Work Text:
i.
Bae throws back her third tequila shot and resists the urge to glance into the corner. While bringing a lime wedge to her mouth, her traitorous eyes wander towards the bathroom queue. Her eyes dance down the line, carefully noting a lack of horns. She bites down, wincing, acidic, sour liquid covering her tongue. She pulls the wedge out of her mouth. Not glancing away from the magnetic pull of the bathroom queue, she brings her hand up to her lips and licks.
“You did it wrong,” Kronii says. Bae pulls her gaze away from the corner and back to her seat partner. Kronii sighs, grabbing a shot of Tequila from the tray in front of them. She licks her hand and salts it. “You’re supposed to do it like this,” she states, plucking a wedge from the bowl.
Bae lamely blinks. “I thought you didn’t like alcohol,” she says. She watches as Kronii glances towards the bathroom, bites her lip, and fingers the rim of the shot. “You don’t have to prove anything, Kronii. No one’s judging you. Uh, I’m certainly not, at least–”
Kronii throws back the shot. She hisses, and her face bunches with disgust. Bae blanches with shock. In quick succession, Kronii licks the salt off her hand and plops the wedge into her mouth. Bae watches, mouth slightly ajar as Kronii sucks on the lime. At that moment, Bae feels Drunk, with a capital-D. Her eyes are playing tricks on her, and she has had too many shots. There’s no fucking way Kronii would do that.
“See,” Kronii says, spitting the lime into her hand. She’s slightly flushed. “That’s how you’re supposed to do it.”
Bae awkwardly chuckles. “I’m a bad influence, huh?”
“Definitely.” A hand slowly travels across Bae’s shoulders. She jumps and slams her hands onto the table. Disoriented, she gives Kronii an exasperated look. However, Kronii doesn’t even look in her direction, staring intensely towards the corner. Kronii’s flush has increased, and she has started slightly twitching. Bae turns her head to see what the fuck is making Kronii act so strange.
But, all Bae sees is pink and blue. She immediately thinks of Irys. “Pretty,” she mumbles, going slightly cross-eyed. The fingers on her back tighten. If someone saw her like this, speaking about the beauty of Irys’ colors, Bae would forcibly deny, deny, and deny . So, Bae clumsily pushes the person away from her. “You didn’t fucking hear anything,” she says. “I got a reputation to withhold.”
“Of being a bad influence?”
Bae blinks, and the world becomes super clear for a single second. A grinning Nephilim stares at her, and long fingers scratch at Bae’s shoulder. She gulps, mouth immediately dry. “Oh,” she lamely whispers, and her head starts spinning.
“Did Kronii take a shot?” asks Irys, head slightly tilted. Her fingers start to inch up into Bae’s hair and towards her twitching ears. A shiver travels down her spine. Whether it’s because the traveling fingers or because of alcohol coursing through her system, Bae's thoughts sound like buzzing.
Before Bae could respond, Irys’ lips quirk into a small smile. “I shouldn’t have left you alone with her,” Irys says. “A drunk agent of chaos is hard to handle, but time?”
Bae waves her off. “Kronii’s nothing,” she says. “I had it all under control.”
“By making her drunk.”
“Drunk?” Bae looks at Kronii, surrounded by Fauna and Mumei. Despite slightly flushed, Kronii appears normal, albeit her hands are resting on both girls’ thighs. Bae glances back at Irys. “It’s just one shot,” she says with a shrug.
“She doesn’t drink alcohol, babe.”
Bae shivers at the pet name. Her throat tightens a few times, and a confession threatens to bubble out her drunken lips. Instead, she licks her lips, hazily watching as Irys’ eyes follow her tongue’s every movement. The air is thick with something she wouldn’t talk about.
“Well,” Bae says with cough, “I make them good girls go bad.”
ii.
Bae has a reputation to uphold. When she opens her second beer, and the ground below her feet starts to have this wave to it, Bae once again lives up to her reputation of being a lightweight. She laughs and starts running around her small room.
