𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐓 : 3.4k

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𝐀𝐒 𝐄𝐗𝐏𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐃, 𝐌𝐎𝐎𝐍'𝐒 𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐘 was off to a great start. There were high schoolers scattered across almost every inch of the sprawling property, with discarded plastic cups filling in all the uncovered gaps. Some artsy kid from their school had taken fifty bucks to DJ the event, which really just required seamless transitions between rap and pop songs every few minutes.

Gwen, however, could barely focus on anything—much less the music. Her mind was whirring just a little too loudly about whether or not Xander Stone would make an appearance. She had sent over the address and he seemed to be pretty interested, but she wasn't totally sure what it would mean if he did show. Miguel wouldn't mind, right? Gwen couldn't decide if she wanted him to care or not.

The past few weeks with Miguel had been... unexpected, to say the least.

She hadn't anticipated his sense of humor, his calming presence, or his awkward charm. There was something about him that made everything else slowly fade from her mind when he was around—and this included Eli, as much as that worried her. She had started to lose sight of her end goal, and instead just found herself enjoying the "fake dates" with Miguel more and more.

The mere idea made her insides twist apprehensively.

Gwen had completely checked out of her conversation with Moon and her new girlfriend, Piper. She was only brought back in by the gentle touch of Moon's hand on her shoulder. "I think I just saw Sam and her friends walk in," she said, her smile coming into focus. "I'm gonna go say hi."

She had been gone for less than a minute when another beaming face slid into view. Xander's face seemed warmer, tanner than the last time she had seen him, but his smile was just as blindingly white. "Hey, you."

"Oh, my god! Hi!" Gwen pulled him into a hug, his broad shoulders encased under the soft fabric of a well-worn t-shirt. "I wasn't sure if you were gonna be able to make it."

"For you? C'mon..." He playfully rolled his eyes. "I wouldn't miss it."

From her other side, Piper spoke up, saving Gwen from the awkwardness of sidestepping such obvious flirtation. "Gwen, who's this?"

"Piper, this is Xander Stone. We met at the last All-Valley. We ran into each other again at the skating rink the other day, so I thought I'd invite him."

"Lucky me," Xander grinned.

Piper, seemingly ignoring the obvious flirtation happening in front of her, chose to divert the conversation. "So, you do karate, too?"

"I do, yeah. Topanga Karate."

"No way!" Piper exclaimed, genuinely impressed. Gwen didn't bother mentioning that he had won the championship the year prior. "Gwen, you've gotta introduce him to all your Cobra Kai buddies."

"Oh, I don't know if he'd really want to–"

"I'd love to meet your friends," Xander interjected.

Gwen's eyebrows squeezed together, incongruous with the all-too-quick smile that formed on her lips. "Okay!" she squeaked. "Piper, we'll find you, 'kay?"

And thus began the Xander party parade. She stopped to give his name, their history, and his karate affiliation to every familiar face in the joint. And there were a lot of familiar faces. But none of them were Miguel's. She loathed the fact that that didn't make her feel a rush of relief. Fortunately, she did get a similar knot of discomfort in her muscles when she and Xander approached Eli.

That had to be promising, at the very least.

"Xander, this is my friend, Eli," she said, her fingers lightly brushing against Eli's forearm. His skin was soft, a fact that took her by surprise. "Eli, I'm sure you remember Xander."

Xander ran a hand through his floppy, dark hair and looked the other boy up and down. "Eli? I... thought your name was Hawk?"

The question seemed innocent enough, but Gwen saw the way it made Eli bristle. "It is," he stated. "To you, at least."

Gwen felt her skin prickle at the implication, a shiver running across her body. Still, she spotted the way Xander's lips flattened, then curved into an amused smirk. "Hey, heard," he nodded. "Nice to meet you, man."

She wished she could understand the nuanced, silent language they were speaking to one another through the lengthy eye contact they held just a beat longer than what was necessary. Because clearly, something unspoken had occurred, as Xander only got a clipped 'yeah, you too' in response.

She was quick to steer Xander away after that, settling him on one of the many couches and promising to return with drinks for the both of them. She had asked what he wanted and he said something along the lines of 'surprise me', but in that crafty, chronically flirty way that he always managed. In Gwen's world, this just meant that he was getting one of the glass bottles of Bud Light she knew were inevitably stashed in a cooler somewhere.

