Expo Spork & Mari - Vignettes



Spork was splitting their attention between their laptop and the stove. It was efficient, alright? And they didn’t want to put their full focus on their actually-important task, because then they’d end up putting it off for even longer, and they really needed to get it done. They had, like, a week to figure out how to either convince their parents that they were totally still in college, or that they were… ugh, graduated? Working a full-time job? No, they hadn’t worked a day in their life, that one would never work.

But they needed to come up with something, because there was only so long they could lie about classes they weren’t actually taking. The end of the semester was rapidly approaching, and with it the expectation that they would send their parents their quarterly status report. It had been the lowest they could bargain them down to, and now they were regretting giving them even that much. Just like they always did. Why hadn’t they already cut ties with them, again?

They frowned in the general direction of their laptop, flipping their melt before it could get too burnt and then tapping the still-warm spatula against their palm as they pondered the same predicament that had been hanging over their head since they’d made the brilliant decision to cut their losses and drop out of college mid-semester. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, in their defense. But maybe they could’ve planned it out a little better.

Funny, how easy it was to realize that when they were running on more than three hours of sleep, mixed drinks, and cigarettes. Hilarious, even.

They poked at the crunchy bread in the pan in front of them, head tilted to the side as they listened for the sounds of the secret third conundrum they were facing. Mari was working in her lab, but they were sure that the smell of food would draw her out of her science-daze soon. And then she’d poke her head into the kitchen, where they’d have a kickass toasted sandwich waiting for her, and they’d have dinner. Together.

That was a thing now. Spork still wasn’t entirely sure how they felt about it. Yeah, it was reassuring to know that Mari wasn’t subsisting on the thrill of scientific discovery and coffee alone, but with that and the way she kept accidentally-on-purpose falling asleep in their bed more nights than not, things were getting bewilderingly… domestic.

It was weird. They felt like they’d missed a chapter, and now they were reading an entirely new book, one where Mari didn’t complain about the extra crunchy (read: burnt, because they got bored and walked off midway through) nature of the meals they’d taken to throwing together when they didn’t feel like ordering takeout. One where it was Spork’s room that was a safe haven from the outside world, and they only gave token protest when she tucked her cold feet up against their legs, or, hell, where she didn’t threaten to smother them when they snored in her ear. They woke up with their arm thrown over her or their face pressed into her back, and neither of them talked about it, just got ready for the day.

And the weirdest part was that they didn’t fully… mind? Like, if Mari had been literally any other girl they’d have already deemed her too attached and shuffled her off to join their ever-growing list of broken hearts, but, well, it was Mari. They’d told her about every girl on that list. She knew what they were like, how they worked. Didn’t work. Whatever. The point was, she was in no danger of getting her wires crossed and thinking that Spork was in love with her, so it was fine.

The sandwich was done. They scooped it out of the pan and onto a plate, then put a second one on to toast. Halfway through dinner, and they were no closer to solving either of their problems. They sighed, and put the spatula down for a minute so that they could poke around on their computer. Maybe a solution would randomly pop up if they just tabbed around a little bit more. They could hope, right?

 


Mari’s plan was working.

That in and of itself wasn’t surprising. Mari took great care to ensure her plans were carefully thought out from the get-go, and usually had one or two contingencies in place should things get dicey. No, the surprising part was that Spork had yet to figure out that they were the subject of her plan. Despite their lack of vision, they were incredibly perceptive when it came to other people doing things that could be construed as helping them. Spork hated being helped, a lifetime of being coddled and babied against their will had poisoned that well long before Mari could remember.

And yet, they seemingly had no idea that Mari had been working tirelessly to bring about their recovery. The primary reason, she figured, was that she’d been moving glacially slow. Well, that and she avoided anything that was blatantly helpful. She didn’t tell Spork to stop getting wasted every night, she just finished her work early so she could spend the evening with them, or chatted with them while she worked. She didn’t tell them to stop smoking like a chimney, she just made it so she’d notice if they left to smoke, and made sure that Spork knew that too, discouraging them from taking so many smoke breaks.

So far things were promising. Spork was less cranky, they didn’t run around in a state of perpetual intoxication anymore. They showered more regularly, had tidied up their room, and just seemed to regain some of that light they’d had when they were both younger. Mari had even seen them eating a salad at one point. Granted, it was mostly chicken and mayonnaise sandwiched between two slices of toasted bread, but she’d seen a piece of lettuce in there, and that was progress.

As much as she joked to herself, Mari couldn’t claim that the only reason she kept up with this plan was for Spork’s benefit. She felt fuller, somehow, like there had been some crack inside her that she’d been ignoring for a while that had recently been patched up. Mari wasn’t sure if it was just the distance that had been between the two of them after high school, or if it was something new. They’d hardly spent a night apart, shifting between bedrooms before she’d made the executive decision that if they were going to sleep together, it had to be in Spork’s room. Her bed was just too small for it.

She hadn’t realized how much had changed until the first night she’d woken from a nightmare, one of the typical indicators that she’d been pushing herself too hard. They were a regular occurrence around finals week or when approaching a major deadline, times when coffee was her water and schoolwork was her air.

Mari at least had a system for handling it. It took her about a half hour to properly settle back down, but she hadn’t had an opportunity to follow through with it that night. No sooner had she woken with a gasp then she felt an arm around her, strong and smelling faintly of cigarettes and cologne. Something in her softened, then, her heartbeat dropping almost instantly as she buried her face in their shoulder and fell back asleep.

Mari wasn’t sure what this was. They’d always had sleepovers as kids, but something felt different now. Somewhere in the eating meals together and sleeping regularly in the same bed and the damned thoughts that occasionally crept into her head that she immediately shoved out, something had changed. A line had been crossed that she wasn’t really sure they could go back from.

