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y/n had locked herself away in her room for the day. It’s not that she was trying to avoid the others, but … that was exactly what she was trying to do, with some emphasis placed on her dear friend Bob.
Now, it was purposeful but… it wasn’t personal.
It's not that he did anything to upset her. God, Bob would never. He was not that kind of person. And if he did do something, and you let him know, he would probably fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. He was, put simply, a very kind individual.
However, her current circumstances almost required her to isolate herself… Well not really, but it was if she wanted to avoid certain … reactions.
y/n wanted to have a fun day. She just hadn’t thought too much about the repercussions. So now, here she was, locked in her room, laying on her bed.
High as balls.
The edible had kicked in about 10 minutes prior. It had taken her until then to become paranoid enough to realize the issue. Her housemates. Her housemate. her best friend, Bob.
She knew where her other housemates stood with alcohol, drugs, that stuff. Multiple of them couldn't even get drunk or high or otherwise affected by fun things. Like how the super soldiers had their enhanced metabolisms. Excluding Alexei, she didn’t quite understand how that worked but she had seen him drunk… quite a bit.
As for Ava and Yelena, she was sure they could get inebriated. But she had never been there to witness it. Which was odd considering how long she had been around them….
And then there was Bob. She had no clue what Bob could or could not do. He had done a great job of staying away from any types of drugs or alcohol since he awakened in the vault. And she was proud of him, she really was.
He seemed so much happier than he was before. Well she didn’t know him before, but she guessed he probably wasn’t doing all that good. As of the moment, he still had a few issues to work through in therapy but he was better!
As one of his closest friends, he had confided in her about his past troubles: the childhood abuse, the car crash, the varied mental illness, the addiction. Why she had not thought of that last one when she was buying the edibles, thinking about taking them, and finally actually taking not 1 but 2. She didn’t know.
Put simply, he could not see her right now. She wasn’t sure how he felt about marijuana, weed, edibles. But she was not going to be the reason he had a bad week, because it wouldn’t just be a bad day. Even she couldn’t pull him out of his lows.
So she had resigned herself to staying cooped up in her room until she was sober.
The problem? She was hungry, like really hungry. The kind of hunger that only manifests itself when you are high as balls. Like she was.
‘Do I take a chance? Sneak in the kitchen as stealthy as a ninja? Not even turn the lights on. … no, I probably shouldn’t.’
It didn’t take long for her to find herself in the kitchen. Just as she had said she shouldn’t do. She was shuffling through the fridge, pushing different foods in different containers to each side. She knew she had some pasta left over! And she could dust it with a sprinkling (a shit ton) of shaky cheese.
Just as she had laid her eyes upon it, sitting in the back corner of the fridge behind a see-through container holding a slab of meat, the light turned on.
“Wha– y/n? What are you doing in the dark?” It was exactly the person she didn’t want to see. She froze.
‘It's okay, I can do this. I can pretend to be sober.’ She thought.
She turned to him. “Hi… Bob um…how are you doing?”
He didn’t even blink. “I’m good.” He moved towards the fridge. “Did you see a thing of soup in there? I can’t remember if I ate the last bit of that.”
He stepped up standing next to her. “Um… no, I- I don’t think I did.”
“Aw, that was my last pre-made dinner option,” he pouted, beginning to look in the fridge.
She let out a small laugh. He just looked at her in confusion for a second before turning back to the fridge. “I’m not sure what else there is to eat.” He shook his head in thought. “I mean I could make pasta, maybe ramen too if we have any of that.”
She took a step back, and allowed him the full space to rummage around. Pulling her thoughts from the situation at hand, she thought of the food they had in the pantry.
There was pasta, ramen, mac n cheese, that pasta salad stuff Yelena enjoyed so much. Nothing sounded that enjoyable to her right now. Not that it was for her. She was going to eat her pasta with red sauce and just a sprinkle of cheese.
“You could make yourself a sandwich.” She suggested, pressing her lips together in thought. Holding back a lot of inner dialogue.
“Hmm I don’t know. Maybe grilled cheese? I doubt we have any sliced meat,” her eyes stayed fixated on him and his to the fridge.
His eyes lit up. “Yes here it is. My soup!”
