Aqua:
"Wait, Ven—what?"
He did not stop, and Aqua let him drag her out of the desk chair. She wasn't going to resist him, not with the puppy face he was all-too adept at adopting. Ven managed to grab her shoulders and with this leverage, pull her all the way back into the dorms—wait, it was already four? Aqua hadn't even noticed the clock since noon—and had opened the door and, before Aqua started resisting. He then completely gave up on the niceties and, wrapping his arms around her waist, yanked her into her half-made bed.
"Ven, Ven, what are you doing?"
He finally stopped moving once he'd wrapped around her like an octopus, with her blanket flung over them both. "You're very sleepy."
"What."
Aqua blinked at him, her brain finally catching up. There still was a half-finished essay on her laptop back in the lounge, and an entire chapter of her Civics left to read, and she had RA duties before the weekend.
"You." Ven somehow pulled her pillow close enough that he could put his spiky head on it. "Are." He snuggled into the blanket deeper, and closed his eyes dramatically. "Sleeping." And with that, Ven started to fake-snore.
"Veeen," Aqua moaned, and got her arm up to push him away, but was quickly stopped as Ven took advantage of the muscles he'd developed as pitcher to grab the hand and shushed her, "Shhh, we're sleeping."
"I literally have an essay due tomorrow."
"But we're sleeping."
"Ven." He opened his eyes, evidently tipped off by the fact that Aqua let her stressed-finals-week voice out, and his gaze met hers.
"Look, I asked Tifa and she said you slept in the lounge last night and sleeping on the desk does not count as actual rest." Aqua cursed her roommate silently, deciding to ignore the fact that she'd ratted Tifa out to Cloud less than a week before for the same thing. Turnabout is fair play, she grudgingly admitted. "So, I need my afternoon nap, and your bed is much more comfortable than mine, and since Terra is still in Germany, I have to be the one to drag you away from the real world."
Aqua scowled, but relaxed anyway into the bed, her headache still building. If coffee hadn't made the ache behind her temples go away as she'd hoped, then she knew, logically, the only thing left was sleep—though she'd only roomed with Aerith for one semester, the pre-med senior had told her more than her fair share of medical knowledge. So yes, she did have an essay, and she needed to plan for the next wing event, but…
When she didn't protest, Ven closed his eyes again. And he was right—Terra would have noticed far before him that Aqua wasn't sleeping well, but as he was in Germany there was no one to call her out on her crazy schedule. And she didn't even have any classes with Professor Eraqus this semester, who was the only professor who ever noticed when she mixed up assignments out of tiredness. And it wasn't like she could get out of Ven's grasp without hurting him—or herself, Aqua realized, because he actually might have gotten stronger than her at some point, due to his baseball practice.
So she stopped resisting Ventus' arms and made her shoulders relax.
She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep til she'd woken up, only two hours later but feeling like a new person, with no Ven in sight but a post-it note on her desk that said in his scrawled handwriting "You're welcome".
Terra:
"I have not seen you eat a vegetable in a week."
Terra flinched, and looked up. Aqua was standing there, Ven hovering beside her, in the opening of the bookshelf aisle. He realized suddenly that he'd been in the library since 8am, at least. Even the other finals-laden senior—a red-haired student with tattoos who Terra blearily thought was one of Roxas' friends but couldn't get his mind to remember his name—who had occupied the floor with him that day had disappeared. It must be dinnertime, Terra realized, because no one else was anywhere in sight. His stomach gave a rumble at the thought.
"How about..." Aqua continued, "I make you a proper dinner?"
Ven gave him a look that said you'd better. His expression told Terra that Aqua's polite smile was her I will personally force you if you do not listen to me glare and not her I'm trying to be nice expression. So he blinked and tried to get his mind to focus, get some evidence to prove Aqua wrong. He'd had… ramen, yesterday. For both meals. And, on Wednesday, he'd… what had Terra eaten on Wednesday? Was that the day he'd gotten by on a protein bar and a cookie from US History 103? No, that had been Tuesday. Wednesday, he'd eaten the last frozen mac'n'cheese. Then Monday… yeah, okay, he actually hadn't had a proper meal in over a week, and he realized then that he'd let the silence stretch and Aqua's eyebrow was creeping up into her Mom-friend mode engaged face. And Ven was starting to look seriously scared for Terra's health.
"I… I am fine, Aqua, I don't know what you're talking about," Terra bluffed, his voice a little croaker than usual after hours of nonuse, but he could still fool her, he thought. "I totally have had a, a vegetable, this week. Two, even."
