𝐊𝐎𝐓𝐋𝐂 𝓼𝓱𝓲𝓹-𝓼𝓱𝓸𝓽𝓼 [DISCONTINUED]

♾️sophiana p.2 ♾️

The bottle they had chosen spun to Sophie first. The other three elves all sighed with relief.

"Okay," Biana said to her, "Have you ever had a crush?"

Sophie thought about this for a second. "I don't think so."

Her red cheeks didn't escape anyone's notice.

For some reason, the fact that she said she didn't think so made Biana both hopeful and doubtful. What if Sophie really was too oblivious to her feelings after all?

"My turn!" Sophie said breathlessly, and spun the bottle with gusto. The bottle seemed to spin for minutes before it finally landed on Fitz. Shyly, Sophie asked, "Were you really in the bathroom before? Or was Keefe lying for you?"

Keefe cringed and Fitz looked at him in terror. Some sort of unshared secret was between them.

"Good question, Sophie ..." Biana grinned. "I'm guessing Keefe was indeed lying about something ..."

"I had a hickey," Fitz blurted, immediately clamping a hand over his mouth and dissolving into embarrassed giggle-laughs.

Keefe bit his lip painfully. "And ... well, neither of us noticed it until Fitz took his jacket off ... it had a high collar ..."

"It's still there!" Fitz murmured. "What do I do, Biana?" He took his hand away from his mouth and they could see his blushing cheeks.

Biana smirked, lips twitching. "It's not that visible, you'll be fine."

The small mark was only a few shades darker than the rest of the skin of Fitz's neck. It could have just passed as a slightly darker shadow if the light was angled on it right.  

"So . . . how did you manage to get this hickey?" Sophie asked him, giggling. "Aren't you like, fifteen? Who's the girl?"

The girl.

Those two horrible words.

Biana could only imagine how painful it must have been for her brother in that moment, and Keefe too.

But how could Sophie be thinking it came from a girl? 

"Sophie . . . how do you feel about same-gender couples?" Keefe asked carefully for his boyfriend, who had turned pale. 

Sophie shrugged. "I mean, when I first heard about that sort of thing, at first I thought it was kinda weird, because my parents had never really educated me about that stuff, but then I learnt about it more, and . . . yeah, I'm good with that."

Biana smiled to herself. At least Sophie wasn't a homophobe.

"Well . . . I . . . " Fitz tried to say, but Keefe finished the sentence for him.

"He's gay, I'm pansexual, and we're dating."

Sophie grinned at Biana. She had noticed them before, but now that they were finally admitting it, she seemed to be a lot happier. "How did your parents react?"

Biana looked away at the same time that Fitz and Keefe's faces went from nervous to completely crestfallen.

"Neither of us have told them yet," Fitz mumbled. 

"My parents would probably throw me off a cliff if they found out," Keefe chuckled. "They're not particularly . . . kind people."

Biana's heart ached with sympathy for him. She knew how hard it must be to have parents like that. At least Lady Gisela was slightly nicer than Lord Cassius.

"Oh," Sophie said awkwardly. "So, um, I think I might head off now..."

"Already?" Biana interrupted.