#keanu montgrez

[t1oui]

so i randomly decided to post oc stuff. this might be the only time i do this, depending how well it goes. idk. it's nearly 1 am. have a thing. it got sad, but not really, because they have each other, or something like that.

She doesn’t know what to say about it. “You’re appalling,” maybe, or “You’re the best,” or, “I hate you so much I could spend the rest of my life with you.”

“Message received,” Steven says, dumping the bags onto the ottoman before slumping down on the floor. He summons a fry seemingly out of nowhere and shoves it in his mouth. “Are you seriously studying right now?”

Kia glances up momentarily before flashing him her flashcards. He rolls his eyes and gestures towards the window, which she is very pointedly facing away from.

“It’s not pissing rain outside for the first time in a millennia,” he says. “And you’re studying Physics?”

Kia flips him off, setting down her pencil to reach for a french fry. “Go suck a dick.” Steven just smirks at her, leaning back against a chair but remaining seated on an old (too old) shag rug. 

“Gladly,” he replies mildly. He glares at her homework again.

“You’re a nerd,” she informs him bluntly. “Shouldn’t you be cheering for me right now?”

Steven seems to give this a moment of serious thought before shrugging and shaking his head. “Nah. I’m a lit guy. Physics can kiss my ass.”

Kia tries to hide her smile. “Blake, you have problems.”

He shrugs noncommittally in response and continues looking out the window. He never seems to look directly at her, except for when she spots him in her peripheral vision, silently pleading to go outdoors. She finally has enough and slams her pencil down with a dull thud. Steven doesn’t even flinch, though he does smile a bit.

“You’re like a dog,” she says. She means it in a bad way, but Steven just grins. Then he stands up, dusting his hands off on his jeans, which are such a rich blue that they wash out his eyes instead of making them pop. He looks handsome anyway.

“Outside,” he says, more of a command and a question, and Kia rolls her eyes as she takes his outstretched hand. 

“Your fault,” he says brightly, tugging her to get their shoes on. He pulls his on impossibly fast — on closer inspection, they’re docs, and therefore not even his — and then stands over her ominously, watching. She holds off on asking him to step back right up until she can feel his breathing on her scalp. She loves him, but that’s too weird, and she knows that’s why he’s doing it. 

“Only you would show up on the one day I’m actually being productive and pull me out of it,” she accuses, though her words don’t carry much weight. Especially not with Steven’s arm looped through hers.

“I’m pretty special,” he agrees. “Even if you don’t see it.”

Kia doesn’t reply to that. She doesn’t want to get soppy, not right now, not when their banter has been perfectly normal today. She doesn’t want to tell him how special he is, how special he’s always been and always will be. He’s a fucking mess, but he’s her mess sometimes, and she loves that. She clears her throat, almost swallowing a bug in the process. 

“So, what’re you doing hanging around my house on a Saturday?” she asks finally, vowing to ignore any sappy comments from him. 

“We’ve got a two week bye,” Steven says, only sort of answering the question. “Between winter and spring. Nothing else going on. You’re the only one around, and anyway, who else am I going to attack with promises of junk food and Vitamin D?”

Kia glances over at him, and he gives her a wry smile. You’re the only one around, he says, but she knows he’s also saying that the matter of who’s around doesn’t really… well, matter. Steven shows up when he wants to show up, never thinking about who’s around and who’s not around and who’s never around. He’s always around, and even if he calls himself a recluse, he’s always in need of attention. 

“What are our boys up to today, then?” Kia asks. She and Steven live close, stuck in the same few-block radius along with Kaz and Jake, two other members of their group. In hindsight, both of them are more connected to Steven than they ever will be to Kia, but she gets along with them wonderfully. She probably would’ve died if she didn’t. 

“Kaz is shopping with his mom,” Steven says. “Jake’s going to a show with his parents.”

She senses the hint of sadness in his voice, as if he feels left out. She knows that the Mabees would have invited him to go along with them, which means he turned down the offer and got sad about it anyway, and that makes Kia sad because it’s a very Steven Blake thing to do. Steven Blake is truly a very special, unique person, and as much as she wishes his self-destructive tendencies didn’t exist, she can’t fathom who he’d be without them. It's almost scary, who he is sometimes. The eye of a hurricane, calming you so you’re caught off guard when the storm gets ten times worse. 

Steven and Jake are best friends, always will be, but she knows they’ve grown apart. She wonders what it must be like, to miss someone who’s so close all the time. Then a stab in her heart reminds her that she knows all too well. 

Kia could tell him that he should’ve gone. That he should’ve accepted the offer. But she doesn’t, because she would’ve done the same thing. 

“What’s the show about?” she asks, and she listens as he digs himself deeper and deeper, as his hole of sadness grows wider and wider, and she lets him pull her closer to the edge with every word.