“Bae?” She ignores the call and tries to find the flat part of the floor. God, she remembers it being flat once. Are her powers acting up? She glances towards her work area and the comfy chair. She takes a sip of beer and laughs again. It bubbles out of her like breathing. “Should we start without her? Do you know where she is, Irys?”
“She said something about getting another drink.”
“No,” she says, “I am here!” She laughs and walks toward the voice. She trips over a haphazardly thrown shoe and falls over, expletives tumbling out her mouth like a waterfall. She grins a crooked smile and stares at the computer screen in front of her. The bright visuals blend into blobs of something Bae cannot comprehend. “Hello, world.”
Someone all green pops up onto her screen. “Are you okay, Bae?” asks Fauna. Bae blinks. Fauna wasn’t there five minutes ago. “It sounded like you took quite the tumble.”
“Nothing that I’m not used to,” Bae says. She shrugs her shoulders before bringing her beer to her lips. The liquid is refreshing on her tongue. She squints at the computer. “Why are you here, Fauna? Where’d Irys go?” There’s a deep pause. Bae lamely blinks at the computer screen and wonders if she should have paid attention to her calendar. “Am I, uh, missing something?”
Her computer screen becomes warm brown. “Why didn’t you invite us for dinner?” Mumei says. “That would’ve been so much fun.”
Bae’s eyebrows furrow and she leans closer to the screen. She leans so close the screen becomes pixelated, and the people look like nothing but red, blue, and green dots. “Who the fuck is on this call?” she says. Her eyes are starting to hurt. “The entire fucking world has crashed Irys’ stupid dinner.”
“Stupid?” Irys softly asks. Bae ignores the comment.
“You seemed to be having a blast with your beer, microwave meal, and pajamas,” Kronii drawls.
If Bae were sober, she would have said something stupid back. A snarky comment would’ve rolled off her tongue and into the void. But, Bae is inebriated. Inebriated to the point that she wants to log off this stupid call and call Irys.
Bae wants to say many things to Irys.
In this moment of weakness, she would speak about feelings tucked deep down in the pit of her stomach. She’d gush about watching an absolute daddy’s little girl turn into a raging pit of pandemonium. She has never felt so hopeful for their future. They feed off of each other. It’s what makes them perfect.
Bae would never say that out loud. She has a reputation to uphold.
Bae puts a cocky grin on her face. She knows she looks stupid and is four seconds away from passing out. “There goes my hope for the future, baby,” she sarcastically says. She briefly wonders if Irys is still on the call. She continues on: “Lazy isn’t you’re type? C’mon. Let me shake up your world.”
A stagnant pause. “You already have, Bae,” Irys says.
Bae licks her lips, and a groan escapes her lips. She opens her mouth to say a comeback, but Irys’ words rattle her. God, Irys has shaken up her world. “Fuck,” she says. She slams her head onto her table.
“Uh,” Kronii says. “Not that this isn’t thrilling or anything, but can we start game night now?”
“Don’t you start, Kronii,” Fauna says. “You act like this all the time in front of them.”
Kronii splutters and tries to argue. “What–No, I don’t!”
“Yeah, Kronii, let them have their moment,” Mumei chides. She sounds like a teacher reprimanding a naive student. Kronii splutters some more. “ Flower. ”
“That was one time,” Kronii says. “ One time. Why is it okay for Bae to do this, but not me?”
Bae picks up her head and stares at the blue blob in front of her. Her heart hammers in her chest. It sounds so loud; can Irys hear it? She licks her lips, and weakly says: “She was so shy 'til I drove her wild.”
iii.
dumbass:
[memelololo.png]
dumbass:
hehe :))
you:
u up?
dumbass:
i am ;)
dumbass:
what are you doing?
you:
i miss u
dumbass:
?
dumbass:
are you okay?
dumbass:
can i call you?
you:
ur so pretty irys
you:
fuckn hurts m8
dumbass:
??
dumbass:
you’er BAEutiful
dumbass:
you’re**
you:
ur always in my head. its all i hear
dumbass:
flirt ;)))
you:
if u were here w me, i would pull u to the stage. karaoke. the bar would fall in love.