She was distracting herself from that problem by focusing on a more pressing and far less messy issue. Spork had dropped out, hadn’t told their parents, and now they were going to find out. Or at least, they were if she didn’t figure something out.

The immediate and easiest solution was just to go no-contact. Simply cut out the parents and Spork wouldn’t have to explain the situation. Hell, Spork wouldn’t have to deal with their overbearing birth-givers ever again. That was a recipe for disaster, though. For all her incompetence and negligence of Spork’s true wants and desires growing up, Giselle would scour the entire country if her precious child ever stopped talking to her.

That meant she was going to have to try something a little more unorthodox. The idea that Spork was living with her would at least make whatever story she sold Giselle go down easier. That woman trusted Mari and her mother with Spork’s care and wellbeing more than anyone else, perhaps even her.

The smell of something hot and cheesy coming from the kitchen pulled Mari out of her ruminations. She blinked a few times in confusion at the materials spread in front of her. Oh right, she was supposed to be doing homework. Her stomach growled in protest at the fact she wasn’t moving towards the smell and she gave into its cries, making her way into the kitchen and perching atop one of the stools at the world’s most inconvenient dining table.

There was a plate sitting there with an unburnt sandwich, and Mari claimed it for herself, dragging the plate over and biting into the still-hot sandwich with a satisfying crunch. Spork’s cooking left a lot to be desired, but they sure did make a mean melt.

“How do you feel about working for an organization advocating for accessibility options for the blind?” She asked after her first bite. She took another, letting the question sit before adding. “Correction. How do you feel about lying about working for an organization advocating for accessibility options for the blind?”

“Further correction. How do you feel about lying to your parents about all that?” Her sandwich was somehow already half-gone. Funny how good food could taste when someone reminded you to eat it. Hilarious, even.

“Y’know, hypothetically.”

 
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“I- wha?” Spork jabbed a finger into the mute button on their laptop with more force than was, perhaps, strictly necessary, cutting off their screenreader’s (annoying, robotic, vaguely Australian) voice. Then they pressed another key and paused it properly, just in case they wanted to go back and actually listen to the page later (they doubted it, but they’d rather pause it now than have to fiddle with it or, heaven forbid, start over).

They moved back to the stove so they could flip their sandwich, but not before throwing a confused, squinty look Mari’s way. “You’ve known me for how long?”

Their expression cleared with the correction, turning contemplative. Well, they did tend to enjoy lying, just as a general pastime. And it wasn’t like it was unusual for Mari to be the one to suggest particularly outlandish fibs. (This was because, although she might try to fool everyone into thinking she was the practical one between the two of them, she had a devil in her ear whispering ‘what’s the worst that could happen?’ And it wasn’t even Spork. Not all the time.)

“You think that would work?” The question was posed with their attention still on the stove, poking at the sandwich in the pan and willing it to toast faster. They were trying to gauge the probability of their parents blindly accepting what was, to them, a big ol’ whopper of a lie, but they weren’t a super-genius like Mari. They couldn’t weigh all the variables with the half-second’s notice they’d been given. “Like, unhypothetically?”

There was a little furrow between their brows, a slight frown tugging at the corners of their lips. They hadn’t asked Mari to help them with this. They hadn’t even mentioned it, not since they first showed up at her place. Had she really been thinking about it all this time? Working on a solution, in that quiet way she did where she only presented her results when they were sure to be watertight? That was… kind of sweet, actually. But also suspicious. Very suspicious.

Further investigation was required. They reached over to turn the burner briefly to a nice blasting heat and then completely off, plating their sandwich and joining Mari at the world’s worst breakfast nook. (It was just a weird L-shaped counter that they’d shoved two stools against, but it was marginally better than the couch or Mari’s work desk. 80% less scrap metal than the latter, at least.)

They clattered their plate onto the counter and hopped onto their stool, one foot solidly on the floor beneath them and the other sneaking around the corner of the counter to hook around her ankle and prevent any thoughts of escape. They took a bite of their sandwich, hasahafing and chewing only slightly before asking in a deceptively innocent voice, “How long have you been working on that?”

 


Mari managed to keep her smug look to herself, a habit borne out of necessity in the time since she and Spork had separated. There was a certain level of satisfaction that came with knowing someone for almost the entirety of your life and still being able to say things that made them ask “what the fuck?”, even if it wasn’t in as many words. She finished the other half of her sandwich before Spork even pulled their chair to the table with a screech, grateful that they couldn’t see her glance over their shoulder to see if there was another sandwich. The ingredients were out, but that would require her actually cooking. Instead she went over to the fridge, pulling out a Dr. Pepper and cracking it open, grabbing a Pepsi for Spork and sliding it towards them.

“Unhypothetically? Maybe.” She was glad that Spork had bitten instead of simply brushing off her plan with a gruff ‘I’ll do it myself, Mari’. “It’s hard to tell what your parents will buy, considering neither of us have really talked to them since you moved, if you don’t count Christmas.” The only conversations that really counted during that time were theirs, and even those had felt a little different, the distance between them having tweaked their relationship.

Granted, the new lack of distance seemed to have tweaked it in a new and interesting way. But Mari was busy not thinking about that and instead focusing on the burning of carbonation in her throat. She shrugged her shoulders at Spork’s question, adding in a noncommittal noise for their benefit.

“Not too long.” She lied. Truth be told, she’d started on this project the day after Spork had moved in with her and it had been made clear that this was going to be a semi-permanent situation. Spork’s parents trusted her, for some unknown reason, and she was going to abuse that trust to get her friend out of this situation. She’d done it plenty of times before.

