Work Text:
N spent most of English flicking notes at Black. Black ignored them all. Shauntal was talking about the motifs in The Great Gatsby, and Black was pretending to care. His pretence, Black told himself, was based on academia, not how scared he’d gotten when he woke up alone at 3 in the fucking morning only to find N outside, up a tree, talking to a pidove again.
You’d think someone who’d been involved with a literal cult (whose leader was still at large and had vowed revenge, at that!) would be a little bit more cautious, but no. N still went wherever he wanted whenever he wanted and it was driving Black’s heart wild in all the wrong ways instead of the ways it should’ve been going wild (what with an older boyfriend practically living with him, when he wasn’t up trees talking to fucking pidove).
So Black was ignoring N’s notes. They were probably Shakespearean love sonnets. Cheren had ironically said something about Black liking those, and N actually believed him.
“Black,” N whispered insistently.
“Shh, this is important.”
N frowned. “That’s not what you said last night. You said Fitzgerald is heavy-handed and completely unworthy of all the attention his work gets.”
Black scowled. “Why’re you here? You don’t even go here.”
N looked at Black as though he were stupid (N often looked at Black in this way). “Because you’re here.”
“Don’t… don’t…”
N interrupted him, “Also, you seemed as though you needed cheering up, after how upset you were this morning.”
Black buried his face in his hands. N didn’t deserve the satisfaction of seeing him blush. “Stop, stop trying to cheer me up. Stop breaking into my school.”
“Maybe,” N said, looking at the front of the room. “Why is she even talking about the eyes? It plainly says, on page —”
Black quickly moved his right hand to cover N’s mouth and went back to pretend note-taking with his left. “You’re not always right,” Black said quietly. “Go home after this, okay?”
N gently pulled Black’s hand from his mouth and replied, “Of course.”
“Good, beca—”
“You’ve got History next, and Cynthia always notices if I sneak in.”
Black tried not to groan too loudly.