you:
i’m in love w you
dumbass:
are you at the bar now?
dumbass:
are you drinking now, babe?
dumbass:
bae** sorry
you:
i was lonely
you:
it’s fine. i like it when u call me that.
you:
would u sing for the crowd, irys?
dumbass:
only you. i’d only sing for you.
dumbass:
where are you relative to the stage?
you:
for u? front and center, baby
you:
but frfr? hidden between some uni girls
dumbass:
oh?
you:
yeh they swarm like flies
dumbass:
have they asked you to sing? or dance?
you:
why would they?
dumbass:
you’re cute, talented, and single?
you:
oh
you:
i told them i was dating someone
dumbass:
??
dumbass:
???????
dumbass:
who??
you:
… idk
you:
only the most wonderfulest person ever.
you:
i love u irys. u deserve more than college girls, karaoke bars, and drunken rats.
you:
if i could give u the entire wrld i would.
you:
fuck. thar was sappy redact all that im deleting this off my phone.
dumbass:
bae?
In her pitch-black room, Bae holds her phone in one hand and a glass of water in the other. She gulps the cool water down her throat and decides what to keep in her text message chain with Irys. Bae squints at her screen. She decides to ultimately delete all of tonight's texts, leaving the original meme that Irys sent.
Bae deletes the messages. She feels no relief after the fact. Bringing the water to her face, she groans, covering her body in the liquid. Bae is still intoxicated. Bae is still intoxicated, and she wants to tell Irys about how her two-colored eyes ignite something inside of Bae. She wants to grab Irys by the horns and pull her into a searing kiss. Bae wants to whisper how she’s filled with weird bouts of optimism now.
Hope was never her natural state, but she could never think of living life without Hope now. She can’t have Hope. She’ll never be able to call Hope hers. Because of that, it’s easier to live with burning liquid flowing down her throat. It’s easier to go to sleep with the world spinning, chaotically. The brief possibility that she could hold Hope makes Bae want to go wild.
Wet and slightly shaking, she takes off her clothes and crawls into her bed. She picks up her phone and types up a quick message, before falling fast asleep.
you:
u make me want to lose control
iv.
Three minutes into sitting on Irys’ lap, Bae starts blabbering. She has a habit of blabbering when she has been drinking. She now has a habit of drinking when she knows that she’ll see Irys.
“Tell your Dad he’s done a great job,” she says, nuzzling Irys’ jaw. She smells exhilarating, a sweet and smoky smell filling Bae’s senses. Long fingers tighten around her back and pull her tighter into Irys’ chest. It feels as if Irys is trying to make them become one person.
“Bae, you’re drunk,” Irys husks. Her heterochromatic eyes are uniform. Both are pools of darkness, with small rings of two different colors hinting otherwise. It looks so sexy that Bae threads her hands through Irys’ tangled hair. “You’re gonna refuse to talk about this in the morning,” Irys says, stopping when a whine escapes her throat. “You’re gonna redact it from your memory.”
“You sound way too sober,” Bae says. She nips at Irys’ throat, pleasure running through Bae’s entire body at the gasp that follows. She nips at the jaw, grinning at the gasp. It starts a chain reaction of little nips around Irys’ jaw, which leaves her whining and mewling underneath Bae. “I should record your little gasps, whines, and moans and make it my alarm,” she mumbles, nipping at Irys’ jaw. “It would get me going.”
Hands travel down Bae’s back, settling on either side of her hips. With every nip, Irys’ squeezes and pulls Bae down onto her lap. Something deep inside Bae jolts, and a groan escapes past her lips. She craves to feel that again and starts moving her hips slowly in a circular motion. Air stutters out of her throat, and all that she can think, taste, and feel is Irys. Bae licks from Irys’ collar bone to her ear. With every grind, Bae pants.
The doorbell rings and Bae pulls Irys’ earlobe into her mouth.
