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“Do you have any idea how many rules we’re probably breaking right now?”
Riven continued on as if he hadn’t heard her at all, pulling Musa along the dark halls of Alfea, following a path he seemed to know by heart even without the aid of light.
Their footsteps were measured. Quiet. The last thing Riven and Musa needed was a professor catching them out of their rooms, roaming around the school long after curfew.
As they apparently finally reached their destination, - Musa couldn’t be sure, since it was so pitch black that she was as good as blind - her ongoing migraine getting worse by the second, the empath was sure she was close to having a heart attack with how nervous she was. She wasn’t joking earlier. They were most definitely breaking a few very important rules in Dowling’s rule book.
Musa knew that it was all her fault. She should have just stayed quiet and tried harder to fall asleep. But noooo. She had to go and open her big mouth to the biggest overprotective teddy bear in the universe.
And now here they were.
Breaking Curfew and invading Professor Harvey’s Greenhouse.
How great.
Her uneasiness only grew when she saw a glint of silver illuminated by the faint moonlight.
A key.
The bastard had a fucking key.
“How in the fucking world do you have a key to the Greenhouse?!” Riven had his back turned to her, meticulously trying to insert the key in the keyhole. The bare minimum light surrounding them was making things a little more difficult.
Musa took pity on him and picked up her phone, turning on the lantern.
“Will you shut that thing out! Do you want to get us caught Pixie?”
“The only thing I want is to be back on my bed sleeping and not risk potential detention under Griselda’s hateful stare Riv!”
“Well, we’ll be back there as soon as your medicine is ready babe, so I suggest you keep it quiet and turn off that goddamn lantern if you wish to stay away from that old hag so much.”
And there it was. The core of their problem. Her medicine.
The magical medicine Riven had stubbornly decided to make, after she offhandedly commented while they had been getting ready to sleep, that her powers had been causing her to have an awful migraine for the past few days.
Her boyfriend had then promptly gotten up from the bed and was already out in the hallway warning her to hurry up before she had a chance to say anything.
“I’m not letting you go to bed or spend the rest of the days in pain if I can stop it” He had said it to her when she had tried to forcefully pull him back to the room and avoid whatever crazy idea he had had.
As you can see, she had failed miserably at that.
Truth be told, a part of her - bigger than she wanted to admit - was absolutely touched and loved the fact that Riven worried so much about her well being - enough to break big school rules - but another part was too worried to focus on how cute he was being.
Realizing that arguing with him wasn’t getting her nowhere, she decided to just follow along and pray to God for all the teachers to be neatly tucked into their beds and for her and Riven to managed to make this goddamn potion and get the hell out of there.
“Okay, okay, it’s off. You didn’t answer my question though, how do you have a key to Harvey’s greenhouse?” After what looked like an eternity, her boyfriend finally managed to insert the key correctly and soon they were officially breaking into a teacher’s classroom.
No biggie.
“I used to come to the greenhouse a lot during lunch breaks in my first year, it reached a point where Harvey just gave the key to me. He forgot to ask for it back and well...I’ll keep it for as long as his memory it’s blurry.” She saw how Riven entered and maneuvered the space so naturally. It was dark as shit, with only the moonlight serving as a guide, but it was almost like it was muscle memory for him.
She knew this. She knew that while his heart remained the same, Riven’s attitude and confidence levels changed a lot from his first year to his second. Knew that he used to live and breathe botany but that nowadays he still found himself holding back his inner nerd.
She didn’t know why. While she loved Riven’s confidence and cocky attitude, Musa was aware she would be just as much of a goner for dorky nerd Riven.
She was a goner for Riven period.
“Professors don’t just give classroom keys to students like that Riv. Even if the student spends all his free time in that class.”
“Umm..well...let’s just say I used to...help out a little bit. Harvey used to trust me with shit like that….but I’m sure if the crazy amount of shots Silva and Dowling made him drink hadn’t fogged up his mind so much that he probably forgot about giving the key to me, I wouldn’t have it now.” She saw how his shoulders were tense now, his movements measured and precise.
A soldier on a battlefield.
She tried projecting a little bit of calmness and happiness into him. Musa saw his shoulders relax a little. That was, until he turned to glare at her, - at least that what she thought he did because of the irritation she was feeling emanating from him, truth was, she couldn’t see very well at the moment - apparently she wasn’t allowed to use her powers until her head was feeling better.
He walked up to a corner of the greenhouse, clearly showing much better night vision than her, and Musa was about to ask how she could help him so they would get over this quicker, when suddenly…
Light.
Not much light that was for sure, just the tiny bit the candle he had lit could provide. But enough so that she didn’t feel completely blind.
Riven set the candle on the table and then started moving around the place, going from corner to corner with so much certainty and so quickly that it left Musa a little dizzy.
Apparently, he knew where every ingredient they needed was and, soon, Musa was looking at the very cluttered table, full of crazy plants and other things she was afraid to even ask what they were.
If someone asked Musa what she thought the eighth world wonder was, she would say it was Riven working.
The way he moved. The way he worked. The way he thought.
Everything about Riven working was a masterpiece. Be it on the specialists training field twirling his twin swords and taking opponents down, be it here in a greenhouse cutting and measuring plants and ingredients.
Musa tried to help a little bit, but Riven simply glared at her and told her to stay still and “ For God’s sake Pixie! Let me take care of your stubborn ass once in my life”. She hadn’t tried arguing after that.
It seemed like hours had passed. The two of them. In that greenhouse. Only them and the silence.
Silence was never a bad thing with Riven. When words didn’t exist, touches appeared. A casual brush of hands, a simple connection of their skins. Of their souls.
