Chase was not a genius.
He wasn't even particularly smart.
He's known this as long as he can remember, was reminded of it daily when he lived with his parents. It hardly even bothers him, at this point. He's accepted it. He's an idiot. Cool. Move on.
He's not very smart. But, he does have a lot of useless talents. Talents that are never really good for anything, but look good at parties, or when trying to get away from the police. Whatever. Don't judge, man. He's like… an orphan, an abuse survivor. He's rad, okay. And if he needs to learn to… juggle, to deal with his emotional turmoil, then he's gonna do it. Seize the freakin' day, bro.
"Chase."
Uh oh. He knows that tone. That tone is the why-are-you-up-at-three-am-bruising-all-the-apples. It's beautiful, of course, because the tone belongs to the prettiest girl on earth, who he just so happens to be dating (be jealous), but it's also terrifying, because although his girlfriend has no powers (only a telepathic dinosaur, but she likes him so that's a nonissue), she does a mean stare and when she's disappointed in him it hurts his feelings and stuff.
"Light of my subterranean life! Why are you… up…?" He's set himself up. He's doomed now.
"I could ask you the same thing." She doesn't act surprised about his use of a multi-syllable word. That's because even when annoyed with him, she is awesome, and she knows that idiot ain't the same thing as stupid. Or… however that saying goes. He thinks there's a saying about that. Maybe it's a song.
"I'm learning to juggle," he says, because honesty is sometimes the best policy.
"Okay," Gert says, and starts to turn, heading back to bed.
Wow. That was easy. "Aren't you gonna ask me why?"
She shrugs. "Aside from wanting to make Karolina sad because you bruised all of her apples?"
"Not… all of them…" Okay, probably all of them. But some of them were only a little bit bruised. "I can get new apples."
"Sure you can, stud." She makes a face. "Jeeze, I must really be tired. I can't believe I called you stud. This is some Twilight Zone nonsense."
He preens, just a little, because complements are complements, even if they happen in the Twilight Zone. Probably counts more, if he thinks about it. Which he does, long enough for Gert to roll her eyes and turn around fully. He haphazardly puts the apples back on the corner (What? They're already bruised!) and hurries after her, wrapping his arms around her from behind.
"You don't want to stay up and learn to juggle with me, babe?"
She laughs, but stills, leaning into him. "I already know how to juggle. I juggle all of you every day."
"Touché."
She twists her head, just enough to kiss his cheek. "Come to bed with me?"
It's in the early hours of the morning that she lets herself soften, lets herself ask him for simple things. Only when no one is watching, of course. No one but him. And it always fills him up, with warmth and love and all sorts of cheesy stuff, because she loves him, yeah, but she also trusts him. He's not sure he deserves that, not sure he deserves her at all, but he has her, and she has him. And he'll do anything he can to keep her, right here, laughing at him as she kisses him softly and treats him like an equal.
"I love you," he says into her neck.
"Love you too," she hums, and leads him to bed.