“Shit,” Irys moans. The doorbell rings again. Bae starts to nibble at Irys’ ear. “Shit. Shit. Shit. ”
“Such a dirty mouth,” Bae mumbles, releasing the earlobe. She bites the area directly underneath the ear. She licks it soothingly and repeats the process. The doorbell starts ringing impatiently, and Bae growls against Irys’ neck. Hands release Bae’s hips, and something snaps. “I’ll be right back,” she says. She pushes herself off of Irys and stumbles towards the door.
“Wait,” Irys says. Bae can hear Irys standing from her chair and following. Bae reaches the door and grips the doorhandle with shaking hands. “You look–”
Bae yanks the door open. She sees red. “Who the fuck–”
Three bodies push past her and into the foyer, leaving her to blink lamely at the empty hallway. Her brow furrows, and she slightly stumbles backward, slamming the door closed. She turns and sees the three (unwelcomed) figures giving Irys a once-over. It’s strangely silent in the apartment.
Kronii is the one to break the ice. “Dude, you seriously need to invest in a hairbrush,” she says. Bae watches as Kronii runs fingers through Irys’ hair, tutting. “It looks like a wild animal, like, attacked you or something.” She starts brushing out the tangles Bae made, and a growl starts to form in Bae’s throat.
“Maybe an animal did,” Irys says. Her eyes close, and a pleasing hum escaped her throat.
“I was thinking a vampire,” Mumei says. She leans into Irys’ personal space, staring at her throat. A low growl escapes Bae's mouth. Fauna turns and looks at Bae, eyebrow raised. “Look at all these bites, Fauna! It’s like when Kronii was giving you–”
“Nothing,” Kronii yelps. “It’s like when Kronii was nothing.”
Mumei rolls her eyes. “How can you be nothing, Kronii? You’re literally brushing your hands through Irys’ hair.”
“Yeah,” Bae growls. “Can you stop doing that?”
The room pauses and glances at her still standing by the doorway. Irys tilts her head and furrows her eyebrows. Her smile is small, and her eyes shine. She’s looking at Bae with an expression Bae doesn’t dare read into. Her heart hammers and she rapidly blinks.
Fuck.
Fauna walks up to Bae and lays a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry if we were interrupting something,” Fauna says.
Bae’s eyes widen, and she stumbles back into the door. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. This isn’t fucking happening.
“You interrupted nothing,” she hisses. “I have no fucking idea why Irys looks like a fucking whore.”
Fauna’s eyes harden, and the grip on her shoulder tightens. “Bae, I know you have been drinking, but you can’t say–”
“You know shit,” Bae spits. “I am fine.”
She shrugs off the hand and stalks towards the refrigerator, flinging it open. She grabs one of the beers inside and pops the tab. Bringing it to her lips, she hides behind the can. Gripping the sink, she gulps down the contents, the drink burning all the way down her throat. It burns down her throat, and it threatens to immediately come back up. Tears burn in her eyes. When no more liquid touches her tongue, she chokes on only air. She lowers the can and heaves some beer into the sink.
She laughs. The laughs turn into small cries. The cries turn into sobs. She sobs into the sink, clutching the frame like it's a lifeline. Many disjointed thoughts float in her head, such as, I’ve ruined a perfect friendship, and, I would break her heart into a million pieces, and, really, just one night couldn't be so wrong.
v.
If Bae had a problem with alcohol pre-BFF divorce, she really has a problem post-BFF divorce. But, throwing a cheap shot of Vodka down her throat really feels appropriate for how her heart feels severed in two. She hisses and her face tightens as if she had sucked on a lemon. She sits down and starts playing one of Irys’ cheesy films that she likes. Bae grabs a pillow and pulls it to her stomach.
A knock sounds from the door. “Go away,” she says, throwing her comforter over her body. She can’t tell if she’s screaming or speaking. Her throat feels hoarse from crying. She presses her face against the pillow. It still slightly smells like Irys. A few knocks ring out in the room. She feels like throwing something — a breakable something — but that would only be the vodka bottle in reach. Her heart stutters and her stomach swoops at the thought.