“It’s just an idea, for now. Although now that I’m thinking about it, that might be too high-profile. They might ask to go see a talk or something like that.” It wasn’t the technical work that would bother her. She could just copy another website and add on an employee page and put Spork on it. No, the issue would be getting Spork to play along. They were a good actor, but only when the role suited them.

“Any other ideas?” Mari asked. “I assume you’ve probably been working on it too.”

 


Liar, Spork thought, strangely fond. They cracked open their Pepsi rather than replying right away, taking a sip of sweet chemically caffeine and letting it fizz on their tongue while she spoke. Out of habit, they toyed with the little pop tab on top of the can until it broke off and they could slip it into their pocket amid other various odds and ends.

“Mm, some,” they hedged, reaching to drag their computer a little closer. They tried to put it at an angle where Mari could see what they’d been working on, and succeeded somewhat, though the screen remained tilted too far back to be comfortable. They tabbed out of a screen that was basically just a jumble of words and into a sparsely filled google doc, idly tapping the arrow keys to make the cursor dance while they frowned at the screen. “Honestly, I don’t know what they’d believe either. You think I could get away with bullshitting my way through virtual clown college?”

Their phone buzzed, then, and they pulled it out of their pocket to shut off the alarm on autopilot, only realizing after they’d done so that they’d forgotten what it was for. They sat there for a moment, head tilted in thought, before another alarm started buzzing at them, sending them suddenly springing to their feet. “Oh shit. My sticks!”

They grabbed the oven mitt they’d left on the counter and popped the oven open to remove a tray of fries. See, this was why they set multiple timers. They were not keen on burning the apartment down because of their hankering for potatoes. Or, uh, they didn’t want to get blasted by the fire extinguisher again, if they managed to make a food crime so bad that Mari had to get involved. It was definitely one of the two.

“Do you still want ketchup? Or are you ready to join me on the dark side?” they asked, setting the tray down on the stove and moving to the fridge. They grabbed the mustard and the queso dip (and the ketchup, begrudgingly), then crossed the whole five steps it took to bring them back to their shitty dining area, clattering the bottles down on the counter.

It was easy to fall back into old habits, they thought, their smile shading a degree softer as they grinned down at her. Despite everything, she was still the same girl they grew up with, with the same jagged edges and inexplicable stubbornness and flashes of brilliance. They’d never placed a bet against Mari Ito before. They weren’t planning to start now.

The two of them against the world. Spork kind of liked the sound of that.

 


“I dunno. I think they only ever gave you pity laughs.” Mari joked back. While Spork could make waves as potentially the first blind clown on the east coast, they’d probably get fired after their first performance when they accidentally shouted ‘fuck’ or some other obscenity at a crowd of first graders.

She opened her mouth as their first alarm went off, then closed it as Spork dismissed it. They stared at each other for a moment, their expressions neutral as Spork clearly tried to figure out what exactly the alarm was for. Mari had a silent counter in her head going, seeing how long it would take them to figure it out.

Her count was interrupted somewhere in the hundreds when a secondary alarm went off. She couldn’t hold back a snort of laughter as Spork’s ADHD brain finally kicked into gear and they lunged the incredibly short distance across their kitchen to grab the oven mitts before producing a tray full of perfectly cooked french fries. Mari didn’t know how they did it, but oven fries were one of the few things that Spork could cook better than anyone else. Didn’t matter the brand, the cut, or the oven. As long as Spork was in charge, they would be crispy on the outside, fluffy on the outside, and perfect.

“You mean do I want a normal condiment or the sicko sauce for freaks? Such a hard decision.” Mari chuckled. She still remembered the afternoon they’d spent in high school in her kitchen, as Spork was determined to create the perfect dipping sauce by combining various condiments found within her fridge and pillaged from their own. Mari joined in as the “saucy science advisor” and ensured that they did indeed try every combination. In the end ‘Nuclear Yellow’, as she had dubbed it, had won out. Spork had always ensured their fridge had mustard and queso in it at all times. When their parents threw it out, Mari kept it at her place.

She sighed contentedly as she grabbed the ketchup from them. This was how things should have been, how they were. Some last binding part of tension seeped out of Mari, her shoulders relaxing a fraction she hadn’t known they’d been tensed, a journey that had started when her best friend had shown up on her doorstep unannounced. A missing part of her that she hadn’t known was a part at all, thought it was just a peripheral until it had revealed the space it was supposed to fit in.

They would make a plan, as they always did. They would get Spork’s parents to leave them alone. After that, who knew what would happen? Mari only knew that she would do everything in her power to make sure Spork stayed by her side, that they’d face anything and everything together.

She’d pinky promised.

 


Someone once said that the lowest circle of Hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers, traitors that deserved the worst punishments for all eternity. Mari thought that was a load of shit. The lowest circle of Hell was actually the lead-up to finals week when you were overloading on classes and trying to get a double major. Although she supposed that Dante Alighieri might have had a harder time working that into his biblical fanfiction.

That was another part of the hell of her own devising; taking time-consuming humanities classes at the same time as highly complicated STEM classes. Maybe Spork had the right idea and she should’ve dropped out ages ago. No, that was probably just her coming down from her fifth coffee of the day. She’d get home, get her sixth, and spend the next several hours up to her eyeballs in notes and diagrams.

Her journey back to their shared apartment took much longer than she expected. Mari had no idea why people insisted on holding large events before finals. Sure they advertised it as a chance to ‘relax’ and ‘take a break’, but in reality it just made campus more crowded and kept her from getting where she needed to be. Besides, didn’t these people have studying they needed to be doing? Why was everyone else just slacking off as if they didn’t have important homework and tests to be preparing for?

