Rage With Benefits

College: Autumn Walks

Fall 2022, UCLA Residence, sophomore year of college

Two years together and still, Bryce had no idea how someone like Ian could be real.

You know what he's talking about. Amazing personality, amazing voice, amazing lips, amazing dark, downcast eyelashes every girl would be outrageously envious of. His boyfriend is the definition of beauty, and Bryce could not for the life of him process that someone like him is with Ian. It's like... if you paired french fries and honey. It's good, but the fries can do better.

Ian on the other hand, loves his boyfriend so so very much, and if he knew Bryce is even considering himself being anything less than perfect, he won't hesitate to slap the man across the face.

Much like what he's very tempted to do right now.

"Nooooo," the blond whined, tightening his grip on the comforter to keep his boyfriend from tugging it off his half-naked body. "Babe, it's 6 in the morning, why can't we just be lazy for one day?"

Ian, hair tousled and unconvinced, narrowed his eyes at Bryce. "Don't fool me, you've been asleep since 7 last night." 

"You know I stayed up all night for that paper, right?" Bryce muttered groggily, lids heavy as he tried to adjust to the light coming from the window, which Ian so graciously opened knowing it would wake him up. "You've been asleep since 7 last night."

"Come on, if you could just try and look outside?" Ian offered, leaning over as he pushed his hands against the window to further admire the beauty of fall. There weren't many people in the street, which makes it even more perfect to take a stroll outside.  "Everything's so orange and yellow... and pretty..."

College isn't all bad, especially when you're sharing a dorm with your boyfriend (it took a week to convince Ian's roommate to switch, but it was worth it). The couple are both in their sophomore years now; Bryce is majoring in business economics while Ian decided to be quirky and different and took astrophysics. All kidding aside, he likes the course so far and even joked about being an astronaut and living on Mars someday. He even got into a whole argument with his boyfriend about it.

"I could live on Mars."

It was a Saturday and the two were cooking breakfast in Olivia's kitchen. Well, Ian was. Bryce was just sitting by the aisle, watching the view of Ian's muscles moving like clockwork as he was making his mother's signature french toast.

"You won't even survive an hour fighting dogs on the street," Bryce pointed out, making Ian scoff. "How are you gonna fight pirate aliens when they knock on your spacecraft to steal your exotic human organs?"

"First of all, that's child talk," Ian retorted as he turned around, pointing the spatula at his boyfriend's face. "And second of all, if pirate aliens exist they wouldn't be 'knocking on my spacecraft', dumbass."

He added, "And how are you so sure that I can't fight? I'd fight you right now if I wanted to."

Bryce let out a laugh as he stood up, kissing his boyfriend's forehead before making his way to the fridge. "Sure, babe."

"Oh, so you think you're better than me?" Ian huffed, arms crossed.

"Oh yeah, this is what you're gonna fight the aliens with..." Bryce spoke, gesturing at Ian while he drank his water. "Attitude." 

UCLA was better than either of them expected, but maybe that's because they're both happy with how things are going outside of school. Everybody would've had every reason to bet Bryce and Ian wouldn't stay for longer than they are now, considering how much they fight and disagree on even the tiniest things, but here we are.