The kitchen was astonishingly empty. There were only a few nobodies loitering at the very edges of the room, doing their best to avoid eye contact when Gwen entered their realm. She floated around and past them, mixing up her own personal cocktail she had mastered across several house party kitchens.

"You missed me totally wiping out earlier."

Gwen peeked over her shoulder, smile widening when she saw Tory lounging against the counter. "It's not a good party unless someone absolutely eats shit, y'know?" she giggled, returning her attention to the precise pour of orange juice she was executing.

She could hear Tory stroll closer. "Well, then. This must be a pretty damn good party," she chuckled.

"That bad?" Gwen asked, looking at her out of the corner of her eye.

Tory nodded with a snort. "Words cannot describe."

Gwen's mouth opened to mention Miguel, to ask if Tory had seen him at all since she got there. But the words died on the tip of her tongue when she happened to look up through the enormous kitchen window at the perfectly wrong time. She felt her heart stutter in her chest, the beats tripping over one another. There was no need to ask about the whereabouts of her boyfriend anymore.

Out, against the glowing blue light of the pool, Gwen saw Miguel and Sam wrapped up together in a kiss.

A confusing mixture of emotions washed over her all at once. Heat rose behind her eyelids, the stinging bringing a well of tears to the surface. She quickly blinked them away, her head shaking both at her own reaction and how pathetic it all felt. There was no way Miguel was putting her in this situation! Gwen's mind reeled, running through all of their past interactions for signs that he would eventually betray her like this. This had been in their rulebook! Rule Number Six! All at once, a very loud, very demanding part of her wanted to march right out there and drag them apart by their hair.

But instead of doing any of that, Gwen was stuck in a trance of overwhelming, muscle-freezing panic.

Her breaths were coming out shallow, something in her chest pulled so tight that it genuinely felt difficult to breathe. As badly as she wanted to turn away, to give herself some reprieve, it was as if she was cemented to the floor beneath her, forced to watch the scene in front of her. Her annoyingly observant mind noticed every detail. His hand tenderly placed on her waist, the way his body leaned naturally into hers, his eyes which had fluttered shut. She felt a little voyeuristic and a little sick to her stomach watching them like this.

"Oh my god!" The croaky mixture of shock and anger in Tory's voice made her nearly jump out of her skin. She had completely forgotten that she was there in the first place. "That bitch is making out with your boyfriend."

The humiliation crept in as everything Gwen had tried to avoid came back to bite her in the ass. She was, by all intents and purposes, getting cheated on. Miguel Diaz was waving a big flag that had Gwen VillIanueva Is Not Enough For Me! written on it in bold, handwritten letters. It suddenly felt as if she had been stripped naked right there in the middle of the kitchen. She had no clue how to respond, how to act, her throat raw. So, she took a step back from the counter, abandoning her cocktail, and said, "I think I... need some air."

She began walking before she even knew where she could go. She wandered back out into the living room in a daze, vaguely picking up on the sound of someone talking into the microphone. It was Eli's name over the sound system that made her ears actually perk up, the rest of her body immediately following suit. She roughly shoved her way through the clusters of teenagers to get near the stage, every one of them confused by the name nobody actually knew him by. "Oh! I'm sorry. Some of you might know him as Hawk," continued the voice.

When she finally made it to the front of the crowd, Demetri was on stage, gesturing right at Eli, who stood flanked by a group of Cobra Kais. "But under that crazy clown cosplay and whatever type of Manic Panic he dumps in his hair, he's still good ol' Eli. My binary brother." Demetri's head cocked in such an annoying way that it made Gwen's teeth grit. "Well, he was my binary brother. But you know what he is now?" he rhetorically asked the crowd. "A real... zero."

A thrum of intrigued 'oohs' rolled through the party, along with a chorus of poorly stifled laughter.

"Demetri, that's enough," Gwen spoke up, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

Demetri looked down at her from the makeshift stage, a sardonic smile on his face. "Gwen Villanueva, everybody! America's Sweetheart, here to defend West Valley's newest bully," he announced, sarcasm dripping from his voice. "What a surprise. I mean, just a few months ago, she wouldn't have taken the time to spit on him if he was on fire. Then, he got that ugly ass mohawk, and look where we are now... Interesting, right?"

