All
in the Name of Friendship
Part 3
By: Elizabeth Smith
“Gimme one reason to stay here,” The redhead slammed her car door shut and
opened the trunk, cheerfully lifting up her two ton backpack and shouldering it.
“And I’ll turn right back arouu~und…”
Massive homework load, after all, she had been working herself to oblivion and hadn’t even started on the three month research assignment… due in two weeks. And she wouldn’t have any time but the weekend to work on it. Siiigh. So much to do, so little time… College was tough.
“Oh, gimme one reason to stay he~e~re, And I’ll turn right back arou~ound…” Oh well. That was life. The singing firetop grunted and shifted the weight on her back as she headed up the steps to the apartment. Urrrg, this was getting hard to do. Well, all day study session at the library this weekend… bleh. She had to do something about her workload.
“I said I~I don’t want to leave you lonely~y, Yo~u gotta make me change my mi~i~ind…” Finally. It was getting hard to trek up ten flights of stairs with five different textbooks and three folders on her back. Oh well. Her own damn fault. She really should have scheduled her workload better. She fumbled around in her overstuffed pockets for her key. In there somewhere… ah! Lina unlocked the door and walked in.
Val was having a slight problem.
Well, he’d just met Zelgadis about a week ago at that bar. But Zelgadis absolutely fascinated him. Val still couldn’t believe he’d asked him on a date. What if he’d had a boyfriend or something? What if he was straight and was just there with a friend?
But he couldn’t get Zelgadis out of his thoughts. And here he was, with Zelgadis, in Zelgadis’ apartment.
Alone.
Val felt his hormones racing already. Look at it. Zelgadis was dark, mysterious, prettier than a guy had any right to be, intelligent, sexy, brooding, sexy, uncertain in a really sexy but cute aw poor puppy way, and god, it made him just want to scream!
And they were in his apartment, with his roommate not coming home for a while. Apparently they had some drama thing going on, and then had to spend pretty close to an all-nighter at the library. Val wondered who this “roommate” was, and if he should be jealous. Roommates tended to be same sex, and seeing as Zel was… Well, he was bi… but that made anyone… ohhh, Val didn’t like the way his head was running in circles and yanked on the leash.
Zelgadis was having a hard time, too. He’d invited Val back to his place before he remembered Lina would be out. So he had just invited Val into an empty apartment. Just them.
And his hormones were getting the better of him.
Whose wouldn’t? He’d already told Val he wasn’t gay, he was bi, the second he asked him to lunch, and Val had shrugged. Most gays hated bisexuals because a lot were certain it was born into you, and being both messed with this concept. But Val didn’t care… Gaaaah, that alone was enough to make Zel head over heels. And on top of that, he was damn sexy, had a magnificent body, and acted like a normal guy around Zel, instead of either coddling him or shying away from him.
So you can imagine the tension here.
Zelgadis coughed and searched for something to say. So did Val. Siiigh… don’t you hate those moments when you really need something to fill the heavy silence and your brain shuts off? Luckily, Zel’s eyes fell on the TV.
“Hey, wanna watch a movie?”
“S-sure…”
Zelgadis searched through the pile of tapes next to the TV. Lina was a bit of an anime fanatic, something he liked a bit but wasn’t going to spend money on like her. He had a few movies, mostly taped off TV, but she had cartloads.
“okay… my roommate likes anime, so that’s mainly what we have. We also have theeee.. ‘Princess Bride’, ‘Pricilla, Queen of the Desert’, ‘The Wiz’, uhhhh…a pile of unlabeled tapes…”
“How about… The Princes Bride?” Val winced. Would he hate a chick flick?
“Cool. I like this one, Lina makes me watch it all the time.” Lina?
Roommate or date? Or both? Val’s poor little hormone drowning mind was floating around in circles.
Zel wasn’t doing much better.
Neither of them was really watching the movie. Val took a chance and slipped his hand into Zel’s.
Zel took a chance and put his arm around Val.
Val took a chance and put both arms around Zel.
After so much gambling that their mothers would have told them to go to Las Vegas so they would slow down, Val and Zel ended up kissing quite enthusiastically, each in each other’s arms and somehow getting to the lying down position on the couch.
And both of them were enjoying it thoroughly.
And then the key clicked in the lock and the door opened, to reveal a rather short, skinny redhead in a tank top and cargo pants carrying a backpack nearly bigger than her. Val froze, hormones zapped out of existence.
Oh shit oh shit oh shit… what if she doesn’t know that Zel’s bi? What if I just blew his secret? I know most roommates don’t like it when they come home to find their roommate necking, what’ll it be like with a same-sex necking? What if she’s into him? What if he’s into her? What if she’s gonna get mad for any reason and…
She took a glance at what was happening on the couch, grinned, and dumped her backpack on the floor.
