intransitive verb

       • (time) to pass by. 

I'll be back. Your mom called.

Connor rolls his eyes at Troye's idea of an informative note, tossing it back on the counter as he slips his phone into the front pocket of his jeans. He dredges up a cup of coffee, double-checking the time with a heavy sigh and a tired sweep of his face as he does, checking it again two seconds later. Frowning, he pulls his phone back out of his pocket after barely five minutes have ticked by.

Swiping into his missed calls, he debates whether to tap his mother's contact or not. He has class in an hour, has friends who keep insisting he spend more time with them, has a boyfriend who keeps disappearing on him. The redial button is a grenade, his fingers slipping through the pin but scared to pull for fear of not being able to toss it away fast enough. He doesn't want anything else to implode on him, to scorch across his skin or his life or the boy he loves so much, but he knows the enemy soldiers are lining up to take their aim and he'll have bullet holes all through his home if he doesn't pull the pin.

Connor sighs, shooting a quick text to Hannah before slipping the device into his pocket yet again. Whatever she wants to discuss, it can wait.

He dons his coat quickly, yanks his shoes on with the kind of demented hopping Troye would probably find some amount of humour in, and ducks out the door without another pause. His phone buzzes halfway down the street, the sound fading beneath the crunch of his boots through the fallen snow, and he checks it quickly without bothering to reply. It's just Hannah, anyway. He doesn't need to bother texting back when he's barely ten minutes away from the coffee shop she's set herself up in.

The bell above the door jingles as he enters; the kind of useless noise most shops seem to carry yet none seem to need, the bustle of customers and coffee machines too loud to even hear the chime. He finds his friend sprawled by the window in the far corner, her cinematography textbook open wide as she takes up two tables and kicks her feet up on a third. Rolling his eyes, he orders a warm drink before settling in across from her.

"Where's Ingrid?" he questions curiously, darting a glance around the small shop like the woman in question might still be nearby. Hannah glances up from her furious scrawling of notes to shoot him a decidedly displeased look.

"Where's Troye?" she counters, dropping her pencil with a sense of finality and moving to take a swipe at his drink. He scowls exaggeratedly at the action, but otherwise doesn't protest as she downs half the beverage in one sip. Shrugging non-committaly, Connor sinks his head down on the table and watches tiredly as the campus comes to life through a thick pane of unwashed glass.

Hannah rakes her eyes across him rather unsubtly, humming low in her throat as she turns back to her work. "Rough night?"

"You could say that," Connor mutters.

"Oh my God," Hannah blinks, snapping her head back to look at him so fast her short hair goes careening in all different directions. "Too much information."

"What?" Connor frowns. It takes a minute, staring at his friend in confusion as her pencil taps insistently on the table, but eventually it clicks and he releases an exasperated groan in response. "No, not that kind of rough. We haven't had sex. I mean, not like that. Like-"

"Connor," Hannah cuts him off with a tinge of desperation creeping into her rushed tone. "Spare me the details, please. But still. Haven't you been together for, like, ever? Aren't guys your age supposed to be super horny or something?"

Connor gives her a weird look. "Uh," he says, because he doesn't really know how to answer that. "I don't know? It's complicated."

Scoffing under her breath, Hannah shifts her notebook forward with purpose as she moves to copy something down from a separate page. "What isn't with him?"

Connor goes rigid in his seat at the barely audibly muttering, stock still like a zebra snapping its head up to listen for lions. Hooves digging into the dirt, grass swaying all around him, he tries not to be paranoid when the wind shuffles the leaves on the trees. "Oh?"

Hannah raises an eyebrow at his neutral response, glancing up at him briefly before rolling her eyes and taking another sip of his drink. "Chill, Con. I didn't mean it in a bad way. He's great, I love him. Super sweet. OTP or whatever."

It takes a moment for his paranoia to recede, every blade of grass rustled kicking his fight or flight instincts into high gear, but eventually his head drops back down to graze contently. He smiles, releases the half-laugh, half-scoff he's picked up from Troye, and settles more comfortably in his seat to wait out the half hour he still has before his class starts.

Hannah probably thinks she gets away with the snort and off-hand comment of "You're so whipped," but he kicks her under the table just to make sure she doesn't.