They're going for a run together.
Emira has no clue how this happened. She just knows that after school, she went up to Viney with a whole bunch of half-formed ideas about maybe getting food together, and then Viney said, "I'm going for a run. Want to come with me?" and now they're running.
It's still November, and a light coat of snow fell yesterday, but Emira is sweating through her jeans (which, in retrospect, aren't ideal running clothes, but cut her some slack because she literally had no idea this was going to happen). Viney seems blissfully unaffected by the cold and the exertion, and her dog is on a slightly longer leash and keeps bounding through the thin, dirty snowdrifts.
Emira is also getting a little out of shape, she realizes. Volleyball season is almost over, and she's been too busy with The Plan (capital letters obligatory) to maintain her workout schedule, and her lungs are starting to feel it, even though it's been barely a mile. Viney slows down a little to match her pace and gives her a brief look that might be construed as concerned, then keeps right on running. The muscles in her calves are sleek and tough, and if Emira looks at them it's only because she's jealous.
It's November and the weather is insane, so of course they cross an intersection and suddenly the clear, cold sunlight is replaced with a freezing rain that stings Emira's face and worms its way down her collar.
"Damnit, I thought the weather would be okay," Viney says, pulling to a halt and trying to shelter underneath her arms. Her bare legs look purple already. "Do you see anywhere we can shelter?"
Emira scans the street. The trees are bare and offer no protection, and the houses on either side are locked up and inhospitable.
"No. I guess we'll just stay out here and die of hypothermia, then."
Viney gives a small sound that might almost be a chuckle.
"Let's keep going. I think there's a bus stop six blocks that way."
"Six blocks?" Emira says, trying to keep a dramatic wail out of her voice and probably not succeeding. She will actually die if she has to run another six blocks. All she wants to do is fall over, curl up in the snow, and pass away with some measure of dignity.
Three blocks in, Emira sees, through her frozen eyelashes, the welcoming glow of a coffee shop.
"Over here! Shelter!" she calls, and Viney follows her in.
They're the only people in the coffee shop, aside from a barista who looks very annoyed when Puddles shakes water all over the floor. Emira orders them both hot chocolate, and does her best to give the barista a winning smile. She doesn't seem impressed.
They sit down. Emira wraps her hands around her cup and tries to calm her shivering. Viney swipes a finger through the whipped cream on top of her drink and lets the dog lick it off, and it's kind of gross, but Emira laughs, and then Viney sort of laughs too, and then they just sit in a coffee shop, their hair dripping onto the floor, in fits of hysterical giggles.
"We're bonding through life-threatening trauma," Emira says gleefully. "We've worked together to survive this blizzard –"
"It's not even raining that hard –"
"And now you own a piece of my soul. We're connected for life."
"If I own a piece of your soul, can I sell it to Satan for a ride out of here?" Viney asks, and she looks completely serious until she cracks up laughing at the end.
"If you take me along, then you can sell all of my soul you want," Emira says. "Anything to get out of the rain."
"We're not even in the rain any more. We are literally inside, you drama queen."
"Well, now I want my soul back." Emira pouts at her and makes grabby hands, and Viney leans away.
"No, it's mine now. But I can lend you a scarf so you don't die on the way home."
"Are you making fun of me?" Emira asks. "Because I'll have you know that you can die of hypothermia from rain. This is no joke."
Viney laughs, and pulls a scarf out of her bag. It's red and green and a bit lumpy, and looks hand-knitted. Emira wonders if Viney made it herself, or if she has a mildly embarrassing grandma somewhere who keeps sending her scarves. Either option is pretty cute.
"Thanks," Emira says. She takes the scarf and puts it on; it's way too hot to wear it inside, but whatever. Emira deserves some comfort before the icy hand of death takes her.
"Um, sorry if this is a weird question, but what do you look like?"
Emira is dumbstruck for a second, then she fumbles for words because she doesn't want Viney to feel uncomfortable.
"Um, no, that's not a weird question! It's probably weird to be friends with someone and not know what they look like –"
And she's just called them friends, when she has literally no idea what they are, and she's just talking too much.
