are you really that fucking dumb!?” Naib grabs his stupid lab partner by the collar of his shirt. “You’re telling me you’ve been passing the wrong fucking array into the function this entire fucking time!?”
“Hey, lay off, you fucking hypocrite!” Norton tries to push Naib off of him, both hands pushing his chest away. “You looked over it heaps of times and didn’t fucking notice either!”
“Yeah, ‘cause I fucking trusted you to get something that simple right!!!”
“Oh yeah!? Who was the one that forgot to put the double brackets around the array!? Huh!?”
Norton stopped pushing against him. Naib, not prepared for the sudden shift in force, barely managed to stop their faces from crashing into each other.
Now uncomfortably close to Naib’s face, Norton spat out, “Ha!? Who was it Naib!? Who wasted our entire afternoon on “something that simple”, huh?”
Naib made a frustrated face and glared back at Norton. They stayed locked like that for several more moments before Naib finally sighed and let go of Norton’s shirt.
Naib fell backwards onto the floor behind him.
They were sitting cross-legged on the ground at a coffee table in the living room of Naib’s share-house, working on a programming assignment in front of Norton’s laptop. The rest of the tenants had all decided to go out to a party earlier that day, so the two of them had the apartment to themselves until they inevitably came back extremely drunk at two or three am.
Maybe if they’d started this assignment, which is worth 30% of their final grade for this subject, just a little earlier, they wouldn’t currently be on the verge of murdering each other in cold blood.
But because this is just how the two of them are, they only actually touched it for the first time in three weeks that morning.
And now, here they are. Two open pizza boxes sit stacked to the side of the table, the one on top opened to reveal one slice of value range pepperoni still in it. There are also two almost empty cups of coffee – maybe their tenth or twentieth of the day – which will probably be filled again very soon.
It’s currently 1:30am. Their presentation is in seven and a half hours.
Naib sighed.
Fuck.
He put his forearm over his eyes and spoke to Norton again.
“Can you just… run it? Maybe that’ll fix everything.”
Norton took a deep breath, also trying to calm himself down.
“Yeah… yeah okay.”
Naib heard him press some keys before he let out another long-suffering sigh.
“Well, there’s no errors at least but…”
“Let me guess. It spat out “nans” again?”
“Sure you weren’t a detective in a previous life, Sherlock Holmes?”
Naib grunted in displeasure.
“If I was I sure as hell picked the wrong degree to study.”
Norton snorted before Naib heard him lay down on the ground next to him on his right.
Removing his arm from his face, Naib turned to look at him. Norton was staring aimlessly at the ceiling above him.
Naib found himself admiring his profile.
The scar around his eye that Naib never quite had the guts to question him about, the piercing in the bridge of his nose, the fluffy looking hair that fanned out by the side of his face…
He felt his face heat up and he immediately turned away to look at the ceiling.
Fuck… not now…
They laid in silence for a little while, wasting precious time wallowing in their misery, before Naib finally got back up and started looking over the code again, line by line.
He heard Norton get up too.
“I’m gonna make some more coffee.” He picked both their mugs up off the table and walked to the kitchen counter, giving no indication as to whether or not he heard Naib’s half-hearted grunt of approval.
Naib continued to look at the screen in front of him.
After commenting out a few loops one at a time, he managed to narrow down the problem to a small section of code that seemed to have absolutely no problems with it. He tried changing around a few variables, despite being sure they were correct, only to get either no change in the result or another error.
God fucking damn it! What the hell is going on!?
It was starting to get too painful to look at the screen. The numbers and variables seemed to blend together and a few times he got confused at what line he was looking at halfway through reading it.
His head was starting to ache.
Naib closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.
He jumped slightly when he felt a hand land on his left shoulder.
“You doing alright?” Looking back to Norton, he saw the man had sat down on his right side again, two mugs of fresh (instant) coffee in front of him.
He was looking at Naib with concern on his face.
“Yeah… just a headache.” Naib pinched the bridge of his nose again and sighed. “Hey, I’m sorry for yelling at you earlier, I’m just-“
“Stressed?” Norton started massaging Naib’s shoulder soothingly. “Yeah, I know. I’m sorry for yelling too.”
“What are you apologising for?” Naib tried really hard to suppress a satisfied sigh as Norton’s hand unwound the tension in his shoulder. He probably couldn’t hide the way he’d relaxed into his friend’s touch though. “I’m the one who was being an asshole this time.”
“”This time” being the key word here, Subedar. How about we just say we’re even and call it a day?”
“Sounds like a plan.”
He let Norton massage his shoulder for a few more moments, low-key wishing his friend would continue his gentle ministrations for as long as possible.
But he knew they had work to do and little time left to do it.
“Come on, we still gotta-“
Before Naib could finish his sentence, Norton pressed slightly harder into Naib’s shoulder.
Unfortunately, Naib couldn’t supress the sound he made nor the shiver this time.
“Hn!”
Norton froze and immediately let go of his shoulder.
Absolutely mortified, Naib turned away from Norton and hid his face in his palm.
“Shit, sorry! Are you okay? Did I hurt you?” Norton tried to get a look at his face.
Naib kept turning to avoid his gaze. “N-no! I’m fine!”
“That didn’t sound fine to me-“
“I said it’s fine-“
“Hey.”
Norton managed to get a good grip on Naib and turned him so that Naib faced him again.
“If I hurt you, you gotta-“
Norton stopped short when he got a good glimpse at his expression.
Naib couldn’t meet his eyes as he continued to try hide his rapidly growing blush behind his hand.
Shit.
Naib tried to will Norton to ignore what just happened with just the power of his mind. Tried to will him to just go back to work so they can finish this stupid assignment and pretend Naib hadn’t just reacted to Norton’s touch like... like that.
