"OK, almost done!" Glimmer's voice was muffled from behind the bathroom door. "I really appreciate you helping me with this."

"Uh, yeah. No problem." Bow tapped his foot against the wall. It was a good thing there was basically no one around Glimmer's dorm tonight because otherwise Bow would have felt pretty sketchy hanging around outside the women's restroom for this long. Hopefully, he just looked like he was casually leaning against this wall for no particular reason.

He had indeed agreed to help. Though, when she'd texted to say that her roommate left for the afternoon and could he come over, he'd mostly blacked out the whole "to help me with this video thing" part because he was thinking of… well, other things they could do under those circumstances. Even now, he still hoped they could finish whatever this was quickly and move onto… other activities.

Between finals and their respective roommates sexiling them all the time, they hadn't been alone together in weeks. Now there were only a few days left in the semester. If he had to say goodbye to her and go home for summer break without getting to be with her again, he might literally die.

Glimmer had given him her phone before she disappeared into the bathroom. That was probably a good sign, right? That she trusted him with her phone, even though they hadn't been together that long?

Actually, he wasn't really sure if they were together together. He kept flipping the glittery purple case over, obsessively waking up the screen. Of course, he would never violate her trust and snoop around her phone but if a text preview were to happen to pop up on the home screen and he happened to see it… Something like a message from Adora saying, "Have fun hanging out with Bow, that guy you are dating and not just hooking up with, because you really like him!" that would do a lot to ease his mind.

"I'm sorry that took so long. I was planning to be ready before you even got here, but Mermista took sooo long in the bathroom. I swear to god, that girl is part fish." The door swung open and Glimmer stepped out in the hallway. And whatever he'd expected her to come out wearing, it wasn't… whatever he was looking at.

"Hey!" She stomped her foot, immediately annoyed at him, which… combined with the outfit, only made it more ridiculous. "Don't laugh at me!"

"I'm not laughing at you." He was laughing. A lot. And he couldn't seem to stop. But it wasn't at her. Not exactly, anyway.

"You are!" Glimmer hugged her arms around her middle. "Do I look stupid? I worked really hard on this!"

"No! No." He tried to make a serious face, but that didn't even last half a second before he burst into giggles again. "It looks great. I promise. You look great."

"Then why are you laughing?"

"Because…" I love you. That's what he wanted to say. But he still wasn't really sure where they stood and if the timing was right and… "Because you look super cute. Come here."

Glimmer growled at him, but allowed him to pull her into a twirl. Her dress was deep pink, dusted with sparkles, with bright yellow stars trailing down the skirt. It flounced outward as she spun and he caught sight of chunky red heels underneath. Her pink hair flipped outward into an adorable backwards bob, clipped back with a star barrette. She'd painted her cheeks with two ovals of exaggerated rouge, and her lipstick formed a tiny heart in the center of her lips.

She was so adorable it hurt. He linked his arm around her waist to tug her in for a kiss, but she blocked him with a finger on his lips. He whined a complaint, but she just shook her head.

"Nuh uh. We've got to do the video first." She wriggled out of his arms and headed down the hallway to her room. "I am NOT redoing my make-up! It took forever."

"So… video first." He followed, trying to sound real casual. "Does that mean, second we might—"

"Wait a minute." Glimmer stopped dead in the middle of her room and pointed at her desk chair where a mountain of clean laundry had teetered precariously earlier. "Did you put away my laundry again? Bow! You didn't have to do that."

"Oh, well, I just… You were still getting ready and I know you hate doing it and…" He shrugged. He was a little worried he was in trouble until she turned around and gave him a look that made him absolutely melt even in this crazy get-up.

"You are amazing." She linked her arms around his neck. Even with the heels, she was still only up to his chin. "I—" She hesitated. "—really appreciate you."

She tugged on his neck, and he knew that was his cue to lean down. And they'd barely seen each other all week, and he wanted to kiss her sooo badly but… "Make-up?"

"Ugh, damn it. Yes. Thank you." She let go of his neck and gave him a pat on the arm. Torture. "Later. I promise."

