just like this (i'll walways love you)

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Be-beep! Be-beep! Be-beep!

Grian yawns, blinks open bleary eyes to peer squinting at the alarm on his phone.

07:20 February 14 2023.

Well. That’s unfortunate, there was no way he was going to beat Mumbo to school at this rate. Goodness if he doesn’t enjoy getting to school before his boyfriend, watching the way Mumbo struggles to maneuver his bags out of the passenger seat of his car is one of the funniest things he’s seen in a while. Besides, it helps that offering to help him makes Mumbo flush tomato-red. Mumbo typically arrives around 7:30, though, and Grian still needs to get dressed and brush his teeth before he can even think about the fifteen-minute ride to school.

He shoves a slice of buttered toast into his mouth before he jogs out the door and into the car- jeeze it’s cold! The car flickers on the morning news upon starting, before he can slide in the CD Mumbo burned for him for his birthday.

”When I wake up,” sings the radio, ”Well I know I’m gonna be, I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next to you,” and Grian drives to school with all the anticipation of knowing today will definitely be better than acing his stats test yesterday.

<3

Several freshmen bustle into the building behind Grian as he strides towards the table he shares with Mumbo, Scar, Impulse, and Pearl. Doc or Ren have probably already stopped by to say hello, so he’s missed them, but everyone else he usually sees is there. Mumbo’s standing when he gets there, bouncing on his toes and wiggling his fingers the way he only does when he’s really excited, so either Grian’s escapades last night have paid off, or he has a surprise waiting for him somewhere.

Pearl grabs him as he passes her and ruffles his hair. “Grian! You rascal, what did you do? He’s been like this all morning, won’t say a word!”

“IIIII may or may not have gone out to his last night around ten and snuck chocolates into his car.”

Mumbo whips around to face him, grinning wildly. “Go put your things away and come back, I love you so much.” Grian does, in fairness, usually put his bag up before he sits down for breakfast, so he pecks his boyfriend once on the cheek and turns to walk back in the direction of the seniors’ hallway.

Inside of his steel-blue locker, sitting on the locker shelf he’s hung from the hooks near the top, is a red heart-shaped box. There’s a spot on the bottom where Mumbo very clearly tried to scratch off the tag before he got frustrated and cut it off with scissors, and Grian feels his cheeks warm.

The bell rings. Dang it, he won’t see Mumbo again until they get out of school, and he’s going to have to sit there in his math class and pretend to pay attention like he’s not gazing in front of him at the back of Mumbo’s head. The day goes by quickly, at least, lost as he is in thoughts of what he’s going to do to Mumbo when he finally gets him alone.

Sociology. He sits behind Tango, but doesn’t hear a word the other whispers to him, caught up in thoughts of whether the drive-in lineup will be any good– it’s supposed to be Mamma Mia tonight, which isn’t that romantic, but there are worse movies. Maybe he can kiss Mumbo to a backing track of “Lay all your love on me,” that would be nice. Besides, the specific movie doesn’t really love me, he just wants to sit in the back of Mumbo’s soccer mom car with blankets and snacks and kiss him senseless.

Environmental Science. Grian has to focus a little more in this block, or Impulse will look at him slightly disappointedly, and he’ll cry himself to sleep, but he can talk more, now. Poor Impulse has his own love life, but Grian does what he always does: talk his ear off about literally whatever thought is on his mind, and today that thought is Mumbo.

“But what if I stressed him out this morning, Impulse? I threw off the routine, I haven’t actually ever surprised him before, what if he didn’t like it?”

Impulse heaves a long-suffering sigh. “Grian. You’ve given him chocolate before, yes?”

“Well,” Grian says. “Yes. Last year.”

“And you’ve talked to him before about sneaking gifts into his car overnight as a surprise. And he was okay with that.”

“Last month, yeah for his birthday. But I didn’t do it, because it’s not a very good surprise if I ask first.”

Impulse turns from his spray-painting to give Grian a pitying look. “So he likes chocolate and he’s okay with surprise car gifts. SO,” he continues over Grian’s protests, “he’s probably fine. You’ll see him next block and you can ask him then.”

“Okay. Okay! You’re probably right, okay. Do you need any help with that?” he gestures to where Impulse has left the paint to dry and his down trying to melt a hole in a water bottle with a hot-glue gun.

“I absolutely under no circumstances trust you with this, but you can hold the bottle still.” Yeah, that’s- that’s probably fair after Grian checked if the hot glue was ready by touching the metal tip of the gun.

Math. Finally. He stops by his locker before class, but doesn’t bother picking up his math things when he drops his science things. He’s not foolish enough to think he’s going to be getting anything done during this class. Mambo’s waiting for him when he gets there, and he stops by his desk on his way to his own.

“Hey, babe.” He tries in vain to sound cool.

“Hi, love.” Be still his beating heart, the way Mumbo just calls him love so- casually has always affected him more than he’s proud of.

“The chocolates in your car weren’t too much, were they?” Just ask, get it out of the way so you’re not stressing out about it the rest of the day.
Mambo’s expression doesn’t change, per se, from the neutral state it’s fallen into since he smiled at Grian’s entrance, but it does soften, ever-so-slightly. “They were perfect, Grian, I liked them so much.”

“Good!” If a little proud smile settles onto Grian’s face, well. Shut up. Double shut up if it stays there the rest of class. “I’m glad you liked them.”

The teacher walks in, and Grian whispers a quick, “love you!” and moves to his desk. The rest of class is taken up by drafting a love note in his notebook. How honest should he be? Is, “I love you in a way I had never realized myself capable of loving” too much? Is it too much to quote that line about how it would be easier to talk about it more if he loved him less? Both are true, but he doesn’t want to be overzealous. Maybe, “Wherever you go after this, I’d like to follow if you’d let me”? He crumbles the page and starts again. He should probably be copying these graphs, but he knows Doc has this class tomorrow, and he can just steal his notes. It’ll piss Doc off for sure, but that’s half the fun. The bell rings, loud and grating, and he shakes his head to clear it- wait. Wait, the bell rings. The bell rings? Which bell? Is it– there’s pressure on his head. He looks up.

“Hey,” Mumbo says, “Would you be cool with getting lunch elsewhere today? I would really rather not hang out in the commons in this state.” And only now does Grian, fool that he is, notice that Mumbo’s tie is rumbled, it looks like he’s been tugging on his hair- Mumbo’s been struggling to focus as much as he has.

“Yeah I’m good with that.” He picks his stuff up, rushing to get out the door. They’re free! They’re done! “Do you wanna go home to change first? You’re looking a little rumpled.” Geeze, he hopes Mumbo takes this as the opportunity to take a second that it is, and not Grian not wanting to spend time with him.

He watches Mumbo’s face cycle through possible interpretations of his words, and he’s about to jump in to explain himself when Mumbo settles on, “Hmm, yeah I think that’s probably a good idea. If you’re okay with it, I could just freshen up at yours and then we can drop your car off there and use mine to carpool? I don’t really want to change per se, but you’re right that I could do with a moment before any lunch plans.” OH THANK GOD. That is exactly what Grian meant, thank goodness, okay. Okay. say something, don’t think about Mumbo in your bathroom, say:

“Yeah I’d be so down! And then we’ll have the option to just make sandwiches if we don’t want to sit in a restaurant.” He stops outside his car- Mumbo’s walked him all the way out to the freshman area of the lot to drop him off here. He really doesn’t deserve him. Grian kisses his boyfriend once, on the lips, and opens the door to his car. “Okay. I love you. See you in a few.”