"Aw, they are just so sweet!"
Elissa shot a sideways glare to her best friend, who currently appeared on the verge of crying. Like this was a wedding they were attending instead of waiting for a turn at tug-a-war, which they were going to win, by the way. While Elissa was not a very tall person, she was a very strong person and her favorite thing after wiping the floor in a hover ball game was being at the end of a tug-a-war rope. And pizza, probably. Amala on the other hand was Asari, which placed her at a modest height of 6' 4", and a distinct preference for deflecting to brute force stoppage.
"Please," Elissa begged, "please stop going on about them. They are totally not together ok? And it's creepy. You, are creepy."
Amala's pointed glare did little more than make Elissa struggle not to laugh.
"It's not creepy, it's love. They are completely in love. Smitten! You're just jealous of how perfect they are." With her arms crossed definitely across her chest, one purple finger pointed to the two figures awkwardly standing next to each other. "Totally together, right there, more than Kielrok and Tavo."
Standing about 15 feet from the students, were Coach Shepard and Coach T'Soni. To be fair they both taught classes besides PE but right now, it was coach time. Elissa could tell because Shepard had her baseball cap on and had a whistle around her neck, and T'Soni was wearing a t-shirt and shorts instead of one of her favored dresses. That meant go time, run fast, climb fast, go hard or go home. If you thought T'Soni would let you slack you would be wrong, soft voice hard heart in Elissa's opinion. Honestly she had been ten minutes late, how did that warrant an extra mile?
Likewise in physics you couldn't expect Shepard to let things slide, that woman was always a perfectionist. So maybe Elissa didn't always check her math, and perhaps she could pay more attention during lecture. Still, being volunteered for the bowling ball demonstration about entropy had only been cool after the fact. The fact that she flinched on the first upswing didn't get her the dangled extra credit points either.
Currently though, the two were in solid coach mode and had this one joint time a day to teach together. Elissa thought the student body's obsession with this "power couple" was ridiculous. The two were obviously not together. They were just awkward dorks, seemingly worried about even having to brush past each other in the hallway. The only time the two weren't shifting uncomfortably during a silence or lapse in conversation, was when they were trying to supplement what the other was saying and only managing to confuse their class. This is a game about negotiation vs. that means take no prisoners. Or her favorite, when the two had bickered for the better part of an hour about if dodgeball was about the agility to dodge or the strength and speed to hit. Of course this was done haltingly, with a lot of unnecessary words.
"I'm not saying your point isn't valid, but have you considered?"
"That is an excellent argument, but you are forgetting this small detail surrounding…"
"Truth be told, and I'm not arguing with you, I'm not, I agree, but I still think the thing is!"
"Honestly, I also agree with you and your point, however, that being said, there is more going on!"
"Can we please just agree that there are differing opinions, values, and viewpoints on this?"
"Why are we arguing about dodge ball? Dodge ball!"
While Elissa had happily spent the time counting passive aggressive commentary in the argument and played with her long hair, Amala had done then what she was doing now. Sighing in content as if she was the one in love, making big doe eyes at the two, and every so often cooing. It was disgusting.
"Girl, you drew them holding hands and blushing the other day. That is creepy." Elissa smirked as Tavo was pulled into the grass. There was something so satisfying about watching him fail miserably at human sports.
"Yeah, well, Jenny wrote fanfiction about them going to college together. So I'm not that creepy really." Amala gave a dismissive snort.
"Jenny what!?"
Amala smiled widely, "Oh yeah, she wrote a romance fanfic for them as an English assignment. Ms. Williams used it as an example in class along with a reminder that 'Jane' and 'Lara ' needed a bit more work to not resemble people living or dead."
"Oh my God!" Elissa started to laugh imagining poor Jenny Grenbrook's already pink face turning redder with embarrassment.
"And H'Tok doodled them kissing on his algebra assignment, and Ms. Zorah gave him five extra credit points for, and I quote, spreading the love!" Amala's grin was huge as she made a little heart symbol with her hands.
"She did not! …did she?" Elissa covered her mouth hoping to not draw the attention of the aforementioned "couple" to their conversation.