Proudly holding his soup out at her. It took her a moment to react. “Oh yay.” She thought he looked like an animal crossing character after they caught a fish.
That made her laugh a bit again. This time he actually looked at her. “What's so funny?” His voice was genuine.
She smiled at him. “Nothing, no– I’m just happy for you.” She gestured towards his hands. “You found the soup.”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded. “I’m happy I still had that, I didn’t know what else I was going to eat.”
“Do we need to go grocery shopping?” she asked.
He nodded again with a slight frown on his face. “Probaly, sorry.”
She found herself fixated on how he squeezed his eyes shut for just a second, almost cringing at being the reason other people had to do something. “No worries, I was running low on bread.”
The smile quickly came back to his face. “Oh, in that case, I should start a list!” he said, turning to grab a piece of paper.
She didn’t laugh that time. But she smiled. She was glad he was turned away.
“Well,” she started. She had to get out of there. He was going to notice. “I just ate. So I'm gonna head back to my room.” She glanced out the door. ’I’m pretty tired.”
The frown was back on his face. “But I thought.” He looked at the sink. There weren’t any dishes in it. y/n wasn’t the type to clean them and put them away immediately. Especially when she was tired.
He looked back at her questioningly. She just smiled at him. Taking a step towards the exit. “Oh.” He turned to pour his soup in a bowl. Then glanced back at her. ‘What about dessert?”
She paused. She actually hadn’t even eaten dinner. She shouldn't have dessert. And she needed to get away from him.
“I make a mean mug cake,” he smiled at her. At that moment, her stomach growled. He let out a gentle laugh.
The microwave beeped. “Soup!” Bob cheered. She giggled. He was too invested in his soup to notice.
They stood in silence for a second, Bob blowing on his soup to cool it down. “So?”
“What?”
“Mug cake.”
“Oh, that.” He gave her a look.
She wanted to refuse. But he looked at her so softly. “Sure.” She thought he was already happy but somehow he lit up.
“Great! I can make that while my soup cools. It doesn’t take long.”
He walked over to the pantry and started to take out the ingredients. “Flour, sugar, cocoa powder…” he muttered quietly. ‘Wait, where’d we put the vanilla extract?”
“Oh I think it's in the cupboard above the fridge.” He looked at her confused.
“Why would it be there?”
She thought for a moment, “cause Walker’s an idiot.” Bob chuckled.
It took only a few minutes for Bob to gather all the ingredients. And even less time for him to mix them together. He quickly was placing it in the microwave and setting the timer.
“Okay 1 minute. You think you can stay awake that long?” He joked.
She nodded, her eyes following the mug through the glass as it spun in a circle.
Bob kept his gaze on her. Watching how her eyes stayed focused as the clock counted down to zero and how she rubbed her face with her hand like she was trying to wake herself up.
“Long day?”
She looked at him. “Huh”.
“Did you have a long day? You said you were tired.”
“Yeah. Tired, I’m tired.” She repeated.
His gaze remained on her. Then he nodded. Seconds later, the time beeped.
He quickly opened the microwave door and grabbed the mug by the handle, turning towards her. “Here, but you should let it cool before you eat it.” He glanced down at the freezer. “I think we have some ice cream if you want some of that.”
Ice cream sounded good. And she knew for a fact that they had that silky vanilla ice cream that made her mouth water.
“Ice cream” she said, nodding in affirmation.
He made a move towards the fridge just as she did. “It’s okay I can get it, I’m closer.”
“Okay.” She nodded again.
She was making a mistake. It was a tasty mistake, but it was still a mistake.
“Here you go.” Bob placed the ice cream on the table in front of her. Then turned to fish through the cutlery to grab a sharper than usual spoon. He knew what ice cream she liked and what she liked to eat it with. Wasn’t he perfect?
“y/n?” His words interrupted her thoughts.
“Huh?”
“You’re staring.”
“Oh. My bad.” She grabbed the ice cream. Digging out a good sized chunk and dropping it in the mug with the mug cake. Placing the ice cream on the counter, she watched Bob take it and put it back into the freezer. “Well, I should probably go.”
“What why?” He questioned. “You can’t sleep while you're eating. Might as well talk to me.”
She internally groaned. ‘“Yeah but I might fall asleep.”
