Chapter 11: Implied and Intertwined (A follow-up to Chapter 10)
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Patricia was slumped down in her seat on the bus, hidden away from first glance. Her headphones were pulled off of one ear in effort to hear when Eddie was approaching… And she knew he would be eventually; he would see that she went missing after he had finished letting everyone else kiss up to him. Or then again, maybe he wouldn't…maybe someone else would have to point it out to him… She didn't really know for sure anymore.

His footsteps stomped up the stairs and she crouched even lower, turning the volume down on her music on the off chance it was audible inside the bus. He was out of breath and she couldn't see but he ran his hand back through his hair before he breathed out a sigh.

"Come on, Patricia! Where are you," he half wheezed half growled under his breath.

She squeezed her eyes shut and pretzeled herself into a tighter ball hoping it would allow her to disappear all together when he began to advance down the aisle looking through the rows of seats. When he got to the place where they had sat on the drive in and plopped down, his hands immediately hit the back of his head.

Patricia choked back a laugh at the frustrated groan that he let out with his elbows rested on his knees.

She apparently hadn't stifled it enough as Eddie's attention was drawn towards the back of the bus. He spotted a purse strap barely dangling off the seat a handful of rows back and a relieved smile spilled across his face.

She frowned as his footsteps resumed and picked up speed as they neared…the gig was up, she knew had been caught.

"There you are!" Eddie snatched the purse off the seat and added it to the pile of his own things in his lap as he sat down beside her. His breathing had stabled from his mad search across campus, "Why did you take off back there, Yacker?"

She could feel his eyes boring down on her…worried, questioning, anticipating but she refused to look his way. She would have preferred not to speak to him at all, but with the long drive back and their close quarters with each other it was inevitable.

She knew herself better than that and clearly, so did he.

"Yacker?"

She inhaled a deep breath, her words terse as to not encourage the conversation to move forward, "Just taking my timeout."

He gave a confused smile, "Wh— I don't?…"

"Oh, is that not what you wanted me to do?" She sat up to give her legs a much needed stretch and ignored his blatant bewilderment as she reclaimed her purse from his lap, still strategically avoiding his eyes. "Could've fooled me…"

He noted her eyebrow flick and taut lips, "Heh, did I…say something…wrong, Patricia?"

She shrugged her shoulders up to her neck and slammed them back down after a dramatic pause.

"Dunno…did you?"

He huffed, biting a lip and then smacking it back in place unable to keep from bursting out, "Okay, cut the crap, Yacker, alright! Stop acting like a two year old and tell me what's wrong!"

Patricia tore her headphones down to her neck and snapped her head to look him in the eye for the first time. Fire met with fire and the air in the vehicle grew thick with tension.

"I'll stop acting like one when you decide to stop treating me like one! Don't know if you've forgotten, but I didn't want any part of this, remember? But I keep coming to these stupid things for you and trying to help you out and be supportive but you just ignore my effort most of the time."

He tried to interject but she didn't give him the chance.

"I defended you back there and you called me down like a dog. But what did you say to the others when they did the same thing?" He rolled his eyes at her feigned thoughtful pose. "…Oh, that's right. Nothing. Did you even notice that I was gone or did someone have to tell you? It's funny isn't it…everyone else shows up for one meet and suddenly they're you're biggest fans. Well why didn't you just tell me to stay home if you wanted them there that badly?"

He sighed at her scoff, "You done?"

"Maybe!" she snarled.

There was a beat of heavy silence only to be broken when Eddie was certain she wouldn't be the one to do it.

"That's so bogus, Patricia!"

"Wha—!"

"You know I want you here with me. And since when are you the type to want attention anyway? I think you're just jealous and blowing things out of proportion here. You're just not used to sharing me on the weekends. It'll be different next week, okay?"

If he caught the disappointment that flicked through her eyes he showed no signs. It wasn't just about this week for her.

"Yep. That's it. You're right."

"Good!" he breathed, happy to have ironed it all out.

But when she was quick to put her headphones back in place he knew she didn't think he was right.

Heck, after reconsidering her words, he wasn't so sure that he thought he was right either.

The students filing onto the bus that hadn't heard a word of anything only had to take one look at the display before them to know Eddie had said something to set Patricia off. A few puzzled looks from Anubis House caught his eye in particular. They were the final vote to make it unanimous as he closed his eyes to prepare himself to man up…he was wrong.

"Patricia?… Yacker?…"

She craned her head farther away from him, not swayed by the slight strain in his voice. Her stare was fixed out the window of the bus and she was mentally willing the landscape to start moving now—with or without everyone on board.

She was more successful at sustaining the gasp from hitting her lips than she had been with her laughter but they both felt her tense up when he threaded his fingers into hers. And then she felt his eyes on her again desperate and apologetic, but she ignored it.

Eddie eventually wrestled his own headphones off his neck and back into place with one hand. He sighed in defeat for the second time that day, his head hitting its rest on the seat as he mumbled out, "Eddie, you idiot! I'm sorry, Yacker."

Their hands remained intertwined. Eddie needed to feel her close to him. Patricia refused to clue him in that he had an affect on her by pulling away or reacting to the apology she had, unbeknownst to him, actually heard.

Half-way home and still stubborn, she felt his hand start to slack in hers and chanced a look up at him. Her neck was stiff from being strained in one position anyway…or at least that was her excuse for when he was to ask her about it.

To her relief, she found that she need not worry about any questions that may have been there to greet her. Eddie had apparently fallen asleep somewhere along the road; his eyebrows were knitted together even in his slumber as if he had anticipated her to speak up and had been ready for more confrontation. The main thing she took away from his tense face was the fact that he hadn't given up on her, even if that meant it wasn't going to end well for him. That realization caused an unfamiliar feeling to spread within her from the pit of her stomach.

She grinned lightly whispering fondly to him under her breath, "Stupid Slimeball…you know I don't do emotions. Just give it up already…"

After giving her neck a decent stretch she let her head fall back into the position it had been trained to sit. She curled his arm in closer to her, flipping it over so that her's rested on top of his.

Eddie stirred enough to find the change of pace and feel her thumb stroking up and down the side of his palm. Once oriented back to his surroundings he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and sat up straighter in his seat, ready to hear what—if anything—she was wanting to say to him.

But to his surprise, he found her exactly as she had been when he had started drifting off. It was if she hadn't moved a muscle the entire time he was out. He may have been discouraged by this revelation had her thumb not resumed its steady rhythm next to his after he had settled himself back in for the rest of the drive.

In Patricia speak, that was as good as anything. It implied that all was forgiven between them, and while it would be nice to hear in her whiny British yack, he knew her well enough to know that he wasn't ever going to get verbal confirmation of it. And surprisingly, with Patricia, he found himself needing less of what he wanted and more of what she felt comfortable with.

And maybe that just meant they were intertwined beyond a stubborn standoff in the form of a hand hold in a charter bus. Maybe, he thought, it implied a deeper connection between them. One that he was perfectly okay with fighting for, if that's what she needed.

Eddie brought their hands up to kiss her thumb in acknowledgment, letting her curl them back to her although it wasn't the most pleasant of positions for him. His eyes fell shut with ease once more and he snuggled back into his seat. When his hand slacked again, she squeezed it tighter.

Patricia wasn't going to let him go.

A/N: Sorry for the delay! I'm going to stop promising chapters for certain times because something always ends up happening with me that prevents me from finishing or posting them. But thank you so much for liking this story and I hope you like this chapter too. Sibuna!