The eyebrow was fully raised now, into the imminent doom spectrum, bordering on I will call your parents but not quite to I will call Braig and make him drag you into an emergency room, which Terra had unfortunately been on the receiving end of. He knew she didn't believe him.
"And, anyway," Terra hurried to add, "even if I hadn't, it's not necessarily unhealthy to live off ramen…" Ventus was shaking his head frantically—he too knew they had crossed into danger zone as Aqua started crossing her arms.
"Nope," Aqua cut him off, and, without another word, strode over and slammed his books shut. When he started protesting, she grabbed the other books and his bag and took them away too.
Terra looked back to Ven in exasperation, hoping for some sympathy, but Ven just shook his head, his face too composed to be anything other than hiding laughter, and he came up behind Terra and pulled the headphones out of his ears for him. They were ganging up on him. That just wasn't fair.
So Aqua grabbed his bag and all his stuff without another word, suppressing her glares, and led the way out of the library without looking behind her to be sure they followed. Terra wasn't going to follow, even though she'd taken his study materials, just to spite her—but Ven literally pulled the chair out from under him. From the floor, Terra glared and made some half-baked threats, but Ventus just laughed and dragged him after Aqua.
And, okay, yes, it did ease the sliminess in Terra's veins when Aqua put her home-cooked meal in front of him and didn't stop glaring until every green speck on the plate was gone.
Ven:
"Ven, I hate to break it to you," Terra grabbed him during the seventh inning, having conned his way into the bullpen somehow, "But you look terrible."
"Wow, rude," Roxas, who was standing nearby, said on Ven's behalf, as his twin was too busy hacking a lung to respond. Ven nodded thanks at him when he could breathe again, and glared at Terra in turn.
Terra held up his hands, "Wrong phrasing. You do look as handsome as ever," he made sure to glance at Roxas, who shrugged the compliment away, "but also super sick."
"He's not wrong, Vee." Roxas nudged him, and Ven was about to deliver a striking comeback but was brought up short by a sneeze, which was explosive enough to get the attention of Coach Cid, who glared at them for a second before going back to cussing out the outfielder. "Traitor," he gasped, but then turned back to Terra, wiping his nose on a towel, "And you're totally wrong. I'm not—" he paused to sneeze "—sick."
Terra and Roxas both gave him a I'm not buying it look.
"I am fine!" Ven held his nose, proud when the itching to sneeze again faded, and grinned at Terra to get him to leave him alone. This wasn't a major game or anything, and sure, their other pitcher was more than up to snuff today, but Ven wasn't about to step out. He'd be over the bug in a day or two. Yes, it was lasting longer than usual, but this cold was nothing, really. Or so he told himself.
"Uh-huh." Terra grabbed the glove from beside Ven, who squawked in alarm, and tried to grapple it back only to realize that the brunet could overpower him easily, which was unusual. Ven looked to Roxas for help, but his twin just shrugged. He knew what Ro was saying. You never let me help you, so I'm not gonna stop him from doing so. He stuck his tongue out at him. Roxas shrugged and went back to watching the game.
"Yo, Coach," Terra called next, and Ven flinched as Cid looked over, scowl in place and cigarette hanging out just as picturesquely. "What, you intruder?"
"I'm stealing your other pitcher," was Terra's response as he grabbed Ven's bag too, and any protestations Ven might've gotten out between coughs was lost as Cid barked a laugh and said, "Good riddance. His hacking is distracting to my other players!"
"Coach!" Ven whined, but the older man had gone back to watching the field in time to chew out Tidus, who had stumbled.
"See ya," called Demyx, who was lounging against the wall as usual, and none of the other team members protested as Ven was, in essence, kidnapped from in their midst.
"Roxas, you're supposed to be on my side!"
But his brother just raised a hand in farewell, didn't even look back at Ven, and said, "Thanks, Terra.
"You are all horrible people." Ven called, as Terra dragged him, physically, out of the pen.
He couldn't find it in himself to complain, though, because after Terra had bodily thrown him into bed and called Aqua to bring her patented feel-good chicken soup and forced Ven to eat the whole bowl before he left, Ven really did feel better.
...
~fin~
A/N: I'm really feeling this fic on a spiritual level, now that midterms are upon me and my friends have already had to drag me to bed so i don't stay up too late on multiple occasions
(can you tell that this wasn't edited at all)(because i can)
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Thanks for reading, guys! Sorry I've been so inactive, but I'm finally mostly adjusted to full-time college life and hopefully I'll be posting more soon!
have a blessed day