“Hey Zel. I’m just stopping in to get some snacks before I head to the library, okay? I’ll be gone in a miniute.”
“Hey Lina. Good to see you.” Zel said cheerfully. “This is Val.”
“I wish you’d introduce me to your significant others before you end up on the couch with them, Zel. Maybe then I’d know if I’m suppose to congratulate them or punt them out the window ahead of time.” Zel looked sheepish. Val looked confused. “Well, I wasn’t exactly planning on it…”
“Yeah, I know. Hey, see you, okay? I should be back by midnight.” Lina walked out dragging another backpack full of stuff. Zelgadis sighed. “You know, if you didn’t have a job I would want to kill you for eating so much.”
She grinned. “I know. Have fun, okay?” She winked. Val felt himself blushing all over.
Zel sighed again. “You were planning on going to bed and being at the library tomorrow, weren’t you?”
She shrugged. “Truthfully? Yeah. But hey, I don’t want you two to feel too awkward. Hey! I used all versions of two in one sentence! …I need to get this paper done with, I really, really do…Besides, I have to research sometime. Why not now and leave you alone? Bye.” Lina walked out the door and closed it behind her.
Val swallowed. “Ah.. that was your… roommate?”
Zel nodded. They still hadn’t moved from their position on the couch.
“Yep.”
Val tried to process this. “Awfully understanding, isn’t she?”
“Known her since kindergarten. I--”
Lina popped her head in the door. “Hey, don’t forget; condoms if it gets that far.”
Both blushed beet red. Lina cheerfully shut the door again.
Lina grinned as she got in her car to head to the library. It would be better to
get it done tonight, anyway. Then she could sleep in and deal with it later.
Anyway, she was glad Zel had found someone. He got so lonely sometimes.
Lina rubbed her eyes and looked down at her watch. Damn, almost 11:30. God she
was tired. Oh well. She checked out the last of the books and dragged the pile
home. She climbed up the stairs (again) And opened the door. Midnight, on the
dot. The entire room was pitch black, but the TV was playing the ending theme to
one of her animes. She looked over at the couch and nearly melted.
They were sleeping in eachother’s arms, completely clothed, completely chaste.
AWWW!! How cute!
Val woke up bleary eyed. Hm. He wasn’t in his own bed. Well, while that
wasn’t normal, it wasn’t truly amazing. Now, how did he come to get here?
Okay, here was a couch. An occupied couch. An occupied couch with a very, very, very cute sleeping Zel in it, too.
Rewind! What happened last night?
Okay, they had lain there for a bit after Lina had left, watched the movie, watched another movie, watched another movie…
Lying in each other’s arms. Damn, it was nice…
And then they’d fallen asleep. How disappointing.
He heard someone come in. Twisting around to see the person without waking up the sleeping Zelgadis, he saw it was Lina, grinning down at him.
Uh oh…
She winked. “Don’t wake him up, our dear Zelly is not a morning person and will bite off the head of anything in the morning until his fifth cup of black coffee. I’m trying to get him to cut back, but he gets awful headaches when he does.” She then cheerfully, as if it were an everyday thing, helped him untangle himself from Zel and led him to the kitchen, where she got out a skillet and some eggs.
“What would you like for breakfast?” She asked, already starting about ten eggs cooking. Val took this as a hint.
“Ummm.. eggs?”
“How many?”
“Three.. I guess…”
“You’re going to starve! I have to give you five, at least.”
“Umm… okay…” He expected her to cut the finishing eggs in half. Instead, she tossed those ones off and dumped five more in the skillet. His eyes bulged.
“You’re eating ten??”
“Nah, I’m just having a snack. I ate before you woke up. Orange juice?”
“Uhh…”
“I’ll take that as a yes.” She poured a glass of orange juice and handed it to him. He took it, in a sort of a stunned daze.
“So,” She said conversationally, “I take it you and Zel are a bit smitten with eachother?”
“Uh…” Val blushed.
“Looks like he’s pretty much fallen for you. You wouldn’t believe how sexually repressed he is. Don’t know what his problem is…”
“Ah…” Val managed.
Lina flipped the cooking eggs. “By the way, you oughta know; When Zel falls, he falls hard.”
“…Really?”
“Yep. So, I thought I ought to warn you--”
THUNK.
Val looked down to see a rather large cleaver very firmly embedded in the chair between his legs. Val swallowed hard and looked into Lina’s oh too sweet smiling face.
“I care very much about Zelgadis. If you hurt him, I will hurt you. I will hurt you a lot. I will hurt you for a long time. And I will see to it that you hurt for a long time after that. You got that?”
Val nodded weakly.
“Good! Then I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.” Lina turned and continued humming and cooking.