(At the forefront of his mind though, Naib was afraid that after this, Norton will probably never want to see or speak to him again.)
Naib took a deep breath.
“I’m sorry. It’s nothing. Let’s get back to-“
“Naib.”
At Norton’s voice, quiet and slightly nervous, Naib looked up.
The deep red blush on Norton’s face matched his own.
Wha…
What?
Naib watched Norton bring up one of his hands towards his face, slowly and nervously. It hovered just above Naib’s left cheek for a few moments, before landing to gently cup his face.
WHAT!?
“Naib.”
Naib looked up at Norton, dumbfounded, his mouth hanging open.
“Y-you’re…” Norton stammered, and Naib felt the hand on his cheek shake slightly. “Sorry if I’m taking this the wrong way but…”
It felt like Naib’s heart was going to explode.
He became hyperaware of how small the distance between their faces was.
“You’re so cute Naib.”
No way this is actually happening.
Norton looked down hesitantly.
“Sorry… is this- okay?”
Naib was aware he was shaking slightly too, whether it was from the lack of sleep, nervous energy, or both, he wasn’t quite sure.
Naib bought his hand to lay on top of the one Norton had placed on his face.
“…Yes” Naib swallowed shakily and gripped Norton’s hand. “This is- this is okay… Norton.”
Norton exhaled a shaky breath.
They sit frozen, like they’re both too afraid to move.
The air between them feels tense with feeling. Naib’s almost afraid that if he moves even slightly, the moment might shatter, and he’ll wake up to find that none of this had actually happened.
But then, Norton breaks the silence.
“Hey, Naib.”
He sees Norton’s gaze move down to his lips.
Naib is actually going to explode.
“Can I-“
Naib doesn’t let him finish.
He wraps his arms around Norton and kisses him hard, catching him off guard.
But Norton only stays stock still for a few seconds before he returns the embrace and kisses Naib back just as hard.
Kissing Norton’s probably the best thing Naib’s ever done in his life.
He can’t stop. He doesn’t want it to stop. He wants to kiss Norton forever.
He feels a hand undo his ponytail before it comes back to bury itself in his locks, running soothing circles into his scalp.
Naib gets a hand in Norton’s hair too, savouring the feel of it on his fingertips.
It feels perfect. Better than anything Naib could imagine.
He wants to drown in this feeling. This perfectly unimaginable feeling…
But he has to take a breath at some point.
He pulls away from Norton, hyperaware that at some point he’d ended up moving to sit in Norton’s lap.
He looks up at the man’s face.
Norton’s smiling gently at him with such a fond expression on his face that Naib’s heart absolutely soars out of his body.
“Hey.”
He can’t help but smile back just as fondly.
“Hey”
“That was…”
“Yeah. It… it was.”
Naib laughs and drops his head onto Norton’s shoulder, facing the computer screen.
Maybe it’s fine even if we don’t get our code working.
That’s what Naib wants to say but he knows better than to just leave it at that.
He stares at the stupid “for” loop like it just burned down his house.
Norton laughs lightly above him.
“Glaring at it isn’t gonna fix it, Subedar.”
“You never know until you try-“
Then, Naib saw it.
He abruptly lifted his head from Norton’s shoulder.
No way.
He crawled out of Norton’s lap to sit closer to the laptop screen.
“Naib?” Norton crawled over to sit behind him, looking over his shoulder. “What’s wrong?”
Naib didn’t reply but just kept looking at the screen with shock.
Then, he started laughing.
Hard.
No fucking way.
“Hahahahahahaha!! Oh my god Norton!” He held his stomach at the painful laughter. “We’re so fucking stupid!”
He could see Norton looking between him and the screen in confusion from the corner of his eye.
Naib pointed to the very top of the "for" loop.
“Look.”
His finger landed on the greater-than (>) sign.
It took Norton a few moments to understand.
But when he did, his eyes widened, and he started laughing too.
The two of them laughed like lunatics, driven by euphoria and sleep deprivation.
Once Naib had calmed down enough to be able to see the screen through the tears in his eyes, he changed the greater-than sign to a less-than (<) sign and hit run.
When the code finally worked he felt like he might actually cry.
He pressed save before finally closing the program from hell.
Norton had finally managed to calm down too.
He wrapped his arms around Naib’s middle and hooked his chin over Naib’s shoulder.
“So…” Norton spoke directly into Naib’s ear and he shivered. “Now that that’s over…”
Naib elbowed him lightly. “Only reason I’m getting into bed with you is to sleep for the next hundred years.”
Norton laughed at that.
“Too bad we have to be awake in…” Norton looked over at the clock in the corner of the screen. “About four hours.”
“Fuck, it’s already two?”
“Apparently.”
Naib sighed and leaned back into Norton, not wanting to move out of his comfortable embrace yet.
He closed his eyes.
He must’ve nearly fallen asleep because the next thing he knew, Norton was nudging him awake.
“C’mon, sleeping beauty, let’s get you to bed.”
Naib opened his eyes and saw Norton’s upside-down face looking down at him.
He suddenly realised something.
“Hey, Norton.”
“What’s up?”
“I think you’re cute too.”
Norton flushed again.
Fuck he’s so cute.
“Would you go out with me?”
Impossibly, Norton flushed harder, his face a deep red.
Naib laughed.
Norton coughed to clear his throat and tried to sound unaffected despite absolutely failing.
“I thought you were meant to ask that before you kissed someone.”
“Maybe.” Naib unwound Norton’s hands around him and got up before holding a hand out to him. “Come on. I’m not losing any marks cause you fell asleep in the middle of the presentation.”
Norton smiled up at him before grasping his hand and getting up. “Alright.”
The sound of Naib’s retching housemates could never hope to wake them up.