Gwen didn't grace him with a response, so no one else did either. Her mouth merely tightened a fraction more, her gaze sharpening. Everywhere she turned at this goddamned party, she felt as if her innermost, humiliating secrets were inches away from being revealed. She wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of there, but she wasn't about to give Demetri the satisfaction.

"Hey, and don't let that angry red hairdo fool you. Eli's a big softie," he informed everyone with a phony, taunting pout. "We watched every Harry Potter movie together! And he bawled like a baby when Dobby died."

The partygoers' laughter got louder and louder with every new piece of embarrassing information that Demetri shared. And although Gwen's eyes had barely left his face, Eli hadn't managed a single look over at her.

"Have any of you heard of sleep enuresis?"

A confused murmur spread through the room. And for the first time, Eli's words came out more like a plea than a demand. He sounded like a little boy, someone Gwen could have known in the midst of her own traumatizing pageant days.

"Don't."

But there was no stopping him. "That is the medical term, of course. In the King's English, it's good old-fashioned bed-wetting!" A pause for the raucous laughter. "And Eli here is a pro! My mom even had a special air mattress for sleepovers. And she called it..." Pause for effect. "Eli's waterbed."

In real time, Gwen saw Eli's self-control evaporate. The tips of his ears matched the red of his mohawk and the muscles along his jaw flicked visibly. "Screw mercy," he growled, shoving his unfinished drink into Penis Breath's hands. His lips pulled back, almost shark-like, to bare his clenched teeth. "You're a corpse!"

He marched forward, but was met with the human wall that was Chris of Miyagi-Do. "You're gonna have to go through me," he warned, looking down at Eli and his goons.

"Stay out of it, traitor!" Penis Breath huffed.

"Hey! Don't touch him," Robby snapped, suddenly appearing by Chris's side.

Gwen's eyes rolled as she flung her hands up in exasperation. "Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me," she drawled, strolling forward. "And what the hell are you gonna do, ponytail?"

Moon positioned herself right in between the two dojos, a frown on her pretty face. "Guys, stop. We're friends," she tried reminding them. It only made Gwen want to scoff.

"Oh, I smell a rumble!" Stingray shouted out from some corner of the room.

The only thing that could have possibly prevented a fight in that moment happened: The flash of red and blue lights through the windows. Teenagers scattered like a flock of frightened birds, taking off in every possible direction, through every door and window they could find.

Demetri was saved only by the waves of people holding Eli back. "Demetri, you got lucky!" he shouted over the stressed chatter. He lunged forward, only to be flung back by his shoulders. "I'll see you at school!" he said with a pleased snarl on his face.

Gwen pushed against the hoards of people in order to grab Eli by the shirt, dragging him out of the house with her. Thankfully, she had had the foresight to park up the block, granting them the perfect getaway car. It only required them sprinting and leaping through a few shadowy lawns in order to dodge the cops.

When her silver G-Wagon finally made it into view, Gwen let out an audible gasp. "Oh, thank god," she said, gratefully. There had been about a billion different signs labeling that spot in particular, some of them contradictory and some just plain impossible to comprehend. So, the fact that her beloved car hadn't been towed away into the night was a Los Angeles miracle.

She stooped down to dig her key out of the confines of her Parker boot, then jumped in after Eli once it was unlocked. Both of them took a breather once they were safely inside, Gwen's head falling back against the headrest as she cranked the car to get the A/C running. A Tyler, The Creator song hummed softly from the speakers.

After they caught their breath, Gwen drove Eli home, the car silent aside from the music and Eli's occasional chime-in to give directions. When the two of them pulled into his driveway, Gwen had to choke down her disappointment. She knew she was going to miss him, miss his room-filling energy, the minute he shut the car door behind him. In hopes of prolonging the moment for just a few more seconds, she turned to him with a gentle sympathy in her eyes.

"Demetri's really an asshole, huh?"

Gwen watched him pick at a scab on his hand. "Yeah, he's never been able to just shut the hell up. Always got something to say," Eli muttered. Then, his eyes lifted and met hers for the first time since the whole public humiliation debacle. "Thanks, for trying to help me out."

