On Monday, London woke up early despite the late time he went to bed the previous night. he wasn't quite sure what to do, but after a few hours of moping around, he decided he didn't really have to ride the bus but he went out, spent a few dollars on two pumpkin spice lattes and got on the bus to ride with Carter anyways.

"I thought you didn't go to work on Mondays," Carter said when London approached him, setting down the book he'd brought for the precise reason of London's absence. He had been hoping to be able to finally get some reading done while London was gone, but it wasn't like he was complaining.

"I don't," London smiled a bit and squeezed in next to him. He handed the latte to Carter, who took it in both hands and stared at it. It was hot, so Carter didn't move to drink it quite yet.

"You really didn't have to," Carter spoke after a few moments, finally winning his internal struggle and bringing the cup to his lips.

London shrugged. "It's cold outside and I thought you might appreciate some company."

"Bus tickets are expensive around here," Carter said pointedly. "And you probably know already that Starbucks is overpriced enough as it is."

London shrugged again. "It's only a few extra dollars. I need to come up with a few ideas for an article at work anyways, and I assumed it'd be a more productive method to find inspiration out here than in my own room."

"Fair enough." Carter held his cup aside to tuck his novel back into his backpack while London looked out the window, watching the cars pass by.

"Hey, Carter," London said when Carter finally sat up straight again.

Carter glanced at him, blowing a stray strand of hair aside. "Yeah?"

London looked at Carter for a moment, and then his gaze returned to the window. "Would it be too soon to ask you to a movie tonight? None of my friends will come with me."

Carter blinked at him, finding this hard to believe. He had stolen a glance at London's contacts while he was adding his email to his own contact information, and London had five times the amount of contacts he did. "Won't they?" he asked, tilting his head to one side.

London looked away, finding the action too cute to control himself if he kept staring. "Perhaps not. But I would much rather have you accompany me than someone I can go out with any time of the year."

Carter's cheeks heated up and he averted his gaze to his cup. It wasn't as hot as before anymore. "Okay. What movie is it?"

London perked up. "Is that a yes to my offer?"

Carter shrugged, still not meeting London's eyes. "I suppose so. What movie?" he repeated.

London grinned. "You'll see."

Carter arrived at the cinema a little bit earlier than London had specified and sat down on a bench outside the theatre. He didn't quite want to go inside, not yet—he would just wait until London arrived so they could walk in together.

Halfay through a game of Candy Crush, someone sat down next to him and Carter had to look up.

"Candy Crush? I approve."

Carter looked straight ahead so he wouldn't have to make contact with London's playful dark brown eyes. It was pretty much now common knowledge that people's pupils dilated when they looked at someone they liked, and while Carter could have been curious, London's eyes were too black to tell anyways.

"Are you finally going to tell me what movie we're watching?" Carter asked, switching his phone off and slipping it back into his pocket.

London chuckled, standing up and then offering Carter a hand. "Now You See Me 2. Have you seen Now You See Me?"

Carter could stand up by himself, but took London's hand anyways. London seemed a bit taken aback by Carter's directness—he hadn't really expected Carter to actually accept his hand, but let a smile settle into his features when he did.

Carter let go of London's hand once he stood up but London's smile remained etched on his face. "I watched it a while ago," Carter muttered, staring at the ground while he pushed open the door to the theatre.

London followed him, walking up in front so he could hold the door open for Carter. "Then that's good. I thought about the possibility of you never having watched the movie before, but I would have made you watch the sequel nonetheless."

Carter ignored London and veered to the right so he could push open the second door by himself. London frowned and followed behind, skipping a little bit so he could catch up. "If I watched the sequel before the first movie, wouldn't that ruin the experience?" Carter said pointedly.

"Ah, no, watching the second before the first is simply a more inventive way to watch movies," London replied, taking out his wallet and requesting two Now You See Me tickets before Carter could offer to pay.

Carter was about to protest when London handed him the ticket, but resigned himself to acceptance. It wasn't like London would take his money, anyways. London had better comebacks than Carter and would win the battle either way.