He took one of her hands and kissed the back of it instead. Ideally he would have said something really suave and romantic then, but he got completely distracted by the large blue and black ovals directly over her chest. "What are—"

"Excuse me, Mister, my eyes are up here."

"Uh, you've got a set down there too, just saying. Maybe I should cover them up for you, so they're not distracting?" He held out his hands like he was going to grab her chest and couldn't stop himself from smiling as she gave him a glare that was probably supposed to be intimidating but was too adorable to be actually threatening. He pulled his hands back. "OK! I'm sorry. I'm being serious now. This is my serious face. Tell me what we're doing."

Glimmer exhaled. "OK, so… you know how I said I'm part of a group of cosplayers on TikTok? Well… Wait, you know what TikTok is, right?"

"Uh, some kind of clock app?" He figured it was that, or some kind of thing about the crocodile from Peter Pan.

"What? No!" She was laughing, and he didn't care if it was at him. It was still the most beautiful sound in the world. "It's a video sharing site where… HOW are you this total tech genius with computers and robotics and stuff but such an old man about the internet?"

"It's part of my charm." He grinned, and she rolled her eyes at him.

"ANYWAY, don't worry about what it is. All you need to know is there's this trend right now I agreed to take part in but I need to get this video up by the end of today or we miss our window to get in on it. Got it?"

"Yes, ma'am." He gave her a soldier's salute. "So… who are you dressed as?"

"You can't tell?" She looked so crestfallen he wished he hadn't said it. She gestured to her dress. "I'm Kirby! We all cosplay Nintendo characters."

"Ohhhh, like… Mario Kart?" He was kind of an old man about video games too.

"Well, Smash Brothers, actually. So, yeah, Kirby. He's my main. I love him. He's tiny, angry, pink and violent."

Like you, Bow thought, but he was too smart to say it out loud. He was still trying to get laid tonight, after all. Though, now that she mentioned it, he vaguely remembered some pink blob repeatedly murdering him the only time she'd convinced him to play with her. "Kirby. Got it. I guess I never thought of him as… sparkly?"

There was a moment of tense silence between him, Glimmer and the fuckton of body glitter all over her arms and face.

"Well, I mean… he's magic." She waved her hand vaguely.

"Mmmhmm."

"I just really like glitter, OK?" She put her hands on her hips. "It's part of MY charm."

"Oh? I hadn't noticed." Like there wasn't glitter all over everything he owned from spending time with her. He'd washed his sheets twice since she'd last come over, and they still twinkled. Not that he was complaining. Finding a random sparkle could turn his entire day around. It felt like she was staking her claim on him.

She gave him a playful shove on the chest, probably leaving glitter there too.

"So, anyway, everyone records their videos separately and then Lonnie—she does Princess Daisy but in her biker outfit from Mario Kart—will edit them all together. The trend is we're throwing…" She disappeared into her closet and reappeared a moment later with a large beach ball. "A ball back and forth. So I'm going to like… pretend to suck it into my mouth from this side of the screen, because that's Kirby's power, and we edit the video so I, like… spit it back out to the next person on this side. And then Rogelio, he's Bowser, he makes it look like he's catching it before passing it to Kyle, who does Princess Peach, and it continues like that. Got it?"

He didn't really, but he tried to look like he did. "OK, but that beach ball is bigger than your head?"

"Well, Kirby can fit anything in his mouth."

"CAN he now?" He lifted his eyebrows and Glimmer immediately flushed scarlet. "Any chance for a demonstration later?"

"OH MY GOD!" She hid her face behind her hands, but he could still tell how hard she was blushing by how her ears turned pink. He laughed, not sure if maybe he'd crossed some kind of line. They'd only had sex a few times. Maybe they weren't really at the point where they could joke about it yet. "Stopppp it!"

"I'm helping you out. Isn't Kirby's face pink? Now yours is too!"

"You're just… Don't make it weird! The video game is for children! All perfectly innocent! It's just like Kirby takes people in his mouth and, like, sucks in their power and…" She lowered her hands and he raised his eyebrows. "And, holy shit, is this actually dirty or is my mind just in the gutter because it's been weeks since we… OK. Stop being sexy and distracting or we are never getting this done!"