She was grateful to be back home even as she closed the door with a little more force than necessary. Mari winced a bit at the loud noise, knowing it would probably draw Spork from wherever they’d posted up. She quickly ducked into their closet of a kitchen, not bothering to sling off her bag as she dug out the coffee grounds and filters. She set the coffee brewing and opened the cupboard to grab a mug. She paused, a handle in her grip, before she released it and let the cupboard close. She didn’t need a mug tonight.

After several minutes she left the kitchen, coffee carafe clutched firmly in one hand, and began the long trek to her room. She gave a quick “Hey” to Spork as she passed them sprawled out on the couch, one leg propped up on the arm with another on the back, before turning quickly into her room. She let her bag fall to the ground with a heavy thud as she took in the state of her room.

“God damn it.” Mari swore, taking in the explosion of wires, electrical components, books, and other academic pieces that covered the entirety of her desk. Of course, it was exactly how she’d left it this morning, but now it was an inconvenience. She began shoving stuff to the sides, loud clanking noises undoubtedly filtering their way down the hall, before she fell into her chair with a huff. It was going to be a long evening, and an even longer night.

 
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Mari was in a mood. This was nothing new; she’d been in a fine temper for days, slamming doors and stomping around and cursing at her projects more than usual. Normally, Spork would be all set to batten down the hatches and weather the storm that was Mari during exam season, but now that they were living with her it was much harder to ignore her rank vibes. They couldn’t even escape by crashing at the houses of random girls. The one time they tried, it just made her worse! And they didn’t get much sleep either, admittedly, which made dealing with a tired and cranky Mari such a task that they were surprised they didn’t end up biting her.

Suffice to say, Spork couldn’t gaslight gatekeep girlboss their way out of this one. Mansplain manipulate malewife was their only recourse. Luckily for them, they were a genius, and they already had a plan in the works. They just had to get Mari onboard, and it would be smooth sailing through the end of the school year. Maybe. They didn’t know a lot about boats.

They were googling sailboat terminology before they could think better of it, and listening to a random article on 2x speed when the familiar slam of the front door signaled Mari’s return from the great unknown. They didn’t bother to move from their comfortable sprawl, only muttering, “Rudder? I hardly know ‘er,” and chuckling to themself. They could hear her puttering about in the kitchen, and then the familiar gurgle of the poor, overworked coffee machine, and that told them all they needed to know.

Hmmm, should they enact their plan before or after she’d had her caffeine fix? Probably after, if they didn’t want her to hiss at them. That decided, they returned her greeting with a half-wave and a “Hey,” of their own, and let her slink by without stopping her.

Of course, because the universe wouldn’t let them have nice things, she hadn’t been in her office for more than a few seconds before the racket of multiple metallic objects hitting the floor assaulted Spork’s eardrums. They groaned, shoved their phone in their pocket, and rolled off the couch, staying on the floor for a moment before pushing themself back to their feet and going to check on her. They were sure she’d be cursing a lot more loudly if she’d accidentally hurt herself, but if she was already at the point of throwing shit around then they needed to accelerate their timetable.

“Maaari.” They shuffled to a stop in her doorway, arms crossed lightly over their chest. They’d actually picked their outfit with more than a second’s thought today, so they were in a ribbed tank (which they were assured made their biceps look great), paired with cargo pants for that faux military chic. The frame was cold against their bare arms. “You’re gonna break something, if you keep at it. Which means that you need a break. Or you need to get laid. One of those. And, y’know, I can help with either.”

The offer was posed almost casually, their face smiling but otherwise blank and tilted off to the side like they didn’t have their full attention on her. At their side, hidden under the curve of their arm, they scratched their nails over the inside of their thumb, a fidget that would’ve done more damage if they didn’t keep them so short.

 


By the time Mari had cleared enough space off her desk to set down the coffee carafe and properly work, she had probably made enough noise to wake the dead. Fortunately, the dead didn’t live in their apartment so she had no problem with it. She cracked open her computer and typed in her password with a little more force than was strictly necessary. She didn’t trust facial recognition stuff, and even if she did it probably wouldn’t recognize the sleep-deprived student sat in her chair.

Spork’s grating call sent Mari rolling her eyes. Venom was on her tongue before she swallowed it back down. No, this was her best friend. She was nice to them. She would just politely tell them that she was busy and couldn’t spend her afternoon entertaining them because she was too busy trying to pass her classes.

She’d already turned towards them to deliver just that speech when it died in her throat. What the fuck? What did they just say? Something in Mari’s brain must have broken, maybe she had been sleeping too little, but this didn’t sound like their normal If you gave me a chance I would take it joke. Mari scoured their face, ignoring the moment her eyes lingered on their biceps, trying to figure out what the hell Spork’s game was.

Unfortunately, their crooked smile gave away nothing, leaving Mari to her own devices. What were they offering? Did they want to-? Did she want to? On some distant level she knew her friend was attractive, even if she’d never say it to their face. They had to be, in order to leave a trail of broken hearts as long and wide as they did. Mari on the other hand rarely thought about people that way, and the idea of casual hookups with strangers just didn't mesh with her.

Having a chronic flirt suddenly move in didn't help matters. Mari had known Spork had a habit of being flirty to anything with a pulse, but somehow thought she was the exception to that rule. Apparently not, as she'd quickly found out. Most of the time she shook it off, firing something dryly back at them or just stonewalling them entirely. But there were times that their flirting stuck, sending a flush to her face that she was grateful they couldn’t see. It was fine, she had a handle on it. She didn’t actually want them that way.

Right?