Finally, after a long long time, Riven finally stopped what he was doing and dropped the strange looking green liquid into a tiny crystal bottle and started organizing everything.
“Done. This little tonic should help those migraines go away now, shortcake” And it was weird. The sudden wave of affection that surged through her. It wasn’t his, it was hers .
Affection for this utter dork, who liked to play macho to everyone but didn’t hesitate into going out in the wee hours of morning, invading a teacher’s class, all that just so he could make her a little thing that would make her feel better.
What had she done to deserve him?
She didn’t know and frankly did not care. What mattered was that he was hers and she’d be damned if she was letting him go.
Crossing the distance separating them with a few quick strides, Musa hugged him from behind and basically squished her face into his back.
She could tell he was surprised by the sudden contact. He had been so concentrated he hadn’t heard her coming. She felt him turn around so he was facing her now.
Or would be if she wasn’t still trying to fuse herself with his body.
He pushed her away just a little bit. Just enough so he could tip her chin up and have her be looking at him.
Riven had always been breathtaking. Musa knew that way before they had started dating. But standing here, right now, illuminated only by the moonlight and the little candle he had lit hours ago...Musa believed he had never been so handsome.
“I just wanted to say thank you….I know I was...still am actually...a little scared that we would get caught, but I really appreciate you doing this Riv” He gave her temple a kiss and then proceeded to rest his forehead with hers.
“I’ll never let any harm come to you Pixie, even if it’s just a stupid migraine” He nudged her nose with his and she let out a giggle.
It was inevitable really. The collision of their lips. It was like pulling two magnets together and just waiting to see what happened.
It always astonished Musa. How, no matter how many times they kissed, it was never the same. It was always like she was living their first all over again. A different way every time.
This kiss was sweet and thankful. Full of promises and gratitude. Full of care and love.
Of course...the universe had a sick sense of humor and in the one moment Musa stopped thinking about how troublesome what they were doing was, everything went to shit.
Well...not really, but you got her point.
“Ahem ahem” They broke apart and turned to the source of the sound, only to come face to face with a stern looking, pijama clad Ben fucking Harvey.
Fuck.
A thousand times fuck.
“Professor…”
“Sir we can exp..”
She and Riven tried stammering explanations at the same time, but Harvey only lifted a hand telling them to be quiet.
“You know...I would start this by asking why are two students trying to find a secluded place in the middle of the night in my greenhouse of all places, when they could simply go to their bedrooms… but you two do have a reputation so I won’t put anything past you both”
“Hey! That’s not what this is about” She could feel how irritated Riven grew at the Professor’s implication, and she tried to calm him a little bit by sending relaxing waves.
“Okay, so what is this about Mister O’Gara? What explanation do you and Miss Devine have for being in the greenhouse at 2 in the morning?”
“I was making her a remedy. She was having a major migraine Professor, she couldn’t fucking sleep!” At that Harvey cleaned his throat, silently demanding language. “Sorry...but whatever, what I mean Professor, is that Muse here wasn't able to sleep and I knew I could do something to help. If someone is gonna be punished for this, it’s me. This wasn’t some secret rendezvous as you think it was.”
Musa was sweating and she wanted to hit her boyfriend badly. Yeah, she had not wanted to come out here and risk getting caught - which of fucking course happened - but if he was going down she was going with him. They were a team goddam it.
Professor Harvey’s stare was chilling as he looked from Riven to her and then back at Riven. Finally he let out a long - and somewhat pained - sigh and taking off his glasses, rubbed his eyes in clear exasperation.
“ Sometimes I wish you two would stop reminding me so much of…” The empath could tell the professor was mumbling something but Musa wasn’t very sure of what exactly it was.
Finally, the botanic teacher looked them both in the eyes and declared their fate.
“Fine! I’ll let it slide just this one time! If I see you two again here when you shouldn’t be, rest assured that you’ll find yourselves enjoying a very long detention with Griselda. Now back to your dorms you two”
Musa felt like she could finally breathe now and quickly tugged Riven in the door’s direction lest Harvey changed his mind.
“Oh! And Riven?” Both teens froze at the door. Crap! What now? “I would like my key back, thank you very much.” Musa looked up at the green eyed boy in stunned shock and felt as an array of emotions went through his brain. In the end he decided that fighting on this would be useless.
Reluctantly. So ever reluctantly. Riven gave the key back to the professor - Musa saw he had to pull up a bit before her boyfriend truly let it go - and joined her side again so they could go back to her room.
They were nearly out the door when they heard the faint voice of Professor Harker say:
“Maybe you’ll earn this key again one day Riven….that day might be closer than you think.”
Her boyfriend didn’t stop walking after hearing those words and his brain was very quiet, but she knew he had understood them. And she knew that he was happy about that.
They calmly made their way back to the dorm, entering it silently so as to not wake Terra - Musa was very thankful for the fact that her roommate slept like the dead.
“Okay, so let’s chug this thing down….you sure it’ll be effective on me?”
“I’m positive”
“Okay then” Without thinking she drank everything and… .yikes!
The taste was awful but a few minutes later Musa’s head wasn’t throbbing anymore and she finally felt like she could relax.
“Ohhhh finally! My brain was honestly killing me.” She and Riven got comfortable - not an easy thing for two people in a single’s bed - and she was now facing him.
“Thank you for that Riv.” He simply pulled her close and fitted her head in the crook of his neck. She felt a little kiss being dropped into her head and closed her eyes, snuggling more into him.
“Anytime Pixie...anytime”
It was the best night of sleep she had had in a long while.