She threw the beach ball at him, but he caught it. So he was sexy and distracting, was he? He pretended to fuss with the tripod light so she wouldn't notice how inordinately pleased he was with that comment.

"OK, so I'll stand here because it's the only place with good enough light where you can't see all Catra's crap in the background. Then you prop the phone up on the stand and start the video and you stand off camera and toss me the ball. Got it?" She unlocked her phone and handed it to him. He stared at it for what must have been a little too long, because she prompted. "The video apps' in the bottom right corner."

"Uh, yeah. Right. There it is!" He hesitated a moment more, looking at the adorable picture of them she had as her phone background. Phone background, that seemed like a pretty big deal, didn't it? That's the picture you see the most often. And the one she'd used, where he was kissing her cheek. That was… well, it was a couples picture, right?

Or maybe it meant nothing and—

"Hey, so, Bow? I'm probably staying with my aunt in California for most of the summer." Glimmer was suddenly very interested in her skirt. "I looked it up and there's a bunch of things to do nearby. Like this tech museum and this science center and some of the big computer places do tours. Just, you know, nerdy stuff that you might like if you wanted to… maybe come and hang out with me for part of it?"

When he didn't answer right away, she flicked her eyes up to his, but he was still completely at a loss for words that she thought he need some tourist destination to entice him to visit her. She was enough of a draw on her own. "I'd really like that."

Her face immediately broke into an enormous smile. "OK, good! Because if I had to go all summer without seeing you, I was going to DIE."

They went for each other automatically and then both remembered the make-up thing at the same time. Bow took her hands instead and swung them. "OK, now we really need to finish this because not being able to kiss you right now is killing me."

"I know! I know. And I'm sorry I'm wasting our time together to do this! But the others in this group are all really popular and I want them to include me in future trends so… though, I guess it's silly, because I'll get all this traffic from doing this but it'll be a total waste since I have nothing new to upload. By the time I finish finals and get home, I'll be as good as dead to the algorithm."

"Hey. Listen, this is something that's important to you. And that makes it important to me even if I don't really understand it." He tried to remember the few things she'd told him about it. "Don't you usually film a bunch in a row while you're dressed up? How about we do that today while we're at it, so you have some new stuff ready to upload? Take advantage of the algorithm or traffic or whatever."

"No, I can't ask you to do that. This is going to take long enough, and I wanted to still have time with you to… you know."

"Glimmer, I enjoy being with you. Whatever we're doing. And if this would make your life easier or make you happy? I'm just as content to do this as… anything else."

"You really mean it?"

"Absolutely."

"Wow." She was smiling at him and maybe it was all the body glitter, but her eyes were absolutely sparkling. "You really are the best boyfriend ever."

Wow, boyfriend? He would do whatever she wanted if made her smile at him like that.

"You don't have to watch me do this, you know." Glimmer was washing off her make-up at the sink. She was back in her normal clothes, no less glittery than her costume was. "You could go do something fun."

"Being with you is fun." Bow watched her reflection from where he was leaning against the door frame. They'd propped open the door to the ladies' room so they could argue he was technically in the hallway if an RA came by. "Besides, you still owe me that kiss."

"Oh, and you're going to get it!" She made eye contract with him through the mirror, giving him a look that did not make it any easier knowing they'd missed their chance for… other activities.

It had taken them at least twenty tries, a lot of laughter, and the brave sacrifice of her roommate's lava lamp (a causality of a mis-thrown beach ball), but they finally got the footage they needed. Then they'd used all the time they had left to write and film half a dozen extra videos for her to upload in the next week so she could keep her momentum and now, well, they were out of time.

Glimmer pulled another make-up wipe out, attacking the blush on the other side of her face. "But I still feel guilty! I took up your entire afternoon. We don't have that much time together before we leave for the summer and Catra's going to be back any minute and then Adora will come over and we can't go to your room…"

"So, we'll go for a walk across campus. Maybe down to the cafe and play board games." They could hold hands on the lawn of the quad or snuggle on a bench and talk about pointless things all night. If he could see her smile and make her laugh, that would still be a near perfect evening. "I just want to be with you. I don't care what we're doing."

"Oh, yeah? Does that mean you'll cosplay with me someday? Because I'd love that!"

