Lila sighed, putting her phone down. She was a bit mad with the fact that Ricky just sent an emoji back, instead of saying bye. It was short and left the conversation feeling empty. But she just let it go, there wasn't any point in creating an argument, and bickering about it for twenty minutes minimum. She looked across the room to where Ricky was sitting. She looked mad about something, and Lila wanted to tell her to get that look off his face. It was quite annoying seeing that look on her face, but Lila had more pressing matters to worry about, than her.

"You think he'll be okay?" Lila asked, bluntly. She was laying down on her bed, Ricky was sitting against the wall, on the carpeted floor. She looked over to Ricky, a bit interested in seeing her response.

"I think that Michael will save him,"

"That sounds oddly sentimental coming from you," Lila commented, turning her head and looking back up at the ceiling.

"Shut up," Ricky said. Lila smiled, smugly, knowing that Ricky had said that in defeat. Lila was the only one (on the team) who could get Ricky under her "control".

"You better wipe that smirk off your damn face, before I do it myself," Ricky said, getting up off the floor, and walking over to Lila.

"Please, I could easily fight back," Lila thought back to that time, when Ricky had first joined the team back, and they were going up against Karasuno. She closed her eyes, giving a light laugh, too lost in her thoughts to hear Ricky step next to the bed, looming over Lila.

Lila opened her eyes, surprised to see Ricky standing there. It made her a bit flushed, seeing as she had suppressed feelings for this girl.

"Ricky?" Lila whispered, seeing the girl move closer.

"I said, 'wipe the grin off your face, before I do it myself," Ricky whispered, getting a bit too close to Lila.

"But... what the hell?" Lila asked, sitting up quickly. She sat up, almost banging her head against Ricky's forehead.

"Shut up, just shut up," She said again. "You're always babbling on about stupid shit, and I want you to shut up,"

"Well that's rud--" She was cut up by the soft lips of Ricky pressing onto hers. Ricky pushed harder against Lila, confident with her actions.

When Ricky pushed Lila back, holding onto the collar of her shirt, she looked her in the eyes.

"Don't make me do that again." She snapped, dropping Lila completely. Lila stared at her, almost completely stunned.

"Wha- wait, Ricky?"

"I said shut up!" Ricky said, her face now flushing a different, deeper color. Her actions got ahead of her brain, which was usually what happened. Expecial during volleyball games. That was one of the things she hadn't expected anyone to know how to deal with, but here she was with Lila (although, Lila's way of dealing with that was yelling at her).

"No, you shut up! You can't just... kiss me, and then yell at me to shut up," Lila snapped back, bittersweetness dripping from her words.

"Yeah, well I just did." Ricky argued back.

Lila grabbed her arm, pulling her onto the bed, catching her off guard, and pushing her against the wall on the other side. Ricky was surprised, and stared at her, her eyes fierce.

"You can't kiss me, then leave me hanging, motherfucker,"

"Woah, Lila, where'd that come from?" Ricky said, her snarky comment taken and shoved in the non-existent, figmintaive trash in Lila's mind.

She moved her body forwards, kissing Ricky with the same, if not more, power. She hadn't ever done anything like this, really, and she and Ricky had only kissed a few times with this much emotion.

It was frustrating for the both of them, neither of them wanting to make the first move. They hadn't told anybody either, and were planning on keeping this benefits relationship on the down low.

Ricky grabbed Lila's back, frustrated with the lack of control she had, and flipped the two around, easily. Lila's back was pressed against the wall as Ricky pressed forwards, roughly kissing her, while being gentle about everything else. She made sure not to press Lila's bead too hard into the bed, and made sure that her teeth didn't escape too harshly against her bottom lip, and made sure that her tongue grazed over her every once in a while, although never letting it go too far. She made sure to caress her hand, and face and make her feel loved..

She honestly (again, not wanting to admit this), really liked Lila.

Lila (again), felt the same way.

Lila linked their hands together, slipping underneath the weight of Ricky's body. She kissed him back, pulling Ricky closer to his body until their chests and stomachs were flat against each other, and Ricky was in between Lila's legs. Lila

Lila flinched slightly as Ricky's head moved down to his jaw, leaving open-mouthed kisses along her. Her mouth was warm against Lila, who's rest of body was cold, and she shuddered.

"Rick... y, you can't- can't make marks, alright," Lila whispered, although already feeling the mark of one forming.

Ricky agreed, easing up, feeling slightly bad for the one created. They silently exchange "rules" and "boundaries" between one another. One of them being, nothing the other didn't want to do.

Slowly, as their relationship progressed, they fell away, and the list of things they didn't want to do fell away with it, and the one of things they did, grew.

Ricky removed her mouth from Lila's collarbone, and looked her in the eyes.

Ricky let up on Lila, falling to her side, hiding her face in Lila's shoulder.

"He'll be fine," Ricky whispered, now with the moment being over. It was as if the feeling just couldn't subside, except in the middle of intamine moments the two shared. But that was now close to over.

Lila nodded, and kicked her legs up, using them to pull Ricky's body closer to hers. Ricky let out a quiet noise (one she didn't let out often), surprised by Lila's movements.

Sure, they'd gone a lot further, but they hadn't done it yet. That didn't mean that Lila hasn't walked out in public with her thighs covered with dark, obvious, purpling bruises.

Thank the gods that Ricky was at least smart about where she made them.

The sexual tension the team had felt between the two of them was actually there, although they tried covering it up with the half-hearted, heated arguments.

Lila's movements always seemed to find ways to entertain Ricky.

The room around them got hotter, as their breaths became heavy. This hadn't been a rare occurrence for the two of them, and Lila's parents were at work. Lila guessed at least a couple more hours, and they would be back. Ricky ended up staying the night, when she needed to go to her mom's house. She wasn't the best, and she had gotten the anger issues from her.