"Yeah, Goddess Elissa where have you been this last year, under a rock? Listen, Martin was passing a note to that new kid, the Krogan yeah? Mr. Vakarian caught them."
Elissa was laughing harder than she had in a long time, Mr. G was nearly famous for always making students answer omni calls in front of the class and opening notes up under his projector screen so the whole class could read them. "Oh—stop! I can't, I can't breath!"
Amala started to laugh unable to get the words out for a minute herself. "It was a limerick about those two and azures!"
As they continued to cackle the girl behind them politely butted in. "Excuse me, are you talking about Shoni?"
Elissa managed to pull herself together first, "Shoni?"
The girl looked highly uncomfortable. "Um…"
"Shepard and T'Soni's power couple name, duh." Amala said as if Elissa had casually said the earth was flat instead of confused at a made up moniker. "And yeah, we totally are, they are so sweet!"
The girl's smile suddenly flew to the front, full teeth and everything. "I know! They are so married!" Her squeal is enough to actually draw the attention of the two coaches.
Elissa tried desperately to somehow create distance between them and her. While standing in a jam packed line. When you are officially at the front of that line.
Effectively she just nudged their entire groups forward a shuffle, placing them closer to the very people she hoped would not see, hear, or notice them. With a strained smile she waved at them, and after a small pause where they looked at each other, T'Soni waved back. As her two companions continued to loudly discuss how Shoni was a ship that would never sink and apparently sailed forever on a beautiful perfect ocean forever at sunset while rose petals fell from the sky (or something), Elissa continued to smile awkwardly and wave with one hand. She used her other arm to sharply hit Amala in the ribs, and was promptly hit in the back of the head. T'Soni's eye grew huge, while Shepard began to walk over with purpose.
This was beyond day ruining, this was Field Day ruining. And high school ruining. Probably life ruining if anyone thought they'd escape from a determined Shepard.
"Ok ladies, anyone want to explain to me what is going on over here?" Shepard's voice had a hard edge to in. "Halevi, stop waving, it's gotten creepy."
Elissa's hand dropped back down to her side the panic in her smile only growing. Amala's face somehow managed to shift to a darker shade of purple and the girl behind them had wisely pretended to have never known them at all. The traitor.
"Well?" This time it was from T'Soni, whose voice was soft but held the promise of danger.
Elissa finally blurted, "Friendly discourse! Debate! For class, debate class, about, uhm, uh, about stuff and things."
Amala's face transformed from just embarrassment to near horror.
"Oh yeah?" Shepard jutted one hip out while, to Elissa's mild horror, T'Soni appeared to be struggling not to laugh. "Debate class on stuff and things. Care to be more specific Ms. Halevi? Maybe Ms. Yatoi would like to add something on this since her avid...rebuttal caught my attention."
"We were talking about you two!" Amala confessed before casting about desperately for a life line. "I mean, is it true you two met on an Alliance ship or was it in college?"
Shepard glanced over at her colleague with a bewildered look. T'Soni shrugged and gave a cough, which did not fully cover soft chuckling she was trying to stop.
"Because, it's a big debate we have, in debate club. We choose topics and things that we're familiar with and everything." Amala continued to dig a hole for them.
"How we met?" Shepard asked the same way the lady at the MVD would call out peoples numbers.
"Yes, mm-hm." Elissa decided it wasn't fair to leave Amala hanging. Why couldn't something happen to distract everyone? Was a little world ending destruction that much to ask for?
Before Shepard could grill them, God himself seemed to make H'Tok suddenly head butt the Krogan next to him. "I should go," Shepard said with no amount of obvious relief before blowing her whistle and marching towards them.
T'Soni watched Shepard somehow physically separate the two pups, before turning back to them.
"I would suggest coming up with a plausible cover story with a bit less room for interpretation and need for a friend to bail you out." She paused for a second before adding, "We met when Shepard saved my life, she was in the Marine Corps and I was teaching at Serrice University. I hope this helps to settle your debate."
As T'Soni walked over to help break up the small crowd that gathered to watch an infamous verbal shredding by Shepard, Elissa sagged with pure relief.
"Goddess...this changes everything. They're not just married, they are soul mates! I bet they're bonded!" Amala declared.
Elissa gave her another hard elbow strike, unnoticed this time.