"Me?" He laughed. "Who would I even dress up as?"

"I'd have to think about it." She threw out the spent wipe and started rinsing off her face. "You're really tall so you could be, I don't know…"

"Waluigi."

She snorted, spraying water all over the mirror. "No!"

"Oh, wait, excuse me. BLACK Waluigi."

She was laughing so hard now she could hardly answer him. "I meant like a couples' costume!"

"So… you'd be… Wario?"

Glimmer cracked up, doubling over. She waved him off with her hand, apparently too overcome by the mental image to speak. God, he loved making her laugh.

He was laughing now, too. "Please tell me your costume would include a sparkly pink mustache to match your hair. Because if that's the case, I WILL absolutely do it just for that."

"You are killing me. Forget I said anything." She squeaked, wiping tears from her eyes with her towel and throwing everything back in her shower caddy.

"No, please, I'm very excited about dressing as fan favorite couple Black Waluigi and Sparkly Pink Wario. What an iconic duo!"

"We're an iconic duo." She left her caddy on the sink and walked over to him. A stray giggle bubbled out as she reached up and kissed him. "I love you."

Wow. That was new. His heart felt like it had swelled as big as her beach ball. "Really?"

"Yeah, really." She kissed him again, deeper this time, and he wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. Standing in the doorway of a public bathroom was not the most romantic location to make out, but since they'd spent their entire relationship so far stealing kisses in awkward corners around campus, it was rather fitting. He could have kept kissing her basically forever, despite the surroundings, but she pulled away and went to grab her stuff from the sink. "Come on. Let me get my phone and we'll go somewhere. Maybe we can find an empty lecture hall to make out in or something. God, I can't WAIT until you come visit me this summer and we can actually be alone for more than five seconds at a time."

"Yeah, I'd really like that." He held her hand as they went back to her room, even though it was only a few steps, because he couldn't stand to not be touching her right now. He had to convince his dads to let him go. The idea that he could spend a couple of weeks alone with his girlfriend—His girlfriend! Who loved him!—made him giddy with happiness.

Glimmer grabbed her phone and Bow folded up the tripod for her. He tucked it into her closet and started straightening the sheets on her bed.

"Hey, Bow?"

"Yeah—oof!" He turned, only to be tackled backwards onto the bed by barely 5 feet of glitter and pink.

Glimmer landed next to him on the mattress, laughing breathlessly. "Catra's car broke down. She's stuck overnight in Scorpius. We've got the room to ourselves until tomorrow morning!"

She wound her hands around his neck and pulled him forward for a kiss, her leg linking over his. When she pulled away, her face was flushed pink and the reflection in her eyes turned the garish overhead lights into something magical. Even after four wipes, a thin sheen of sparkles still twinkled across her nose. Even with no make-up on, she was still somehow the most beautiful, funny, strong, amazing girl he'd ever met.

"I love you." He tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, brushing his fingers against her cheek. "Also, I mean. I should have said that before when—"

"It's OK." She leaned over and whispered conspiratorially. "I already knew."

"How?" Was he really THAT transparent?

"Because of all the little things you do. The way you always pick me up a kiwi strawberry Snapple when there's one in the freezer case because you know it's my favorite. How you'll help me study for subjects you know nothing about or put away my laundry or get me water after I've been partying too hard. Not to mention the hours you've spent listening to me rant about my classes or my roommate or my mom without complaint. Plus, when you were ready to give up any chance of hooking up today to help me do my stupid thing… that was kind of a dead giveaway too." She bit her lip and gave him a very sneaky look. "Also, you make these total gooey eyes. You're actually doing it right now. It's a litttttle obvious."

She booped his nose with her finger.

"I think I'm offended." He wasn't, really. He was too deliriously happy to be. "Well, I may be obvious but at least I'm not covered in sparkles."

"Oh, yeah?" Glimmer jumped off the bed. A moment later she'd closed the door and turned off everything but the tiny purple fairy lights above her bed. She crashed back down on the mattress, rolling herself directly on top of him. "Well, by the time I'm done with you, you'll be covered in them too."

Yeah, he thought as he surrendered to her lips, that was fine with him.