Happy New Year, now stop bothering me about updates.


Aveline got home before Connor's parents did, clearly for an important reason since she opened the door carefully and dragged Malik inside. She clearly didn't account for Desmond and Connor who both stared at her from the couch.

"Uh… Connor what are you doing here?" she asked.

Connor looked at Desmond, then back at his sister, "I live here," he said.

"Aren't you grounded?" she demanded.

"Aren't you not supposed to bring boys over when dad isn't home?" and he rose his brows, looking over Aveline's shoulder at Malik.

"Yeah well you're not supposed to have anyone over," she said.

"I won't tell dad if you don't," Connor said.

Aveline eyed him a moment, "Deal," she said and then pushed Malik towards her room. She pulled her phone out from her purse, "Smile for my followers," she said and Desmond had time to look confused when the flash went off.

"Aveline," Connor groaned.

"Bye bye," she waved and then followed Malik to her room.

"What was that about?" Desmond asked.

"What was what about?"

"The picture?"

Connor rolled his eyes, "Aveline uses instagram to document her lolita and fuel her selfie lifestyle and has like… seven thousand followers or something. She likes putting pictures of me on there sometimes."

"She has instagram?" Desmond had made an instagram account like a year ago and had promptly become bored with it and forgot it existed.

"Yeah."

"Seven thousand followers?" Desmond asked again.

"…Yeah?"

"How does your sister have seven thousand followers?"

"Cause she's a cute girl who posts pictures of herself in cute clothes?" Connor seemed very confused about why Desmond wasn't understanding this, clearly, simple concept. "Also lolita." Desmond dug out his phone and went to the app store. "Are you seriously downloading instagram?" Connor asked.

"I want to see what your sister posts on it," he said, "Also I was in that picture too," and now he just left his phone to finish the download. "So what movie are we going to watch now?" he asked.

"Uh, I don't know, you pick one," and Connor handed Desmond the Xbox controller. Desmond started going through Netflix.

"Iron Man," Desmond said and stopped on it.

"Never seen it-

"WHat?!" Desmond cried.

"I don't really like super hero stuff," Connor said.

Desmond stared at him, "We literally can't be friends," he said seriously. Connor snorted. "You're watching it. At least tell me you've seen Lord of the Rings."

"Yeah, they were okay-

Desmond made a pained shrieking noise and Connor laughed. "Everything okay out there?" Aveline called from her room.

"Your brother doesn't like Lord of the Rings!" Desmond cried. Aveline laughed and closed her door again. "How do you not like Lord of the Rings?" he demanded.

"You mean Walking the Movie?" Connor asked.

"I literally can't be near you oh my god," and Desmond got up and went and sat on the armchair.

"Aww, c'mon Desmond," Connor groaned.

"Nope," and Desmond pressed play on Iron Man, "I can't hang out with you till you've been properly educated about super hero movies, and watch Lord of the Rings, which is amazing by the way."

Connor just rolled his eyes at Desmond and leaned back in the couch when the movie started playing. While the movie played instagram finished downloading and Desmond opened it to play around with it. He'd seen Iron Man over two dozen times, he didn't really need to watch it to know what was going on. He fiddled with the app, figuring out how it worked sort of.

"What's your sister's instagram name?" Desmond asked, not looking at Connor.

"What?" Connor asked, Desmond repeated himself. "Black underscore lolita," he said. "Why?"

"Because I'm following her," he said and then started going through her timeline. The most recent picture wasn't him and Connor like he'd thought, rather a picture of Malik's face. He had to agree with the caption, 'isn't he cute?' Aveline had excellent taste. Under that was the picture of him and Connor. "Do you ever look at your sister's instagram?" he asked Connor.

"Not really, I see all her outfits in person," Connor shrugged.

"Huh," Desmond looked back down at his phone. Aveline was way more perceptive than Connor was apparently because her caption for them was 'Connor and his totally-not-boyfriend-friend Desmond.' He thought it was appropriate. He looked through the rest of her timeline. Most of the images were of her, all dressed up, or of her face, or of cute things she wanted. Now and then friends would pop up on her timeline, and Connor too. He saw some pictures from the after finals party in there but not many. Mostly though it seemed to be Aveline's way to chronicle her lolita and her many outfits. Apparently she had dozens of outfits, and they all gave Desmond cavities because even he thought they were super cute. Apparently he and seven thousand other people thought that too.

