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“Is that my hoodie?”
“Is it?” Arlo parrots, not looking up from the blueprints spread across the table. They finished their planning for the next mission a while ago, but Arlo always lingers after. Today, Sera chose to linger with him. He didn't mind at all—he liked having her there, even—until just now. The question holds no weight, but Arlo still feels pressed into a corner when it's asked. Especially when it's asked by Sera.
“It is,” she says bluntly. Arlo’s breath catches against his will when Sera's hand settles over the sleeve, running her fingers along a mended hole in the fabric. “Kuyo taught me how to fix that.”
Arlo’s nose curls at the mention, but he doesn’t dare pull away. “He can sew?”
“Kind of?” Seraphina shrugs. “Not well. We figured it out together, with a few pointers from his mom. And Blyke.”
Arlo nearly repeats his first question (Blyke can sew?), but he’s stopped by Seraphina reaching further than she should be able, her hand running across his (her) sleeve and settling overtop his own palm. Slowly, he looks up from the blueprints and towards her. She’s slouched down, cheek pressed to the table and her hair spilling across it. When he meets her eyes, he can’t help but think about how piercing the blue of them is. Far more than that of his own.
“Not surprised about Blyke?” she asks languidly.
“…I am,” he admits carefully. “Forgive me if I’m a little distracted.”
She cracks a smile at that. “So you can tell me that, but not that you’re wearing my hoodie?”
Arlo’s lips press into a line. With the proof she's mentioned, there's no point in lying, but he still doesn't want to admit to it. It's embarrassing just how much being around her can put him at ease. What feels like a lifetime ago now, it was exactly the opposite, the sight of her setting him on edge like flipping a switch. But now he can't help but want to be around her. (And maybe someone else who spends all his time with her, too.)
“C’mon. Talk to me?”
Her tone isn’t particularly gentle, but it disarms Arlo all the same.
He hesitates. He can’t afford to keep falling short like he has been, to keep making the wrong decisions at every turn—he was supposed to be better than this. If not for society, if not for the school, then at least for the people within his reach. He can't afford make another mistake. He just wants to get things right, for once.
(And maybe, maybe, borrowing Sera's hoodies every so often makes him feel just settled enough for that insurmountable task to seem a little bit easier. Maybe feeling like one of the only people in the world still in his corner is engulfing him helps.)
Arlo stops short of telling her some muted truth when Sera's fingers travel past the end of his sleeve, grazing his knuckles. She tugs at his hand and he lets her turn it so their palms are laid over one another’s.
He starts again.
“You have oversized hoodies, so they fit me. John’s don’t, so…” Arlo hears himself saying. Where on earth does John fit into this? He's telling her too much, letting too much out, things he doesn't even understand—
“So it’s just to feel closer to John?”
“No,” Arlo says quickly, unwilling to let that misconception hang in the air for a second longer than it needs to. “Both of you are—“
He stops.
What is he saying?
“Both of us are?” Sera prompts, a wry smile curling her lips. She sits up again, looking him in the eyes properly. Arlo tries to distract himself, imagines smoothing the flyaway strands of her hair, and decides that he doesn’t want to be distracted anymore.
“You’re—“ Reliable. Like no one else has been able to be for me. It’s still strange putting my trust in you again, like I used to. It's strange to be able to trust John at all. But I do. So much so that it's almost frightening. “What does it matter?” he breathes out, breaking eye contact to look back down at the blueprints.
Sera laughs. It sounds like coffee cups on wooden counters. Warm.
Before Arlo has half a chance to ruminate on that, or the feeling reverberating through him with the sound, he feels an arm slide by his. A hand settles on the table beside his and Seraphina’s interlaced ones (when had she done that?).
“I agree with you for once, Princess. Doesn’t matter,” John says matter-of-factly from overhead. Arlo doesn’t like being below him. “Whatever you say we are, I think that at this point, we know.”
“Wow, John, I wasn’t expecting you to be so straightforward with it,” Sera hums.
“With what?” Arlo says, a tinge of panic(?) undercutting the words as he pulls his hand from Sera’s. He isn’t sure whose presence makes him feel like he has to do it. (Or if he should feel like he has to do it at all.)
Sera and John hold silence for a few moments, the former looking amused and the latter letting out a sigh indicative of anything but.
“Nothing yet, I guess,” Sera says simply, still smiling to herself as she pushes up from the table. “John and I will be playing cards for a while before bed if you want to join. Don't stay up too late.”
Arlo nods and watches the two of them head back to their room, whispering about something that has John sulking and Sera smirking. When the door shuts behind them, Arlo lets out a sigh, less relieved than it is longing.
Longing for who…? He doesn’t feel like thinking about it right now, and he has an excuse right in front of him in the form of blueprints to memorize and plans to triple check, so he doesn’t.
Arlo does, however, run his fingers over the stitch left from Sera’s handiwork. The table, the room, even his own hands are cold—but the hoodie is warm.