There's a ringing noise.
Sage blinks blearily assuming she had accidentally left her alarm on. She reaches out to her nightstand grabbing at anything until she finds her phone. When she looks at it though she sees that the culprit of the noise isn't her alarm but a phone call. It's Dorian. Of course it's Dorian.
She considers just not answering putting her phone down and going back to the peaceful slumber she was once in. But a nagging feeling makes her worry that he might be in danger.
She clicks accept.
"You better be dangling off a cliff right now"
"You sound chipper"
He definitely wasn't in trouble.
She rubs her face "What do you need."
"Were you asleep?"
"It's the weekend Dorian."
"It's 9:00 AM."
"Why are you calling me at 9:00 AM!"
"You've met Candy's parents right?" he responds
"Yeah??" It was on a zoom call, but it still counted "what does that have to do with anything?" She asks exasperated, considering just ending the call now knowing he wasn't in trouble.
"So you know what the appropriate gift to get the parents is?"
"What???" She says now searching the nightstand for her glasses because this clearly wasn't going to be a quick call "can you please give me more context for this?"
She hears Dorian groan "Ugh, if you must know I'm going to Aidens farm for a few weeks over the summer, I'll be meeting his parents and I want to get them something nice"
Part of her finds it sweet, how serious he's taking this. More of her wants to punch him for waking her up over something so dumb.
"Where are you??"
"The hallmark store-"
"I'm coming over"
"What?"
"You're clearly at a loss for what to do, and" she says as she gets out of bed "I'm going to kick your ass for waking me up so early"
"But-"
She ends the call before he can protest more.
——
Dorian stands idly in the aisles of the store.
He could just leave, go to another store and not call Sage again. On the other hand, she might actually kill him if he left (and maybe a part of him subconsciously felt he needed the help)
After looking at the shelves for awhile Sage comes bursting through the doors clearly disheveled. "Okay Hayes, let's just get into it. Do you even have an inkling of an idea of what you want??"
Dorian crosses his arms "Well I wanted to get them flowers, but those probably wouldn't survive transport, so then I thought chocolates but those would probably melt-"
"Dorian." She cuts him off "Why are you doing this??"
Dorian purses his lips "It's the polite thing to do" Sage shakes her head "I guess, it just...feels like there's more going on, you seem really worried about this"
Dorian looks at his feet. "No I-" he looks up at Sage and just knows she doesn't believe him.
He sighs "Fine." He wrings his hands "I just fear that his parents might not...like me?"
Sage raises a brow "why?" She asks, and Dorian almost laughs because he thought it was obvious. "I don't believe I have the best track record" he sighs "I'm worried they think I'm not taking things seriously"
Sage opens her mouth to say something but Dorian turns back to the shelves "In any case that means I need to give them the best impression possible." He looks back to her "Plus it took awhile to convince my mom to even let me on this trip, so I'd like it to go as smoothly as possible"
Sage pinches the bridge of her nose clearly exasperated.He goes back to searching. Suddenly she's next to him "Look Dorian," she says "They're letting you stay with them, clearly if they do hate you they're willing to give you a chance" Dorian opens his mouth but Sage cuts him off "and, I think that if they care about Aiden, they'll see he's happy with you and get over themselves" she pats this shoulder "this is of course, in the hypothetical universe where they do hate you."
Dorian looks down at his feet again shuffling awkwardly, he felt pretty embarrassed. "Um, thanks for all that. And uh, sorry for waking you up." He rubs the back of his neck Sage smirks. Dorian coughs into his hand "Well I should probably get them a card anyway. They are letting me stay in their home"
Sage rolls her eyes with a chuckle "Sure."
"Which do you think they'd like?"
"Why don't you ask Aiden?"
"I didn't want to wake him up"
"Oh my god."