Desmond took a picture of Connor, startling him. "What are you doing?"

"You're the first picture on my instagram," Desmond said.

"Uhg, not you too," Connor complained.

Desmond snickered and started playing with the filters. He didn't like most of them, they were stupid or made things blurry or off color. There was one that lightened a picture though, he used that since it was sort of dark. Then he posted it. He didn't expect anything from it, but now he'd done something at least.

"Are you even watching the movie?" Connor asked.

Desmond looked at the screen, "How many languages do you speak? A lot. But apparently not enough for this place. They speak Arabic, Urdu, Dari, Pashto, Mongolian, Farsi, Russian. Who are these people? They are your loyal customers, sir. They call themselves the Ten Rings," Desmond said, quoting along with the movie.

"Did you seriously just do that?" Connor asked.

"You know we might be more productive if you included me in the planning process," Desmond said.

"Stop that it's annoying," Connor said.

Desmond grinned, "I know basically every line," he said, "And I am watching it. I'm just looking at instagram too," he grinned.

Connor sighed, "All right," he huffed and Desmond looked back at his phone. It didn't take him long to find the search feature and being him the first thing he searched was men.

He wasn't disappointed.

"Thank god for instagram," Desmond said to himself and quickly found the good tags to search for cute boys. Desmond followed a dozen in about ten seconds.

"Desmond why are you making those faces?" Connor asked after a few minutes of scrolling through the tag, which pained him in all the best ways. So many cute boys in the world, and so many of them were willing to get shirtless or pants-less. He loved the social media age.

"Not not Connor there are cute boys on the internet," he said.

"What?" and Connor got up and came to stare over Desmond's shoulder. "… Why are you looking at this?"

"Because I'm gay and like cute boys?" now it was Desmond's turn to act confused as to why Connor was being so stupid about such a simple concept.

"Yeah… well…" Connor made a face and Desmond wasn't exactly sure what it meant.

"What?" Desmond asked. Connor just looked, annoyed honestly.

"Nothing," Connor said and went to go sit back on the couch.

"Jealous I'm looking at cute boys?" because that was interesting to him.

"No!" Connor said but by the flush on his cheeks he so was.

"Oh my god you so are," Desmond couldn't help but grin. "That's so cute," because Connor being jealous was like a kitten being jealous and wanting attention.

"Uh…"

"For the record, I think you're pretty cute too," and Connor flushed even more. "Also Aveline's followers liked our picture, apparently we look good together," he totally pulled that out of his ass, but Connor didn't check Aveline's timeline, he wouldn't know.

Connor was about to say something when they both heard a car pull up in the driveway. "Uh-oh," Connor said and they looked at each other with wide eyes. Connor lurched and grabbed Desmond's hand, pulling him towards the back door. As they did Connor knocked on Aveline's door, "Ava, dad's home."

"Shit!" they heard her cry from her room and then they were at the back door.

"Sorry," Connor said, opening the door to the oppressive Florida winter.

"For what?" Desmond asked, "That was exciting. I've never had to sneak out the back of someone's house before."

"Connor?" Ziio called when the front door opened, "Aveline, we brought home dinner."

"You should go," Connor said.

"Yeah probably. I'll see you at school," he grinned and they both looked when the window to Aveline's room opened. The screen was popped out and Malik slid out. The collar of his polo was popped, which wasn't normal.

"Your dad sucks," Malik told Aveline, who took the screen back.

"Yes he does," and she gave him a kiss. "See you tomorrow," and then she noticed Desmond and Connor.

"You'd be in more trouble than me," Connor said before she could say anything.

"At least I get to kiss mine," she stuck her tongue out at him and Connor turned bright red.

"See you later, Connor," and Desmond knew he needed to leave. He and Malik went the same way around the house to the front where the Kenway car was parked, empty of its occupants.

"You and Connor dating?" Malik asked, giving him a side eyed look.

"Uh… no," Desmond said awkwardly.

Malik just shrugged and headed down the street to his car. Desmond walked the other direction towards his house.