this thing of darkness (i acknowledge mine)

v-a-c-a-t-i-o-n

happy pride, enjoy the lizbetty :)

~*~

Flash had felt like a terrible son that morning, he'd admit, practically sneaking out of the house to catch an Uber to the airport. But the night before, his father had been so...

Well, whatever high or low he'd been riding, Flash had no doubt it would incapacitate him for the rest of the day. Saying goodbye would have been more trouble than it was worth. And his mother? As far as she was concerned, Flash's week-long trip made no difference whatsoever in her day-to-day operations.

But no matter how many times Flash told himself he didn't care what his parents did—or more often than not, what they didn't do—he still found himself pulling up to the airport in a sour mood. A great way to start the vacation he'd been looking forward to for weeks, right?

"I've got a gift for you!" Betty exclaimed as he joined her inside the terminal, fishing around inside her purse. "Well, I made one for all of us, but yours is probably my favorite."

After another moment of rifling, Betty's hand triumphantly emerged from her purse with a...

Button pin?

"Oh my God," Flash said, an amazed laugh escaping his lips as he realized what—who—was on this pin. "Is that John Milton?"

"Uh huh," Betty said, eyes twinkling. "You like it?"

Upon first glance, the grayscale image of Milton appeared innocuous, but closer inspection revealed a hot pink kiss mark on his cheek and heart-shaped glasses of a matching shade perched across his nose. At the bottom read the only Milton quote Flash believed was worth knowing: I NEED TO BE MILKED.

"I fucking love it," Flash said, shaking his head in delight. "Betty, you are officially my favorite person."

"Aw, you're making me blush."

They sat down in the terminal's notoriously uncomfortable chairs as Flash tried to determine the best place to wear his pin. He didn't want to make any holes in his shirt, but he also couldn't just stick Betty's pin in his pocket. This kind of magnificent work needed to be on display.

Betty, for her part, appeared delighted by his reception of the gift. "I figured this was the best—and funniest—way to honor your AP Research work while still acknowledging how much you despise Mr. Milkton."

Flash snorted at her pun as he decided to attach the pin to his carry-on for the time being. "Like any good literary scholar, I will always bitch about the pervasive bigotry of old white men, no matter how much I respect their writing talents."

"And that is exactly why you will get a 5."

Flash laughed. "I don't know about that"—he was yet to see an AP Research assignment like his from past years that scored higher than a 4—"but it'll be nice to have any passing score on my transcript."

If only his parents knew what his research was on—they'd blow a gasket. Hell, they probably wouldn't even register that his analytical approach to Comus explicitly involved an ecocritical framework. Pseudo-STEM, as it were.

Thankfully, though, his parents' attention to his studies ended at the last line on his report card, meaning Flash could just this once get away with a study he was actually interested in.

Then again, Flash was the one attending MIT for environmental engineering, a subject he didn't hate, per se, but certainly didn't adore, either, all because his parents wanted... Yeah.

Who was the real sucker here?

Not wanting to continue that depressing train of thought when he was supposed to be readying himself for vacation, Flash asked Betty what pins she'd made for herself, Ned, MJ, and Liz—oh, two for Liz, Flash noted with a barely suppressed smirk. His friend's eagerness as she explained each additional button proved to be the perfect distraction. Better yet, Ned and MJ did not arrive at the airport at the last minute as Betty had previously predicted, meaning Flash was further distracted from any depressing thoughts by their presence, including their ecstatic reactions when Betty gave them their own pins.