Instead, Bae lamely whispers: “I said go away. No one’s here! Fuck off!”
A few seconds pass and Bae hears the door open. Fuck. She shimmies further into her messy bed. “Jeez,” someone says. The distinct sound of someone kicking a glass bottle fills the room. Bae holds her breath and closes her eyes. “This is why I stay away from alcohol.”
Someone else scoffs in response. Great, Bae thinks, now multiple people can judge her life choices.
“Bae?”
A warm hand settles on her shoulder. Fauna . A strangled noise escapes from Bae’s throat, the hand shooting off of her as if it had burned her. A silence fills the room, minus Bae’s shaky breathing and someone clinging bottles together. The bed dips.
“We haven’t heard from you in a while,” Fauna says, and Bae bites her lip. “No good morning texts. No outfits of the day. No jabs at Kronii.” A hand settles on Bae’s knee, and tears start to form in her eyes. Fauna rubs comforting circles as if she were a mother comforting a scared child. “Just silence. We were worried. Are worried.”
Bae hugs the pillow tighter to her chest. She screws her eyes shut, praying that when she opens them, Fauna will be gone, and the person shuffling around her room will have ‘poofed’ away.
“You disappeared pretty fast that Friday,” Fauna says. Bae jolts and the hand rubbing her knee pauses for a moment before continuing the soothing rub. “How’d you get home?”
“I walked,” Bae mumbles. Fauna hums, and it distinctly sounds like a hum where someone tilts their head and squints as if asking: come again? Fauna would never ask that. She’s way too nice and forgiving, continuing to rub Bae’s knee. Feeling like a child again, Bae clears her throat. “I walked.”
“You didn’t say goodbye.”
“You don’t have to lie, Fauna,” she laughs, her mouth tastes metallic. Her voice cracks, and tears prickle in her eyes. “You don’t have to step around the truth like I’m a piece of broken glass. I’m not going to shatter. If you want to say something, fucking say it.”
“But, you are,” Kronii says. An annoyed sigh escapes Bae. A glass bottle slams onto the desk. “You won’t even look at us! When we opened the door, you didn’t raise your head. You didn’t check if we were friends. You laid there like a slug. If we were burglars, you’d be dead.”
“Are you cleaning?” Bae asks. She clicks her tongue. “Please don’t.”
“Get up and stop me,” Kronii says. Bae hears more shuffling and mumbles. The room is silent besides Kronii’s cleaning. It’s awkward.
Bae hates awkward. Her big, stupid, drunk mouth hates it more. She hears herself ask, “How’s Irys?”
The hand pauses its comforting motion, and the room becomes silent. Bae licks her lips. It’s awkward again, no one saying anything. She presses her face against the pillow and takes a shaky breath. “Do you know what Bob Dylan once said?”
“Oh, yes,” Kronii mumbles. “I know everything that Bob Dylan has ever said or sung. It is always just floating around in my little brain. I could be the president of his fan club with my knowledge.”
“Kronii,” Fauna chides.
“ What? ” Kronii sounds irked. “She’s the one who asked something really fucking stupid.”
“Kronii.”
There’s a moment of silence, and Bae pictures Fauna and Kronii having one of their stare-offs. Fauna slowly raises an eyebrow while Kronii looks anywhere but at Fauna. Kronii's hands anxiously ring together, until she has to look. Fauna looks unimpressed. A beat of silence. A heavy sigh fills the room followed by a guttural groan.
“Fine,” Kronii says. “What did Bob Dylan say, Bae?”
“No, Kronii is right.” Bae clears her throat a few times. She feels weirdly parched and wishes that she could sip on something. She forces a laugh, but it sounds like a garbled sob. “The quote feels stupid anyway.”
“I bet it isn’t,” Fauna says. “Besides, Kronii doesn’t even know what she’s talking about most of the time.”
A choking sound fills the room.