He just smiled. “I wouldn’t mind.” Of course he wouldn’t. And he’d probably put her mug cake in the fridge so she could eat it later. A saint he was.
“Well I guess… if you want me around so badly.” She attempted to tease.
“I do.” Bob stated. “Want you around, I mean. You’re good company.”
Her cheeks grew red. He had told her he was learning to say how he felt more often. Something his therapist had recommended to him. When he first told her that, she was happy for him, overjoyed that therapy seemed to be helping. But now? She hated his therapist with a burning passion. How dare you get him to say such nice things? She didn’t think she could take it, not usually and definitely not now.
“You keep spacing out.” He was now standing in front of her. “Are you alright?”
She didn’t know what to say so she kept quiet, staring at him. He stared back at her, the worry on his face growing with every second that passed. She averted her eyes, beginning to pick at her undeserved dessert.
“You aren’t sick are you? Don’t tell me you caught that cold Alexei had.” He placed his palm on her forehead. She leaned into it. “Hmm. You’re not warm.”
“I’m not sick,” she finally voiced. He kept his gaze locked on her.
“Then what’s wrong? You’re not acting like yourself.”
God dammit. Of course he would notice. She stood no chance against him, him and his mighty observation skills. “Bob.”
“Yeah?” She pouted. He narrowed his eyes.
“You know I love you, right?” That caught him off guard.
“I- what, of course. I love you too.” The words sounded nice coming from him. He loves me, she thought. How lucky I am.
“I may or may not have made a mistake,” she mumbled. He stared at her. “But I don’t want to tell you because it might upset you.”
He looked confused, very confused. “What? Did you watch that one documentary you said we should watch together? You know that's okay. We can still watch it again.” He gently tried to soothe her.
“No that's not it.” she looked down at her sock clad feet. They were little kitty cats, with their little butts out. Bob had gotten them for her. She cherished them. She smiled.
“y/n!” he called.
“Shit!” She jumped.
“You’re really starting to worry me. If something is wrong please tell me.”
“Okay…” She had to give in. The sad way he was looking at her like she was hurting and he couldn’t help her. She’d do anything to make him smile.
She pushed her lips together. And tapped her pointer fingers against each other. “How… How do you feel about edibles?” she started.
He paused. Oh god, she had done it now hadn’t she. She should have just kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to hurt him but not telling him was hurting him so she had to tell him. But now look where she had landed herself–
“Nothing particular,” he said. The words took a second to settle in.
She gaped at him. “You sure?” He looked at her for a long moment.
"...Is that what's going on?" He let out a laugh. "I was wondering why you kept spacing out."
“This isn’t like a problem or anything?” she asked, playing with her fingers.
“No.” He tilted his head. “You were worried about me… knowing?”
“Yeah. I didn’t know how you felt about this stuff and I realized that after I had already taken the edibles so there was no going back,” she rambled. “And then–”
“Hey.” He interrupted her. “I said it's fine. I appreciate you thinking about me." He paused. “But… you don't have to hide from me. I can handle it.”
“Oh I'm so glad,” she said, and wrapped her arms around him. “I was really worried about where this conversation was going to go.”
He let himself melt into the hug. “Yeah and I was really worried that something was wrong.” He pulled away for a second to flick her on the forehead. “That’s for scaring me.”
“Sorry.” She thought for a second. “So it’s okay for me to be around you right now?”
“Yes,” he stated confidently.
“Great. You wanna watch that documentary I suggested,” she said, the smile reappearing on her face. “I bet it’ll be fun as shit for me right now.”
“Sure. But you have to get something to eat first. And no I don't mean the mug cake.” He took it from her hands and placed it on the counter. “That can wait a little while.”
She whined. “But but–”
“No buts, I know you didn’t eat real food. You absolutely would not have cleaned your dish while high.” She huffed and nodded.
Well at least she gets to have the pasta with shaky cheese now. That was a relief. The mug cake was not going to be enough for her in her current state.
After heating up her pasta, and covering it in red sauce and a thick layer of parmesan cheese, y/n found herself on the couch beside Bob. He was in the process of pulling up that documentary she’d suggested.
She took a deep breath and melted into the couch. Her favorite blankets surrounded her, her favorite person sat right next to her, and she was high as balls.
Life was good.