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Eva is sometimes appalled by her taste in partners.
Back in her early teens, she was embarrassed of her puny celebrity crushes - and the lame boys she liked, she always doubled down into not interacting with. She had better things to do, she told herself. Her goals preceded the childish reveries of hopeless devotion and hormone-rushed dopamine.
To be fair, her interest in girls was limited as well. She liked them too, sure, and that never proved an issue—but she always kept romance at arm’s length. No matter the gender or the innocent intention, she deemed herself above it.
But her bad taste prevailed.
“... What are you doing?” The debater mumbles sleepily, as Eva’s soft hand runs through the length of their cheek to their vulnerable throat. Half lidded eyes look up at her with softness she is not sure if she’ll ever deserve.
Eva can’t help but snort a laugh at the display.
Her manicured nails trail back into their messy hair, the gentle whisper of affection making Damon shiver under her hand in a way she finds nothing short of delectable.
“You look stupid.” She denotes, and her childish amusement only grows tenfold when the blunt observation is met with languid confusion.
The debater tilts their head, narrowing their tired eyes as if in reprimand, but it only reminds the liar of a cute little puppy.
“Just saying,” Eva adds, unable to keep her smile away from her voice, pressing herself a bit more against Damon as both their legs tangle together into a lovely mess. “You do, objectively, look very stupid right now.” She points out as her hands hold their face in reflex. They feel so right, as if measured perfectly to fit her.
Damon looks at her blankly for a long, long second, before the cogs of their tired mind seem to finally perform a full rotation.
“... I’m not stupid.” They slur, as if trying to save face, but the debater makes no attempt to actually argue against the senseless accusation and only leans onto Eva’s hands.
The action makes her grin stupidly.
Ah, stupidity is so contagious.
“Hm,” The liar hums, pressing a gentle kiss onto Damon’s brow that warrants an almost-purr out of her partner. “Are you sure?” She murmurs, her light caress of their cheeks making her feel like a kid on Christmas.
They feel so soft against her and it drives Eva absolutely insane.
“What is the square root of 69?”
Is the number picked on purpose? Yes. But Damon doesn’t need to know that. In fact, she is sure that they don’t know that.
The debater, ever the pleaser and tragically socially inept, takes the words at face value.
“... 8.30 and something?” They mumble.
Eva can’t help but laugh.
Damon is just so cute, oh my goddd…
“Wrong,” The liar replies, making sure to press a few fleeting pecks alongside their cheeks to compensate for making Damon do math this late at night, and so they don't feel dejected.
The debater all but pouts in her hands.
“... But it is—” They try to argue fleetingly, before another kiss, this time in their lips, steals the words right out of their mouth.
And fries their head a little bit. Eva knows that Damon isn’t used to kisses yet.
“69 is a sexual position, Damon.” She informs with a snort of laughter. The last thing the liar wants is to make it seem like she is keeping information to herself just to hold it over the debater’s head. She knows how much Damon hates that. “It is a joke. You know, like Rick Astley?”
A small light of recognition lights up on the debater’s eyes after a long second of their microsoft edge brain restarting. The liar adores the way their expression brightens like shimmering stars upon realizing the obvious.
“Ah.” they breathe, “But what does that have to do with math?”
Eva snorts another laugh.
It would be obnoxious if it was anyone else; Damon has the talent of being absolutely captivating in their sheltered naiveté.
Or maybe the liar has fallen too far into the iridescent specks of the debater’s verdant eyes to discern outside of bias.
Would it be inappropriate to ask them to let her swatch their eyes? She probably could pass the reason as educational.
“Change the channel,” Damon whines after a long second of staring at the intro of Law and Order, annoyed as if the show committed a personal offense against them and their entire lineage.
With how much the debater hates anything that is not simple-minded cooking shows or the news, Eva is, if anything, surprised they lasted until the intro before they complained.
“Why? It’s the best season writing wise.”
“Don’t care. You know I don’t like series.”
The liar gives them the softest flick in the forehead possible at the remark. The type that annoys them instead of making them flinch - a blurry line she still struggles to find the edges of sometimes.
“Do you need me to change the channel, or do you want me to?” She asks, “Use your words.”
Damon grumbles under their breath.
“... Need,” The debater replies shyly, as if ashamed to utter the word, in a way that makes the liar all but smother them with kisses until they choke on the affection. “I think that show triggers me.” They wince at the word as it leaves their lips. It sounds wrong as they utter it.
Do they deserve such reprieve?
“Noted.” Eva says, taking the words at face value and changing the channel like asked, before she gives Damon more little kisses on their face to distract them from the feeling of guilt. “Thank you for telling me.” She adds, even if she knows the debater will get too awkward in the feeling of being listened to that they’ll be too distracted to reply.
Surprisingly, Damon gives her a hum - which is not much, but it is definitely better than their usual shy answers. She’ll take a little hum every day as long as she doesn’t have to see them whimper.
The liar can’t help her glee at the reaction, as moronic the cause as it is. She leans into the debater for another kiss, gentle yet lingering, and they all but melt in her grasp. Like, uh, warm avocados. Avocados melt, right? Surely.
And that thought makes Eva snort another laugh, mid kiss, and Damon backs away from the gesture in an almost-flinch that the liar is immediately mindful of, and she backs away as well.
“I have your saliva in my mouth. Ewh.” The debater denotes as they take the sleeve of their comfort jacket and swipe saliva droplets that managed to bypass their lips.
“You’ll not like the definition of kisses.” Eva replies with a tired grin.
Damon glares at her, unamused.
“Why are you laughing so much today?” They ask instead - giving the liar’s cheek a poke of retaliation for messing with them, and Eva cannot help herself but dissolve into more giggles.
She isn’t sure what for. All she knows is that she feels the laughs bubble like miniscule fireworks in her chest and she needs to let them out or she’ll drown in the smoke.
Does that even make sense?
Probably not.
“Don’t know.” Damon all but pouts under her, and she can’t help herself in the simplicity of her joy. “You’re too cute today and I can’t handle it.”
“You’re laughing because I am cute.” They echo the statement, as if trying to make sense of it. “Why?”
“I just love you.”
“... Oh.”
She doesn’t expect them to say it back. Not yet.
And that is okay with her.
“It is late.”
“It is just twenty minutes after your self-admitted bedtime.” Eva responds, “You can keep awake. We’re young.”
“Same thing. You know I have things to do in the morning.”
“Yes, at 5am on the dot?”
“Shut.”
“Dork.”
“‘m not a dork.”
“Dummy, then.”
The debater pouts.
Damon then mumbles something incoherent from under their breath, and Eva deems it safe to assume it was just sleepy annoyed murmurs.
They lay their head on the crook of her neck, coiling their arms around her shoulders and humming some sort of actually content, trying-to-feign-annoyance sound.
“I hate you.” They mumble before a yawn escapes their lips. It is the closest thing to a I love you the debater can muster. Like a venomous snake biting yet holding no poison in their bite.
Playful, almost.
If they hated her, they wouldn’t be here. Eva is enamored with the admission of trust.
“Sure. Love you too.” The liar chuckles.