Mari realized she’d been silent for way too long, staring at Spork in a way that she definitely shouldn’t have been. She coughed, suddenly aware of the temperature of the room. “Well,” Another cough as her voice came out hoarse. She took a sip of coffee directly from the carafe and tried again.

“I mean. I can’t really take a break, Spork.” Mari kicked herself at the way her voice broke on their name, but she didn’t say anything else, letting the unspoken second option hang between them. The ball was firmly back in Spork’s court. All they had to do was bat it away and she would get back to her evening of studying and caffeine overconsumption, which was what she wanted. Definitely. Mari fidgeted, her hands clenching and unclenching awkwardly as she tried and failed to look at anything other than the figure leaning in her doorway as she waited for their response.

 
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And now Mari was buffering. Spork waited in excruciatingly awkward silence for the long seconds it took her to process, scratching new lines into their thumb all the while. Other than that, they were as chill as a cucumber. No, chiller than a cucumber. They were the iceberg that sunk the goddamn Titanic, that’s how chill they were. Outwardly, at least.

Inwardly, they weren’t so sure what was going on. There was a weird buzzing in their bones that might’ve been nervousness, but if Spork Fuchs was the type of person to get nervous about propositioning girls they wouldn’t be in this situation. And, yeah, this was different from picking up girls at the bar, but was it really that different? They didn’t think it would be. But now they were standing here, in the moment, and Mari was about to shoot down their totally genuine proposal, and they’d have to deal with things being weird on top of everything else, and this was kind of a horrible idea, wasn’t it? Maybe they could still back out. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d jokingly flirted at Mari and then dropped it like it was hot as soon as she told them to lay off. But on the other hand, if they didn’t do it the right way it’d probably just make her pissier. She tended to get extra snippy if she thought she was being set up as the butt of a joke.

Ughh. Their life was so hard.

They were just about to open their mouth - whether to bail themself out or dig themself deeper, they weren’t quite sure yet - when Mari beat them to it. Spork tried not to look like they were holding their breath, even though they were starting to feel a little lightheaded. It left them in a woosh on the heels of her last sentence, the nerve-cocktail vacating just as suddenly.

Alright. So they were doing this, then. It was like a switch flipped in their brain, making it easier to push down the lingering uncertainty, the faint but persistent knowing that this was Mari, this was their best friend, and she’d always been- No. It didn’t matter. They were in their element, and they finally knew what they were doing. Who they were doing, even.

They turned up the brightness on their grin, trying for sexy and landing somewhere around manic, and finally unfolded from their casual lean to stride forward. Their hands came down on the arms of Mari’s chair, just as sharp and sudden as their presence in her space, and they practically purred, “Sure you can.”

They pulled her closer, all smiles and pitfalls, pupils like black holes in their mismatched eyes, and got ready to knock her world right off its axis.

 


For once, Mari was speechless. Her thoughts were foggy to begin with (again, too much caffeine and not enough sleep), but they kept drifting around as Spork looked at her, and she looked at them, waiting. That didn’t last too long as suddenly their hands smacked down on either side of her, jolting them into sharp focus. She hadn’t realized they crossed the distance between them that quickly.

“Okay.” Mari said faintly. She had nothing. No quick joke to fire back, no sarcastic comment to parry with. Just a blush that began to creep up her face. Mari was completely out of her depth, here, and she truly had no idea what to expect.


It had been a long fucking week. Mari had fought her way through three finals, two projects, and two papers, but came out on the other side victorious. Campus was already rapidly turning into a ghost town by the time she left, everyone packing up and getting the hell out of dodge as soon as possible.

She didn’t know how she’d managed to pull it off. That was a lie, she absolutely did, but thinking about it sent a twinge of nervousness through her stomach. Not about what had happened, but about what she was planning.

To their credit, Spork had done exactly what they’d said they were going to do. She’d even enjoyed it, much to her own surprise. But when Mari had tried to return the favor, they were dismissive about it and just pulled her closer, lulling her to sleep with their innate space heater qualities. They hadn’t mentioned it since, and Mari wasn’t going to be the one to open that can of worms.

Or so she’d thought. But thinking was Mari’s specialty, they’d told her often enough, and that moment kept nagging at her. So she’d added onto her workload for finals week, delving into various forums and articles and videos. Thank goodness for discrete browsers, and the fact that Spork usually announced their presence wherever they went. They couldn’t see what she was researching, but it still embarrassed her to have it up while in the same room as them.

“Spork!” Mari called once she entered their apartment. She had no idea where they’d be whenever she got home. She’d made the mistake of saying the couch was a reliable guess and since then Spork had never been in the same place twice when she got back. They were impressive in their stubbornness like that.

“Officially done with finals.” She said with relief whenever she found them, nervousness knotting her stomach. She had to play this right, otherwise Spork would know something was up. “Celebratory drink?” Mari offered, pulling a glass bottle out of her backpack that she'd picked up on the way home. “I didn’t think to text you, so I just grabbed a thing of wine.”

 
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Things had settled down in the Fuchs-Ito joint bachelor pad. Spork wasn’t usually one to enjoy the quiet, but it was nice to know that Mari wasn’t stressing herself out of her gourd. And it was all thanks to their brilliant plan, which had gone off without a hitch.

As far as they could tell, at least. Mari had thrown herself into her work almost immediately, which was nothing new, but it did mean that they didn’t really get a chance to talk about it. Not that Spork really wanted to, but they had figured she would and had been mentally preparing for the inevitable. They weren’t complaining that it turned out to be -evitable, but the vibes had been weird enough that they almost wished she would grill them. Anything would be better than the weird dance they were now entangled in, where she awkwardly stepped around the subject every time it seemed like it might be on the horizon.