Her lips pursed into a ghost of a smile. "Of course," she nodded, lowering her own eyes under his stare. The tops of her cheeks burned, tingling beneath the skin. "For whatever it's worth, I didn't stand up for you because of the mohawk."

She could feel his blue eyes, staring and studying her like she so often did to him. "What do you mean?" he asked with a breathy chuckle.

"I mean..." She paused for a beat, unsure of her next words. But then, the visual of Sam and Miguel making out by the pool flooded her mind and filled her with a fiery indignation. "I liked you before you had the mohawk."

His following silence was unnerving, completely unlike the comfortable quiet that had fallen over them on the way over. Gwen could feel her heart thundering in her chest, hoping that her statement was equal parts vague and straightforward. If he was meant to get it, he would. If he wasn't, then he would hopefully spare her dignity and move along like nothing had happened. All she could do was hold her breath until he made his decision.

"I remember the first time I saw you."

Gwen's chin lifted, her big brown eyes blinking confusedly at him. Even with the absolutely insane hair, this was the first time in months she felt like she was talking to her soft-spoken lab partner, Eli Moskowitz, not some badass who chose to go by Hawk. She half-expected him to stutter over his words or avert his eyes, but he did neither.

"We had just started high school and I was in the front office so that I could transfer into Honors Geometry. I already had my transfer sheet signed and everything," he continued. "Then, you came into the office and sat right beside me. You must've noticed my paperwork, because you turned to me and said, 'Shit, I'm taking that class, too!'"

Both of them laughed, the cadences mirroring one another.

"I'm honestly shocked I even said anything, but I remember telling you that you had to have your sheet signed if you wanted to transfer. Your sheet was completely blank."

Gwen's eyebrows bunched together as his memory started to align with her own. "Oh, yeah. You let me borrow a pen and use your back to write on so I could forge Mr. Braunson's signature."

"Sure did," he nodded, proudly. "We were put into the same geometry class, did you know that?"

Her mouth fell open a bit, mildly contained disbelief written across her delicate features. "I... had no idea," she admitted, sheepishly. "But I was honestly so focused in that class, I don't think I remember anyone."

"I got a D on our first test because I couldn't focus on anything other than you."

Gwen's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes fluttered rapidly, almost in-time with the quickened thump of her pulse. Eli kept going before she could utter a word.

"You would sit there and braid your hair, over and over again. I don't even know if you fully knew you were doing it. I would watch you take notes and remember the feeling of your hand on my back in the front office that day. I would watch that idiot who sat behind you lean up and whisper something in your ear and I'd wonder what your hair smelled like. But you wouldn't even acknowledge that he spoke because you were just so concentrated on the lesson."

And now it was her turn to fixate. She couldn't look away from him, from the earnesty in his eyes. "Eli, I had no idea..." she trailed off, her fingers itching to reach up and brush against the sharp lines of his cheek and jaw.

"Yeah, I guess I just wanted to say..." Eli shrugged, his head shaking slowly. "I've always liked you. From the moment I saw you, I liked you."

He said it so simply, so matter-of-fact. Gwen studied him openly, grasping onto her last shred of self-control. "You didn't even know me."

"I wanted to."

Her lips were pressed against his before she even had a second to doubt herself. Her hands were placed on both sides of his face, desperately clinging to him like this kiss would solve everything. She felt him melt, the shocked tension in his body igniting into firmer, more confident movements. The feeling of his hand carding through her hair pulled a surprised noise from the back of her throat, one that made his lips curve against her own.

And for that suspended moment in time, everything was perfect. It stayed that way, too, even as they pulled away, their foreheads leaned against one another's. Their labored breaths mingled in the middle, the warm air drifting across their faces.

Gwen spoke first, her voice sounding all distant and floaty in her own ears. "That was..." she trailed off, dreamily.

"Yeah," Eli breathed out, a note raspier than usual. All it took was a second back in the real world for him to stiffen and retract, his eyes wide and horrified across the car. "Holy shit, wait... What about you and Miguel?"

It should have been an easy question with an easy answer. And yet, it almost never was.