"I'm an inch or two taller than you," Emira says, for lack of anything better to do. "Shaped like a stringbean, and so white I sunburn in ten seconds. I have green hair – wait, shit, does that actually mean anything to you?"
"I haven't been blind my whole life," Viney says, and Emira resolves to properly ask her about that later, when they can have a reasonable conversation without Emira constantly sounding like an idiot. "I know what colors are."
"Uh, great," Emira says, still feeling like an idiot.
"Can I, um, can I touch you?"
Emira's brain stutters to a complete halt.
Most of the time, there's at least the irritating little voice of her anxiety going on and on about how badly she fucked this up. But apparently even her anxiety has been shocked into silence.
"Like, your face. Just so I can feel what you look like," Viney clarifies, looking more or less the way Emira feels.
"Sure," Emira blurts out, because as weird as Viney touching her face is, turning her down is probably worse.
Viney nods and slowly reaches her hand out. Emira doesn't breathe. The hand makes contact, two fingers on the bridge of her nose.
Emira is actually going to die. Viney's fingers are callused and delicate and gentle, and they're sort of tickling her as they move. Emira feels a little bit like a cat or something. And she doesn't even care about how awkward this is because, hello, pretty girl with nice hands touching her face.
Viney is leaning forward a little, concentrating, and Emira kind of wants to close her eyes but she also just wants to stare at Viney. And, oh, this is very weird and might be a big problem, but whatever.
Someone else barges into the coffee shop, the little bell above the door jingling, and Viney jumps and pulls her hand away from Emira. Emira's brain comes back online, and she grabs her cup of hot chocolate and drinks half of it in an effort to panic less.
Okay, so a pretty girl touched her face and she liked it a little bit. That means absolutely nothing. It's probably just, like, the way the human nervous system works. Getting your face touched feels nice. Right? And obviously, it's just that because Edric is head over heels for Viney, and Emira might insult Edric a lot, but it comes from a place of love. She is a good sister, and a great wingwoman, for the record, thank you very much.
So whatever stupid emotions happened totally didn't happen.
…
Viney keels over on her bed and groans. Puddles, under the impression that she's dying of an actual wound and not just panic, licks her hand consolingly, and Viney ignores him.
Viney Sohal is not a smart person.
Viney really did try to keep Emira at a healthy distance. But Emira is nice, and funny, and clever, and it seems like she genuinely enjoys spending time with Viney. No, it's more than that. When Emira's around, she gives the impression that there is nowhere else in the world she'd rather be than sitting there talking to Viney.
Is that why she's popular? Are people popular not because they can intimidate or bribe everyone else into liking them, but because they're genuinely decent people? Or is she faking everything?
Viney is currently leaning towards "faking everything", because she can't come up with a good reason why Emira is trying to be her friend. She also can't come up with a good reason why Emira would be pretending to be her friend. But the safe default is mistrust.
And Viney really was trying to mistrust Emira. But she had a momentary lapse of focus, which is a nice way of saying lost her fucking mind and decided to touch Emira's face. And Emira had just relaxed completely and leaned in to the touch, and Viney is now going to die. That's it.
Puddles gives up on licking her hand, and jumps up onto the bed to settle across her stomach. Viney groans half-heartedly, but doesn't push him off. If she dies now, she'll never have to face Emira Blight or her feelings again, and being dead seems like a small price to pay for that.
Eventually, being slowly crushed to death starts to get too painful, and Emira shoves Puddles off of her. He whines and cries and tries every trick to make it seem like Viney has just done him an unforgivable injury, and Viney scratches him behind the ears and compromises by snuggling on the floor with him. Puddles manages to convey that he might forgive her eventually, which is good enough.
"Siri, play Alanis Morrisette," she says, and turns the volume up until the neighbors will complain, until the bassline is almost loud enough to drown out her thoughts.
A/N: Alanis Morisette is my default for angry gay emotions, and quite possibly should be everyone's. That's it. That's the whole note.