Sweater Weather

Her life was over. The mortification of this would kill her. Actually send her 6 feet down a nd all for a fucking sweater.

Elle knew this was a bad idea. It was so stupid, she'd never done anything like this in her entire life. She had never once pulled anything as big as what she'd just gotten herself into and she was cursing herself as she pressed up against Tao's body in an effort to get the cupboard door to close even more as voices drifted from outside the dark halls of Higgs.

It was her own fault she was here. Talking with Darcy and Tara, she'd left the pink and green flower embroidered garment on the back of a chair in her last class of the day and when she realized it was gone, she was already home and the school was long closed. Being Friday, she would have to wait two more days to come in on Monday and get it from the lost property section, but Elle Argent wasn't exactly the most patient person. Which had let her to do the unthinkable. Break into her own high school late at night to steal it back.

Somehow, it was rather easy, as it seems Higgs wasn't exactly willing to put time or school budgets into modern security for either school on the plot, so by the time Elle climbed over the fence in her pyjamas and dressing gown, all she had to do was shake one of the many broken doors that existed around the school and she ben in and out in a jiffy.

Unnoticeable. Untraceable. Unseen. Well...that /was/ the plan at first anyway. Things took a turn however and now, Elle found herself here, in a school store cupboard, trapped with her precious sweater in Tao's arms as his chest rose and fell quietly near her face, making her blush in the dark while they listened out for anyone still trying to find them.

Her brain needed to shut the hell up at the feelings it was producing too.

She hadn't even thought that Tao would be there, let alone break in before her and find her sweater first. She had just gotten round a corner, phone flashlight in hand to search for the classroom number she was in a few hours ago, cursing quietly under her breath from nerves as she did, when she runs straight into the taller boy and stumbles back with a squawk.

Thankfully, Tao catches her, but not so thankfully as she's about to question what the hell he's doing here, the sound alerts someone, who suddenly turns sharply from wherever they originally were and worse, they now have flashlights on them instead of on eachother.

There is a tense moment of a standoff, where Elle sees her short life flash before her eyes, but just as the guard or really rough-looking janitor or police officer (she's unsure of which of the three her and Tao are dealing with) steps forward, Tao takes her by and hand and runs off in the opposite direction, down the halls as the person shouts and gives chase, their footsteps a constant reminder to keep going as they follow their own, albeit very clumsy ones given Tao's never been a runner and she wasn't very good at athletics herself.

Soon enough, lost in the maze of yellow and honestly quite mouldy lockered halls, trying all the doors they can, they eventually find a teacher's office and sneak in.

While originally they were going to lay down on the floor under the desk, the whip and the showing of a flashlight beam under the door and through the window makes Tao pull her shirt first into the store cupboard and shut them in there, keeping a lookout as everything echoes. Elle doesn't know if Tao can pick up that she's nervous, but she hopes that he can't after a while anyway. She's never been nervous or shy or worse, wordless around Tao until recently when Nick and Charlie announced they were together, even though deep down, even when she wasn't a girl, she's had a crush on him for years.

The problem is that Tao is her and Charlie's best friend. They are a unit. A foursome.

For so long it had been her, Charlie, Tao and Issac. Tao already had a trying part of time where he had to get used to Nick breaking those bonds a little bit due to Charlie's relationship with him, so she highly doubted that if she suddenly came out to him with an 'oh, by the way, I have a massive crush on you that I know you don't reciprocate, but I thought you'd like to know', it might not go over as well as she dreams that it would.

"Honestly, Elle, what were you thinking?" Tao's whispers bring her out of her mind and she looks up at him through her glasses, frowning as he continues, a smirk on his features that makes her heart race. "This is not ladylike behaviour."

She huffs, smacking him upside the head. "Don't care-" She whispers back, gesturing to the sweater he's got over one of his arms. "-but I care about why you're here. Did you really come and break into Higgs, somehow at the same time as me, just to get my sweater back because I was complaining about leaving it here in the group chat?"

"Maybe I did, but I don't know." Tao shrugged. "I don't know, maybe I've decided I want to rebel, live outside of the box, gain some true freedom for once."

"Only in your dreams or worse, in Top Gun." Elle laughed quietly and one of Tao's hands shot up to clutch at the left side of his chest. "You wound me, Elle Argent, you've gutted me raw."

"Shhh!" She hissed through her teeth as the voices stopped for a minute, but then continued to get further and further away as she did. "Put up with it, beanie boy."

Tao poked his tongue out at her in response, not that either her or others if they had been there could see it because of the lighting being shit. She still saw it however and did the same, dissolving into quiet giggles after with him.

After about an hour, it seemed the heat on them from earlier had finally died off and as quick as the chase had been for them, it was just as quick to zoom through the halls and out of school grounds over the fence again and keep running before stopping dead on a street, exhausted, panicked, but not arrested or worse, still in that cupboard. (Even if a little part of her still wished they were that last one.)

Laughing loudly finally, albeit briefly because of everything and forcing air back into his lungs, Tao finally relinquished the sweater that had gotten the both of them into all this trouble, only dressed in sweats and a hoodie that most likely covered a t-shirt underneath. "For you."

"Best present ever." Elle crinkled the material in her arms as it warmed her fingers, while tao just stood there with a warm smile on his face that vanished into a friendly one when she looked back at him a second time. "Thanks, Tao. You didn't have to, but still thank you."

"Anything for a friend." She caught the hesitancy in Tao's voice when he said that, but didn't bring attention to it as he continued, blowing out a breath. "We'd better get going before they do something worse, like release zombies to come find us or worse."

Another movie reference that made her laugh. God help her, she was in love with a nerd. She tried tot to hold onto this fact as they bid their goodbyes, Tao's hands going into his pockets as he walked off down the street towards his place. She went to walk off so that she could make it back to her own, but then turned around and ran back in Tao's direction, a little bit braver than she was a whole 3 hours ago. "Tao!"

Tao had been walking, but she found herself almost running into him again, skidding to a stop as his arms caught her again. "Geez, Elle, what's the matter now?"

She doesn't say anything, just looks at him with a fond expression and shakes her head before she's kissing him with enough passion to make it seem like she strangling him, watching him as his eyes bug out and his lips part when she pulls away. It's almost too funny. "Okay, that's everything. Thankyou again. Bye." She doesn't wait for him to give a response and takes off, rescued clothing in hand as she dashes through the damp streets and back up to her house.

Luckily, no one has seemingly noticed she's gone and she hangs the sweater up on a waiting coathanger onto the back of her door, its sleeve in her eyesight from her bed as she checks her phone for the last time that night before she turns in. What she doesn't expect to find, however, is a series of messages from Tao that clearly state that leaving him on the street after kissing him like that, knowing he won't see her in person for a few days, was "the most unholiest thing to do, are you out of your fucking mind, Elle?"

He then follows up by asking her to "please just be his girlfriend already because no one is single anymore and I'm becoming irrelevant" and if she wasn't already blushing from their cupboard meetup, she is now, only she's also laughing like an idiot. She texts him back a simple "see you on Monday then, boyfriend XO" before setting her phone down and putting it on sprint, the constant buzz of messages filling her mind (and dreams) with possibilities.

And on Monday, while she comes dressed for sweater weather, Tao's waiting and is warmer than that stupid thing will ever be.