They blew cherry-flavored smoke out the window with a thoughtful hum, one hand propping their chin up and the other idly rearranging the rows of the rubik’s cube propped on their desk. They’d gotten it as a joke, and because they thought confusing the store clerk was hilarious, but it turned out to be a halfway decent fidget. Every so often they asked Mari if they’d accidentally solved it, but even Lady Luck could only do so much. The furthest they’d gotten was two faces.

Mari’s voice pulled them from their ruminations. She was home later than usual, they noted, swiveling their chair towards their open door to holler, “Wassup?”

Her footsteps preceded her down the hallway. Spork took another breath of smoke and completed the circuit of their chair to direct their exhale out the window before shutting their vape off and tucking it back in its drawer. They were done anyway.

“Congrats. Knew you could do it.” The smile they directed her way was bright, if a bit confused. Was that all she wanted them for? Why the production? There were only so many places in their apartment a Spork could inhabit. They would know, they’d made a game of finding a new place to be lounging in when she got home every day for a month before they got bored of it.

Their eyebrows rose at her suggestion. Mari rarely drank, and it showed. She didn’t even have vodka in the freezer when they moved in. But, hey, if she wanted to cut loose then they weren’t going to stop her.

Yeah. Cutting loose. With a bottle of wine. What a rebel. Spork couldn’t contain their snerk, a little cough of a laugh that pushed past their lips before they could think better of it, but they at least tried to pretend it was an actual cough, covering their mouth with their wrist so that she wouldn’t see their grin. “Mhm. Uh, sure. Heh- I didn’t think you’d like wine.”

Then they thought about it for a second and realized - “Wait, how did you even get this? Did you get a fake ID just for this? For your- h- your end of year- is this a midlife crisis? What’s next? Are you gonna get a- a tasteful streak in your hair?”

Oh, they were trying to contain their laughter, but they were failing. And they were maybe being a bit of a dick, they realized, even through their chuckles. They reached out and caught her wrist, took the bottle from her, and set it on their desk, turning back to wipe mirthful tears from their eyes and say, “I don’t think we even own wine glasses.”

 


It was official. Let the record show from now until the end of time that Spartacus “Spork” Fuchs was an asshole. Truly an earth-shattering discovery that none had made before. This would be the legacy that Mariko Ito would leave behind. She let out a sigh as she shook her head, chuckling softly.

“If I’m already at my midlife crisis, you’re in trouble.” She let them take the bottle, grateful they didn’t push the matter any further. “If I die, who else is going to put up with you?” Mari matched their smile, albeit with a less shit-eating one. “I’m sure we can manage to find some other glasses that will suffice.”

It really had been the first thing she thought to grab. She hadn’t drank that much, and moreso knew what she didn’t like rather than what she did. When she’d seen her mom drink, rare as it was, her drink of choice had usually been wine. Of course she didn’t know what kind it had been, and she couldn’t exactly ask.

Spork had absolutely hit the nail on the head, though. She had, in fact, gotten a fake ID just for this part of her plan. It was surprisingly easy, especially when you lived in a college town. There was always someone willing to help underage students get drunk. Still, she hadn’t wanted to get under scrutiny for too long so she had grabbed the first bottle that wasn’t exorbitantly expensive, after a short period perusing the selection in order to not seem suspicious, of course.

“Well this bottle isn’t going to drink itself, and I’m in the mood to celebrate.” Mari said, letting out a small chuckle. “Am I going to have to drink it alone?”


The sun had fallen outside, and between the two of them they had managed finish off the bottle of incredibly shitty wine. Mari had suggested delving into some of the other booze Spork kept in the apartment, but they just laughed and made her get a glass of water instead. They’d taken on the role of drinking mentor quite well, making sure Mari never drank more than one glass to their two. She figured that if she’d tried to keep pace with them she probably would have passed out.

“Hey Spork?” Mari asked, from her comfortable position leaning against their arm. Their bicep was quite a good pillow and something small in her brain wondered how it would feel if she gnawed on it. “Why are you so warm?”

Because they always were. Their whole life Spork had been a warm child, and right now Mari was snuggled up against an electric blanket with a mullet and parental issues and it was cozy. Said blanket shifted underneath her and she sat up a little bit, shifting around and catching sight of the bicep once again.

Ah, fuck it.

Mari leaned over and slowly, gently, sank her teeth into Spork’s arm. It was squishy, and she gnawed a few times before realizing that she probably should have asked them first. She glanced in their direction to see if they’d noticed before gnawing a few more times.

 
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“I’ll have you know I’m a hot commodity. Everyone wants a piece of this,” Spork retorted. They bit back on the follow-up comment that they wanted to make, because it was too soon, and they were still unsure of where they stood in that area. Instead, they stuck their tongue out, and turned to poke at the bottle, judging it by width and height for lack of any other information. They both seemed normal, from what little they knew of wine bottles, so they had moderate hopes that she hadn’t somehow gotten lost and bought moonshine or something weird like that.

Something in her tone drew a smile from them, reflexive and almost startled. They dropped the wine and turned their face towards her, almost suspicious, but rather than replying right away they just got to their feet, messing up her hair as they shuffled past. “Nah. I’ll get the glasses.”


The wine was so shitty. Like, irredeemably shitty. It was like someone had killed a bunch of grapes, left them to rot for a hundred years, resurrected them, killed them again, and then bottled their desiccated, grapey remains. But Spork was doing their due fucking diligence and finishing the last of it, because if they didn’t then Mari might get it in her head to try more, and she was already pretty buzzed from the two glasses she’d had.