London took advantage of Carter's passiveness and payed for popcorn and a bag of M&Ms that they could split. Carter told himself he wouldn't eat any of it, but finally gave in and popped one of the chocolates into his mouth once the previews ended and the movie began, rendering his conscience useless as he and London watched the movie in comfortable silence.

Carter didn't really know what was going on for most of the movie and spent a lot of it letting his mind wander off on its own, but London seemed to have enjoyed it and began to ramble about it the entire way out of the theatre and into the street once it ended. Carter just smiled and listened.

"Oh, fuck," London muttered after a while once he caught a glimpse of the time on his watch. "It's late. Did you walk here? Do you need a ride home?"

Carter looked around. The sky had been reduced to darkness, and since it was cloudy, the moon was invisible. "I should be getting back," he muttered. His sister had driven him since Carter never bothered to learn to drive. He made a mental note to learn eventually, and glanced at the time—the last bus for the night would be coming in twenty minutes or so, and Carter had one last ticket. "I can catch the next bus and go home alone."

London frowned. "There's a bus this late?"

"Twenty minutes. It's the last one 'til tomorrow morning."

London shook his head. "I'm not letting you on that bus. Come with me; I'll drop you off on my way home."

"London, that's fine, you've done enough—"

London just took Carter's wrist and pulled him towards his car, despite Carter's protest. When it became clear that London wasn't going to take Carter's crap anymore, Carter reluctantly got in the passenger seat, mumbled the address, and sat the rest of the way in silence as London drove.

London shot Carter his first smile since they got into the car once they arrived at his house. "Tonight was fun. We should do it again."

"I could've taken the bus home, you know. I'm a legal adult," Carter said with a shrug, closing the door once he stepped out of the car.

London rolled down his window. "I'm still older than you and therefore am obliged to keep you safe at all times. I would have went to bed guilty and never looked at you again."

Carter huffed. "We'll just go earlier in the afternoon next time."

London raised an eyebrow. "Next time, sweetheart?"

Carter blushed and looked away. "I'll see you tomorrow. And don't call me that."

"What? Sweetheart? You know I can't help myself, dear."

Carter opened his mouth to retaliate but closed it when he found no words. "Shut up," was all he was able to muster, turning bright red.

London chuckled. "Goodnight, Carter."  

Carter relaxed a bit once London used his actual name and watched London drive away through the window. He would've watched from outside, but London probably wouldn't leave until he got inside the house. Carter felt a tiny smile creep onto his face, but it dropped as soon as he heard someone clear their throat.

"I thought you were going to call me to pick you up once you were done with your date, but you never told me you would be back so late and the fact that your date was a guy never seemed to come up."

Carter scowled, turning his back to the window while his sister eyed him. "Shut up. I never said it was a date."

"You implied it," Lauren quipped.

"I did not."

"Did too."

"Di—" Carter stopped himself, glaring at Lauren. "I am not going through with this. Go to bed."

Lauren crossed her arms. "What's his name?"

"Does it matter?" Carter sighed in exasperation as he walked up the stairs. Lauren had the sense to stifle her giggle from behind him.

"I won't let this go, you know," she called.

"I don't care." With that, Carter shut his door behind him and fell face-first onto his bed with a groan.

By the time Carter had fallen asleep, London was still at his computer, trying to figure out what to put up as his weekly blog post. If he didn't write anything, he knew his blog activity would drop and earning money from ads on his blog served as a decent portion of how he paid his bills. 

(Okay, maybe five dollars a day wasn't very much, but that added up to twenty-five a week and 100 a month and he really needed everything he could get at the moment).

It was 2 AM when London drifted off to sleep on his keyboard, and not even the screen brightness that he had turned up all the way to keep him awake prevented it.

[a/n] yesterday was my 5sos concert and it still doesn't feel real and it took a lot of willpower and leaked girls talk boys on repeat for me to finish writing this chapter I'm really not fine at all

(now u see me is really a good movie and so is the sequel if u havent u should watch)