Episode: 3.4

--- Rai ---

“Okay, so what’s the game plan guys?” Nadya asked, taking her seat across from him and Desmond, as the former read the white words saying, ‘If your reading this you’re staring at my chest, and are therefore a creepy creeper… Now go away.’ on her otherwise black shirt.

(That’s a new one.)

“My eyes are up here.” She told him snapping her fingers and trying to hide her laidback grin, as he looked at her hazel green eyes.

“And mine are over here.” He told her, pointing to his own eyes, “Don’t see what the problem is.”

“Sure, you don’t, you creepy creeper. Now go away.” She added with a shooing motion.

“Okay.” He nodded standing up, before reaching across the table, grabbing the orange beanie she’d worn over her brunette hair for years, and pulling it down over her eyes. “There, out of sight, out of mind.”

“Very funny.” Nadya laughed sarcastically, before straightening out her beanie.

“I think so,” he agreed before turning to his left, “how about you Des?”

“Yes, both of your horrible attempts at flirting are very funny.” Des quipped, turning in his seat so neither could hit him without admitting to the other they’d been flirting on some level.

Nadya glared at their mutual friend, before turning back to him. “Ignoring him, have you thought about what you want for your birthday this weekend?”

“Well, what I want is the same thing I want every year.” he answered before glaring at Des, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Des asked innocently, with a far less innocent smile.

“You know what.” He told him narrowing his eyes to better get across his message of, ‘If you say anything about me and Nadya I’m hurting you… badly… very, very badly.’ A surprisingly difficult task since he couldn’t let his eyes flash black and white.

“Fine, I won’t say anything.” Des chuckled before nodding, before adding, “For now…” in a rather sorry attempt at a sadistic tone.

(Seriously, I’ve seen eight-year-olds with more sadistic vibes…)

(True, they were Malcontent eight-year-olds… but still.)

“Say anything and I’ll tell Nadya about those magazines I found.” Raimundo warned Des, (after all what guy wants their female friend to know about their porn collection.)

“Oh, you mean the ones she gave me.” Des challenged, not backing down.

He couldn’t help but glance at the woman he loved, who was blushing slightly having realized what their last comment was about.

“We… have the same tastes?” she offered coughing into her hand, before turning to Des with a hiss, “And you promised to keep him from seeing those!”

He opened his mouth before closing it and rubbing at his eyes.

(You love her too much to judge her… but you can still repress that comment with years of ignored therapy techniques.)

“Moving on…” (and repressing that…), “I’m guessing like my parents you guys still want to have more people over than just our little group?”

“Yeah, we’ve got more friends than just the three of us.” Nadya reminded him, slapping her hands on the table.

“We have one friend outside our trio, she lives in a different city, and she’s already invited.” he reminded her, not bothering to slap his hands on the table. “And the fewer people the better, since she doesn’t like crowds either.”

“Yeah, and she told me she thinks you need to make more friends too.” Nadya told him, pulling out her phone and going through her texts looking for the conversation.

“That’s a lie, and you know it.” He told her before taking a bite out of his burger, (Is it weird I like something out of the cafeteria?)

That thought made him pause.

(Actually, given the rest of my diet, that is not a good thing…)

“No, Clara’s made friends at her new school and she wants to invite a couple of them.” Nadya explained showing him a text conversation where Clara was asking to do just that.

“She’s probably already invited them.” Des nodded, pulling out a magazine that was thankfully unrelated to their previous conversation.

(Still repressing…)

“Then Clara’s new friends can meet her old ones, we’ll have a whole little party for it. In fact, let’s do it Sunday.” He smirked propping his head up with one hand.

“Nadya, I’m on your side, but that was a good one.” Des commented, looking up from his magazine briefly, before retreating under Nadya’s glare.

“Thank you.” Rai told him, unfazed as she turned the glare, he secretly found adorable, onto him.

“Come on, Rai this is our chance to turn our lives around, show everyone we’re really the cool kids.” Nadya pleaded waving her hand over the various students around the cafeteria.

“A- I like our lives. B- Popularity is over rated. And C- Let’s face it, if we do get popular Desmond ‘s going to sell out in a heartbeat.” He listed before pointing at his male best friend.

“I would not.” Des told him, offended just enough to set his magazine down.

“So, if you became popular enough to surround yourself with the various male sports captains?” Rai asked with a raised eyebrow.

Desmond thought about it for a moment before nodding as he went back to his magazine, “Yeah, I would totally sell out for that.”