“ I accept chaos, I’m not sure whether it accepts me, ” Bae says. She clicks her tongue and a bead of sweat forms on her temple. “That’s what he said. And, I’m okay with my life being a giant cyclone. I accept that. But, it feels like I’m destroying everything. It’s no longer chaos theories and butterfly effects. It’s just me fucking shit up. Chaos is now following other people’s lives around.” She audibly swallows. Her mouth just keeps talking and talking. “Nevermind, that was stupid. Redacted. I never said anything.”
“Why do you drink, Bae?”
Fauna says those words so softly that Bae could barely hear them over the pounding of her heart.
A scoff exits her lips. “Liquid courage,” she says. Bae licks her lips and pictures Irys. “I’ve never kissed anyone sober before.”
Fauna starts to apologize, “Oh, Bae-”
“I don’t need sympathy,” Bae scoffs. “Drunk Bae is fun. Drunk Bae is a babe .” Her voice cracks. She clears her throat. “I have a great personality. It just rises to the surface better with a few drinks or shots.”
“You don’t need any of that,” Fauna says. “You don’t need to be drunk to get kisses.”
Bae opens her mouth to retort, but Kronii says: “But it’s perfect for ruining a relationship.” Short pause. “Like, not in a good way.”
Bae’s heart breaks in two. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m pretty great at doing that.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
The room becomes super silent. No word is spoken while Fauna unfolds herself from against Bae’s body. Bottles clink together as Kronii continues to clean. They speak to one another, but Bae cannot hear what they are saying. Her eyes start to droop, and when she’s about to fall into a drunken sleep, the door clicks open.
“Stop being a fucking asshole,” Kronii says. “You’re not saving anyone by dying on that throne.”
The door clicks closed, and Bae flings the comforter off of her body. To her horror, Kronii cleared away all of her bottles, empty and filled. No more alcohol is in her apartment. A laugh escapes her lips.
“Bitch,” she says. She reaches for her phone and pulls up UberEats. She can get alcohol delivered to her. But, she hesitates, closes the app, and opens her texting app.
you:
can we talk?
dumbass:
depends. are you gonna ‘redact’ the conversation in the morning when you're sober?
you:
i deserve that.
you:
but can we?
dumbass:
you really hurt me
you:
i’ll be at the park tomorrow at 1 if u want to see me
dumbass:
how do i know that this will be any different?
you:
it probably won’t be.
you:
i’m that guy you’d be stupid to trust
vi.
Bae shows up at the park not only sober but with a bag of stale bread. She tears off a piece and flings it at a goose, who is a few feet away from where she sits. It hasn’t yet decided whether or not it likes her yet. That’s a win. Bae also hasn’t decided whether or not she likes herself. It gobbles down the piece of bread and shoots her a death glare until she throws another piece.
“Are you training the birds for something?”
Bae startles and looks towards Irys. She stands away from the bench, her mouth tightly dipped into a frown.
“More like making sure they don’t attack me,” Bae says. She nods towards the goose. It flutters its wings in a warning. She tosses another piece of bread. “That one would murder me.” She glances towards Irys. She hesitates and licks her lips. “Do you want some bread?”
The look Irys gives her is neither happy nor amused. “I’m not here to feed birds, Bae,” she says, her eyes flashing with a murderous expression.
“Right,” Bae says, deflating. She chucks another piece of bread at the goose. It bounces off of the goose’s heads, and onto the grass. It honks, annoyed, shooting Bae an equally murderous glare. “Sorry,” she mumbles to the bird, “I’ll throw underhand next time.”
It probably doesn’t understand her, but the bird swallows its bread with gusto on that promise.
Bae’s shoulders slump. “I, uh,” she starts, but Irys holds up a hand. All the words that were clogged in Bae’s throat die, and a strangled noise escapes her. A warm blush rises on her cheeks, and she glances down at the bread. Anywhere away from Irys. “Sorry,” she says.
“Are you sober?” Irys asks. Bae’s heart thuds, and she glances up into those beautiful eyes.
“Yes.”
Irys’ face stays neutral. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?” she whispers. “How do I know this all won’t disappear when you start drinking again?”
“I can never tell you a lie, Irys,” Bae whispers. “But, I don’t know. I have Hope. I think that’s enough.”