They might’ve been a bit drunk too - they didn’t drink wine, like, ever, so they’d blazed right past tipsy in their futile efforts to make it stop tasting so bad - but, like, it was fine. Spork could handle their alcohol. Mari, hilariously, totally could not.

“Mm?” they hummed, not bothering to lift their head from where it was resting on the edge of their mattress. They’d made a cozy little dent there, and had no intentions of budging anytime soon. “Iunno. Closer to hell? No wait, that doesn’t work, I’m too tall.”

Why were they so warm? Well, right now it was probably the wine. It sat warm and cloying in their chest, and when they pressed a hand to their face it did seem warmer than usual. “Maybe I’m just- are you biting me?”

That was definitely a mouth on their arm, they thought, raising their head to squint suspiciously in Mari’s direction. They didn’t bother moving away, though, only letting their head loll back again and shrugging loosely. “Alright. Spork snacks on the menu today, who knew.”

There was a joke there, somewhere. They squinted at the ceiling, trying to find it. Something something snack? Hm, no. Having Mari’s mouth on them was surprisingly distracting.

… Shit, that sounded wrong. Like, really wrong, damn. And instead of being funny it just kind of made them feel… weird? Bad? Bad-weird? Ugh. Had they fucked everything up, by doing what they did? Who were they if they couldn’t think in casual innuendos anymore? Why didn’t Mari want to talk about it?

At some point, they’d started frowning. They made an effort to force their expression into something neutral before Mari could notice, but their face wasn’t cooperating all the way. Bluh. Fine, then. They’d just put their arm over their eyes, if they couldn’t stop making faces out loud. “Ugh.”

 


“No.” Mari said around a mouthful of arm. She gnawed a few more times, but soon the situation turned out far more slobbery than she was comfortable with. She loosed her jaws from Spork’s bicep with a wet sound and blinked slowly before wiping away the drool. She let out a disgusted sound when she realized she’d wiped it away with her own bare hand, which she then wiped on Spork’s carpet. Hopefully it dried before they had to walk over here.

“Sorry, I just kinda wanted to bite your bicep.” Mari said unapologetically. “Good news. It’s very biteable.” Mari took another swig of her water, swallowing loudly. Her mouth seemed so dry for some reason. She sat in silence for a few moments, enjoying the pleasant hum of the alcohol in her veins. She may have gotten a touch more drunk than she had been planning on originally, but it was nice to just be drunk with Spork, idly chatting and just being ridiculous.

She still had to do the major part of her plan. Something inside her twisted in a not-so-fun way. Was it guilt, that she’d gotten Spork drunk in order to get this far? Was it nervousness, that they might dismiss her like they had before? Or was it anticipation, that of a plan about to reach its fruition and hopeful success? She couldn’t tell through her own clouded thoughts and how comfortable Spork was.

It was a while before she spoke up, too lost in her own thoughts to notice the ‘Ugh’ that slipped out of Spork as they shifted further against her. Mari had completely zoned out, caught up in trying to figure out the best way to broach the subject, the best words to use, before deciding on the most direct route. The art of seduction was a tricky thing.

Just thinking that made Mari hesitate for several more minutes.

Taking one last bracing gulp of her water, Mari turned towards Spork and shifted her body, moving before she could talk herself out of it, ignoring any of their protests until she was sitting in their lap, hands resting on their shoulders. Her heart was hammering out of her chest, she felt like she was burning up, and Mari knew her face was absolutely blazing scarlet.

“Spork.” She said, unable to keep her eyes off their face. “I want to talk about the other night.” Her tone made it quite clear which ‘other night’ she was talking about. She tried not to think about how comfortable of a position this was as she continued, forging ahead before they could stop her.

“It was good, great even! But I can’t help but feel like it ended too soon, y’know?” She started speeding up, unable to stop the words once they started. “We didn’t really get a chance to finish things. Well, I did, but you didn’t. And I want to fix that. I wanted to earlier but you brushed me off.” Mari took a large gasp of air, only because she’d been getting a little lightheaded.

“Do you want to try again?” She asked, letting out a nervous giggle, the unspoken I do hanging in the small space between them.

 
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“‘s fine,” Spork mumbled, focusing on the coolness of their arm on their overheated face and tuning out any other sensations. At least they weren’t out-warming themself, for once. That happened sometimes, especially in the summer, where their internal combustion engine or whatever would try to combat the warm weather by out-hotting the hot. But that wouldn’t happen with Mari here, some part of their brain reminded them. Her heat-sink capabilities were unmatched.

Thanks, brain. Now they were thinking about how it was kind of nice to share a bed with her instead of suffering in sweaty hell on their own, and that just made them feel all twisty and tangled up inside, because it was a different kind of hell to remember laying next to her in wait of a conversation that would never come.

It was quiet, then, and Spork sat there for a minute before they could finally re-bury the thought that they had been a terrible friend, that they should do something - yikes - or say something - double yikes - to break the silence and address the elephant in the room. Or the elephant that they felt should be in the room, maybe. The invisible, intangible elephant that may or may not be present. Basically, they shoved all of that aside and let their arm drop back to the carpet, shifting around until they were slumped against Mari more comfortably.

She was all angles and sharp edges, but it wasn’t so bad once you got used to it. Their kidneys hardly even protested anymore when her elbows ended up jabbing into their side. They probably had calluses there, actually. Could organs even get calluses? Maybe they’d invented them, and they were a medical marvel. Five tricks your doctor doesn’t want you to know!

They wished she would just put them out of their misery.

Ugh, no! They weren’t thinking about it. Mari shifted away from them, and Spork reluctantly sat on their own power, leaning against the bed with bones that had forgotten how to be fully solid structural supports. They were so tired. This wasn’t fair.