“See, we’re better off as the outcasts.” He nodded fairly satisfied with himself, before turning back to a glare twice as angry and twice as adorable.

(It’s like an angry kitten!)

“Ugh, why are you being so difficult?” Nadya whined covering her face with her hands.

“Isn’t difficult, like one of my defining characteristics?”

“Stubborn insecure smart ass with a heart of gold.” Des said summarizing his personality fairly well, though with one issue.

“I’m not insecure.” He pointed out more confused than annoyed, (but still annoyed.)

“I’ve heard your issues, you’re insecure and lack confidence.” Des told him flipping to the next page in his magazine.

(My insecurities are perfectly valid for someone the government says you can legally kill.)

…but given how he couldn’t say that out loud… he settled for simply sighing and shifted his focus to Nadya.

Seeing that she was still pouting, he frowned before offering her a fair shot at convincing him, “And while being difficult smart asses, are characteristics we all share, why are you being so difficult about this? I mean you don’t even like people.”

Nadya looked at him before closing her eyes and sighing, “Have you noticed we’ve never actually been to a ‘teen’ party?”

“Yeah, and I honestly couldn’t care less, I like people even less than you.” He shrugged, still not really getting it.

“No, I like people, or at least people who are fun, like you two and Clara, and I’d love to meet more fun people but the problem with willingly being the outcasts is, that after a certain point it’s not so willing anymore… I’ve tried hanging out with people, but it’s not as easy as before, you know…”

“Yeah, I get it…” He nodded, starting to regret actually giving her a chance, “You want to throw a party, to try and throw out our status as ‘outcasts’ and see if there are any ‘fun kids’ at our school.” Nadya nodded covering her face, “Meaning you’re lonely.”

“No!” Nadya almost shouted jumping out of her seat, “Or, can you not say it like that…” she admitted dejectedly, “Don’t get me wrong, I love you guys! Des you’re like a brother to me,”

“Ouch.” Des winced in mock pain.

He rolled his eyes. “You already made a friend zone joke today.”

“and Rai you’re…” Nadya paused her checks gaining a slight tint as his own cheeks burned a little, “you’re, um, yeah…”

“Now, that actually hurt.” Des muttered low enough, that Rai wouldn’t have caught it if he was human, nor cared if he didn’t agree.

“But the thing is we have some interests we don’t share, and we have no one to share them with… I just I want us to expand our horizons a little.”

“And we’re using my birthday because?” He asked rubbing his eyes, he already knew he was going to give in, but that didn’t mean he was going down without a fight.

(Never go down without a fight.)

(And still repressing…)

Nadya bit her lip, before glancing at Des who had lowered his magazine before nodding with a sigh, “Your parents are better than Des’s, and your home is better than mine…” she forced herself to admit in a quiet voice, mentioning the two things they never talked about.

He flinched, before running a hand through his hair.

(She didn’t mean it that way and you know it…)

He put his forehead on the table, as he tried to think this through.

(Alright, you’re going to let them throw this party but how can this really turn out…)

He recalled the last time his family was allowed at a public event, and grimaced, hard.

(Okay, very bad… very, traumatizingly irrepressibly bad… Unless… what if I sneak Chess into the crowd…)

(This could be the perfect opportunity to try introducing her to everyone again… but it also means wussing out on asking Nadya to be my girlfriend…)

He lifted his head to look at Nadya, who he could tell was regretting her last comment, (Which she shouldn’t… nor should she keep waiting for me to ask her out…)

(Hell, if I mention this mess to Chess, she’d probably force me to confess at gunpoint…)

He smiled to himself, before reaching a horrible revelation.

(She’d literally do that to me if I explained any of this mess to her.)

Forcing himself to ignore his sister’s possible attempts at fratricide…

He ran his tongue over his teeth before speaking, “Alright, we can throw the party… but only with the people you can talk into coming by the end of today, and I don’t want word of this getting to any of our ‘problem makers’; it’s still my birthday and I don’t want to deal with them wrecking it.” He told them sternly, knowing they’d hate the fallout as much as he would.

“Yes, yes, yes!” Nadya cheered pumping her fist, causing him to smile at her immediate change in attitude.

“Well, I guess we’re in for a busy day.” Desmond told them with his own smile.

“Nope, just you two. After all birthday boy, doesn’t throw his own party.” Rai told them, picking up his tray.

“That’s fine. We’ll just be sure to bring the guest magazines, to our tastes.” Des warned him with a smirk as he waved the one in his hand.

(And repressed…)

(Wait, why does it sound like he’s trying to threaten me?)