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His vision was starting to blur as he looked at the clock: 2:31am. All nighters weren’t foreign to Aaron, but the sheer amount of them he had pulled were starting to make their mark on him. ‘I need a break’ he though as he closed his organic chemistry textbook and took off his glasses, rubbing his temples in an attempt to calm down. After a few minutes, he stood up and grabbed a hoodie, his phone and his keys and walked over to his door. When he opened it, and walked out he bumped into Kevin. ‘Kevin? What the fuck..?’
“Wanna go to Walmart?” he asked, stuffing his hands in his hoodie pocket. It took Aaron a few seconds to process the request before answering.
“Sure, just um… I’ll go steal Andrew’s keys.”
“Actually, I was thinking of walking?” He answered, scratching the back of his head with uncertainty.
“Yeah, ok. Unless this is one of your early morning workouts, in which case I want nothing to do with it.” Aaron laughed, responding to Kevin’s rushed headshake, as he shut off the light and pulled on his hoodie.
“Well go on then” he shooed Kevin away from the door and through the dorm, grabbing both their pairs of shoes on the way out. They sat in silence on the floor in the hallway as they laced their shoes up. Aaron cursed internally because of how long Converse High Tops take to lace up, but takes it back when he looks up at Kevin offering him a hand to stand up, having already tied his own shoes.
“What made you want to do this?” Aaron inquired as they left the Palmetto dorm building.
“I ran out of shaving cream, and Andrew doesn’t like sharing very much.” Kevin replied, although his face was already cleanly shaven and pristine as always. Aaron decided not to interrogate further into his obviously made up reason, and followed up with another question as they waited for the light to turn at a crosswalk:
“What made you want to do this with me? It’s not like this is a normal thing for us…”
“No, I guess not.” Kevin sighed “I don’t know. Andrew has me following him around like a puppy less and less because of Neil…”
Aaron cut him off: “So I’m his replacement?” He laughs, disappointed.
“No. No, not at all. That’s not what I meant.”
“Well then, what did you mean, your highness?”
“Just that, Andrew was so protective of both of us, and he warned me when we met not to hurt you… or he’d do some gruesome things to my private parts…” Kevin explains, whispering that last part. Aaron looks at him with anticipation, and a look that says ‘Well… keep talking’.
“I guess I didn’t want to fuck anything up and be castrated? I also heard about toxic trauma bonding, and figured that wasn’t desired.”
“Valid concern when there are Reddit threads guessing how big your dick is… and given our histories…” Aaron deadpans.
“This is my olive branch. I should’ve extended it a long, long time ago.”
“What’s your olive branch tryna do, Kevin?”
“It wants… to be friends with you?”
“Rephrase that, and it just might be a yes.”
“I want to be friends with you.”
“Alright then, friends it is. But friends doesn’t mean I need your micromanaging every minute of the day, no pun intended.”
“Understood, lessen the micromanaging.”
They walked in silence for a few more minutes. When Walmart was in sight, Kevin broke the quiet.
“Can you teach me how to play that video game you like?”
“Yeah. I can do that.”