Then she sat in their lap, and they were suddenly, startlingly awake. “Woah, hey.”

What was happening? They sat up straighter, their hands briefly lifting from the carpet before their brain caught up and they slammed them back down again, rethinking everything that had led to this moment. What the fuck? Were they dreaming? Or was this it?

Oh fuck, this was it. This was the conversation. Spork wasn’t sure what their face was doing, other than being on fire. They were only faintly aware of saying, “Uh,” and being immediately barreled over by Mari’s one-woman verbal steam train. Choo-choo, all aboard to… wherever the hell this was going.

“I-” they started to say, when she took a breath, but it was only a temporary reprieve. The words. They just kept coming. They were a little impressed, actually, behind all the shock and fluster.

They waited a second to be sure she was actually done before trying again. “Um!” Yeah. Great start. And they weren’t immediately cut off, which was even greater. Okay. “I… maybe? Wait, fuck. I mean. It’s, like, fine? I don’t… need…”

Oh god, they were not prepared for this. They were not prepared for this at all. They were making gestures with their hands that even they didn’t know the meaning of. They were wrong. They were so wrong. This was the actual hell. Why were they talking about this? Why would anyone talk about this?! Didn’t she know the importance of body language- NOT NOW BRAIN.

“It’s fine!” they repeated, their voice going up an octave, breaking, and ending in something embarrassingly reminiscent of a squeak. Nevermind. It was not fine. They were going to die. One of their hands knocked into her arm and just sort of hung there, locked onto her wrist like a lifeline.

They weren’t pushing her away. They- no, they didn’t want to push her away, that wasn’t it. Their brain was just on fire, and the little Sporks inside were running in circles and screaming, because this had never been in the plan. “That was- that was for you, Mari. You don’t have to- you don’t owe me anything, it’s not like that. No strings attached, you know me. You know I wouldn’t do that.”

 


Mari almost missed Spork’s response. Her body was warm and they were comfortable and she was so relieved that she’d managed to get everything she wanted to say out without balking. She was so relieved that she didn’t actually notice when Spork started responding, their stammering fading into white noise that only broke through when they yelped, one hand clasping around Mari’s wrist.

For a moment she thought this was it, the moment she’d been working towards for what felt like forever but was probably closer to a week. Mari started to press herself closer to Spork, until they kept talking and she stopped moving.

“I…know?” She said, quiet and confused. Did Spork think she was only doing this, that she had only offered, out of some sense of obligation? She thought they knew her better than this. She thought she’d shown them that she wanted to do it, but she hadn’t been as clear as she’d thought. Mari couldn’t think of the exact signals she’d given Spork, but she was going to blame it on the alcohol rather than her own failure to communicate.

“Spork, I didn’t offer because I thought I owed you.” Mari pushed on. “I offered because I wanted to. I still do, dumbass.” She shifted herself so she was sitting up under her own power, moving forward so that she was slightly looking down at them.

“I’ve spent the past week doing research and trying to figure this out, and I am not going to let it go to waste.” One of her hands fell to Spork’s collar, tangling in it as a wave of (probably misplaced) confidence pushed through Mari, blocking out Spork’s inevitable snicker.

“Now I’m going to show you exactly what I’ve learned, and you’re going to sit back and enjoy it.” Her free hand slipped behind Spork’s head, wrapping her fingers in their mullet and tightening her grip.

“Deal?”

 
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“You do?” Spork was so confused. If that wasn’t what this was about, then what the hell was it about?

Mari had drawn back from them some, and they took advantage of the increased space to take a deep breath, trying to wrangle their thoughts into some semblance of order that wasn’t just Mari and what? and girl in lap. They had instincts, dammit, and those instincts were Not Helpful. Not when the girl was Mari, and yeah they’d gone there before but it was different this time. Different from anything else they’d done. They didn’t know how, exactly, but it was! It definitely was!

It was so quintessentially Mari for her excuse to be how much research she’d done that they couldn’t help but snicker, the panic popping in a sudden burst of amusement. “Research? You mean like-”

Their breath caught as she grabbed a fistful of their shirt, and if they weren’t blushing before they definitely were now, their mouth snapping shut with an audible click. Oh. That’s what was different. Spork wasn’t in control of things, this time. Mari was.

And, horror of horrors, they liked it.

That’s new, Spork thought, dazed. Vaguely, they felt cloth beneath their fingertips, and realized that their hands had stopped their aimless floating and were now tangled in the hem of Mari’s shirt. She was close enough now that they could smell the wine on her breath, and it was making their head spin in a way that they didn’t mind so much, actually, not as long as she kept talking to them like that.

She was going to be the death of them, one day. They couldn’t wait; it was going to be glorious.

“Yes, ma’am,” they agreed, breathless, their grin crooked and insolent and vibrantly alive. Maybe they could let her take the lead, just this once. Only because they were so nice. No other reason.


“So, like, does this mean we have to get hitched?” Spork asked, the next morning, apropos of nothing, as they sat at their shitty dining table and sipped at a half-melted frappuccino. They’d demolished the breakfast they’d ordered with their usual level of enthusiasm, leaving no McGriddle behind. Except for the ones that were Mari’s, of course. Or most of them anyway. “I’m pretty sure there are laws about that shit. Or, uh, what are they called? Commandments? It’s in the Bible, Mari. When are you gonna make an honest man of me?”

Their point was punctuated by a loud rattle from their straw as they hit an air pocket at the bottom of their drink. Their grin, when they turned it on her, was trying for angelic and landing in the vicinity of shit-eating. It was clear they were reveling in this.

 
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