Irys’ gaze darkens. “You don’t have her yet.” Her voice is husky. She reaches forward and grabs Bae’s wrist. She jolts, and looks up at Irys’ with wide eyes. Bae’s heart hammers in her chest. It feels like a herd of elephants were given cocaine.
“If I do something right now, will you remember it?” asks Irys.
“I have never forgotten any moment with you.”
Her arms wrap around Bae, and pull her tight. The loaf of bread presses between them, and a growl escapes Irys. She grabs the loaf and flings it at the goose. It lands right beside the fowl, and the goose honks happily. Bae smiles at the sight, before Irys’ grip tightens.
“Look at me, Bae,” Irys whispers. Bae’s eyes immediately look toward Irys as she leans forward and rests her forehead against Bae’s. Her heart stutters. She’s going to die right now. She closes her eyes, and silently wishes to Kronii for more time. “We will get through this together.”
“Why aren’t you leaving me?”
“You such an idiot,” Irys chuckles. Bae can feel Irys’ breath across her lips. “I love you. I have loved you for a long fucking time. I will love you for a lot longer. It would take the universe to end to get me away from you.”
Bae smiles. The world feels lighter for a moment.
“I love you, too,” she says.
The goose honks in agreement, ruining the moment, but also perfecting it. The world is better with chaos in it. For a brief moment, Bae thinks of Bob Ross. His quote is full of baloney. Chaos accepts her with open arms. But, more importantly, Hope holds her tight and makes her feel warm.
Bae blinks, and the world shifts slightly. The sun peaks out from behind a tree, and Irys seems to glow like she has a halo. Bae flushes, and she leans forward.
“May I kiss you?” she asks.
Irys chuckles. “Of course.”
(Later, Bae would think back on this moment, horrified, realizing that she probably summoned Kronii, Mumei, and Fauna to the park. However, her first sober kiss was wonderful. It was spectacular. It was with someone she’ll love for the entirety of her life. That’s all that matters.)
Their lips meet, and the chaotic world makes sense. It’s her chaos once more. It makes her happy. God, it makes her so happy. Their lips separate for a brief moment, and Bae mumbles: “I’m sorry about the alcohol,” she says. Her heart squeezes, and her throat bobs as she struggles to say words. “It was trouble, but I couldn’t resist.”
Irys shushes her. She leans to the side, and her lips brush against Bae’s cheek. Bae trembles in Irys’ arms. She raises her head and kisses Bae’s forehead, saying: “I’ll say it now and forever, babe. I’m not leaving.” Irys’ lips dip and tickle Bae’s cheekbones. The dance across ears. Irys spends a few moments where her lips softly caress Bae’s neck. “I’m here.”
“I’m sorry,” Bae whispers and a gasp immediately escapes her as Irys bites a mark into the hollow of Bae’s throat. A high-pitched whine escapes her throat. “Fuck,” she says, and she grasps at Irys’ back.
Irys leans back slightly, and all Bae can see is a pool of black. A shiver runs down her spine, and she licks her lips. She feels wrecked, and she hasn’t even done anything. She runs her fingers through her knotted hair.
A chuckle escapes Irys. “Let’s go home,” she purrs. “I doubt the goose wants to see us get it on.”
Bae grins and glances at the goose that’s glaring at her once again. “Too bad I don’t have more bread,” she says. “I don’t think it would notice us if I gave it a loaf.”
Irys laughs and takes Bae’s hand. “I like you, but not enough to have our first time in a public park,” Irys says, winking. Bae stutters, trying to think of ways to salvage the situation, but Irys leans in and bites one of Bae’s ears. “But, in the future? I think you’re right.”
Bae blinks owlishly at Irys, cheeks hot and flushed. “About what?”
“You make good girls go bad.”
Bae flushes from her toes to the tips of her ears, and Irys immediately cackles. They walk back towards Irys’ apartment, both looking like a chaotic wreck, both extremely hopeful for the future ahead of them. Let’s just say, they had a great night.