She was still better than both of Devin's parents.

Lila opened her mouth to breathe, since she was short of breath, as it was like Ricky had taken all of it from her, breathing the same air as she was. But Ricky saw this as an opportunity to deepen a kiss, by sucking at Lila's bottom lip, her movements would seem careless to anyone else, but the way she kept every touch soft, and careful, proved otherwise to Lila. The secretly sweet nothingness that Ricky would breathe while they shared these secret moments caused butterflies to swarm in her stomach every single time.

Except, it wasn't much of a secret a couple of moments later.

Lila had called Wilhelm, who he had already guessed was with Nikolai, and told them to come over. The year difference made Lila feel a bit responsible for their well being, and she wanted them to be fine. She just forgot that she told them to just come in the back door, which Lila had left unlocked for the two. She just got a bit too caught up in Ricky's mouth, she hadn't heard the two younger boys barge in, and up the stairs.

Their room door was then slammed open and, unannounced, Wilhelm walked in with Nikolai following close behind him (their hands touching, but not laced together). Wilhelm froze in his place, a bit embarrassed by the scene in front of them.

Lila underneath Ricky's grip, although her hands on both of her cheeks. Lila's legs around her waist, pulling her closer, as they kissed.

"You are volleyball players, not tennis," Nikolai said, finding his own joke amusing, knowing they would understand his reference to 'tonsil tennis', something in the past the two had jokingly teased Devin and Micheal for. His comment made the two of them completely freeze, and Lila's face, and ears lit up a vibrant pink color. Her reference to Lila and Ricky playing tonsil tennis, making Wilhelm stifle a laugh.

"Oh good God!" Ricky shouted, startled, while startling the sudden intruders. Lila could feel Ricky's heart beat quickly pick up pace, making her smile slightly. She hadn't ever seen Ricky scared like that before.

She usually was much better with loud noises, or jump scares, than anyone else on the team, or anyone that Lila knew, really.

"Oh shit," Nikolai said, looking at the two in their suggestive position.

Ricky quickly got off of Lila, and Lila sat up, fixing the collar of her shirt, and running her fingers through her hair to fix the parts that had been messed up.

"We'll just... leave," Wilhelm said, grabbing Nikolai's hand fully, now, and pulling him out of Lila's room, closing the door behind him.

"Jesus, I knew that something was going on between those two," Nikolai said as they exited the house, and stepped out into the cold evening air.

"Just wait for Ricky to come after up, and Lila to smack the back of his head for it. We're so dead, if it weren't for Lila keeping her under control."

"Yeah, well now we know how, guess it wasn't magic," Nikolai said, finding his snarky comment amusing. Wilhelm laughed a bit, glad to see Nikolai had lightened back up since their conversation with Michael.

It had taken months to get him out of his depressive state, and even though Nikolai seemed fine, he still needed Wilhelm around to reassure him.

His calm, 'I don't care' composure was what worried Wilhelm most of the time, but he had learned to trust Nikolai, and Nikolai had learned to trust Wilhelm. That was what Michael and Devin needed to do, if they wanted to get anywhere with their relationship, or help Devin get better.

And they didn't seem to be close to doing that.

Nikolai was still holding onto Wilhelm's hand, and Wilhelm had let him. It wasn't an uncommon thing for the two, but it usually wasn't displayed for anyone within eyesight too see.

Wilhelm would hold his hand to help reassure him in the beginning, most of the time. Or during panic attacks, or when he needed the touch.

Nikolai never liked to make a big deal out of his feelings. After all, people out there suffer worse than I do. He told himself.

He would look like a whining crybaby, like those girls, posting all over social media shitty pictures of himself crying, fake smiling, captioning it "if you smile through the pain, you can trick your brain into thinking it wasn't there in the first place". Stupid. Was the only thing he could think of, when he scrolled through his snap stories.

When Wilhelm figured him out, Nikolai just said, 'there is a difference between considering, and doing'.

Wilhelm had responded to the boy's comment with 'considering doesn't mean you won't'. Nikolai rolled his eyes, and said a simple 'so'. Will looked over at the boy as he looked Wilhelm in the eye and said 'it doesn't even matter, anyway. People have it worse, you know'.

Wilhelm did not like that very much, and at first Nikolai found it unnecessary to have Wilhelm with him throughout the day, until they had to part ways and go home. But after a while, Nikolai got used to it, and enjoyed Wilhelm's company. It made him feel like Wilhelm wanted to be there, and not because their parents forced their relationship.

The feelings that Nikolai grew for Wilhelm over time felt like another burden to carry, so he pushed them away, pretending they didn't exist.

He was almost positive that Wilhelm didn't feel the same way, being one of the reasons that he didn't want to push it. He was fine with the relationship they had now, and he believed that Wilhelm was satisfied with it too.

The two of them continued to walk away from Louis's house, slowly. They both were worrying about Devin. They didn't think that their team captain had ever felt anything other than the normalized feelings he showed everyone.

But they weren't, it was worrying the two now.

"Michael will be able to take care of it, don't worry," Wilhelm said, squeezing the older boy's hand.

Nikolai didn't say anything, and nothing in his body language changed.

He only slightly nodded, which Wilhelm picked up on, at the last second. He looked forwards again, towards a tree. It was dead, since the weather outside right now was freezing, and he let out a long, needed sigh.

the next part will dive into Nikolai and Wilhelm's backstory-ish, but deals with a lot of in-detail mentions of self harm etc.

i don't know how anyone would be this far through if they weren't okay with reading that

but, in case, take care of yourself

i love you all

-aa