The Butterfly Effect (Emison)

Chapter Six

"Careful, Dilaurentis. Ogle her any longer and you'll start drooling."

Alison snaps out of her gaze quickly enough to pin Noel with a glare. "I wasn't ogling."

"Are you certain?" he asks, smirking, before reaching out and dabbing at the corner of her mouth. "Because there's definitely drool."

Alison slaps his hand away. "Funny."

"What're you guys talking about?" Behind them, Mona emerges from the back row of seats, offering Alison a small smile before glancing at them expectantly.

Their debate class had been moved to the old theater room for the day, mostly because the second floor of the Communications building is currently flooded from a rare toilet incident. It had taken two other rooms and the smell of mildew before it was decided that debating in a larger setting would make more sense. Truthfully Alison doesn't mind the lumpy seats.

So long as she can listen to Emily's voice echoing in the background.

The thought of the other woman sends Alison's attention away from her two companions momentarily, and to Emily's confident form strutting along the stage as she monitors a particularly heated discussion. She hadn't had the chance to catch the brunette's eye in the last five minutes, as opposed to the first forty where Emily could hardly keep her eyes off Alison either.

But that's okay, because she has a better view of Emily's ass from this angle anyway.

"As you can see, Dilaurentis here has found her latest infatuation," she hears from the side. "With my help, of course. She didn't even realize she was a lesbian until I –"

That catches Alison's attention fairly quickly. She turns around and hisses, "Shut it, Kahn."

Noel raises his palms up in surrender. "No harm done, love."

"And stop calling me that."

Mona, on the other hand, looks faintly amused. "It's okay, Alison," she says in a light tone. "I'm glad you were able to figure it out. I sort of knew it would happen sooner or later."

Alison pauses for a moment, unable to summon a proper response for that, before burrowing her face in her palms and letting out a muffled groan.

Noel's grin is as wide and cocky as ever. "I told you," he insists. "Perhaps you should consider wearing less flannel."

Alison ignores him for the most part, occasionally sparing a comment or two when Mona makes a suggestion about the assignment – Mona, whose amused half-smile annoys her almost as much as Noel's shiteating grin.

She spends the rest of the period sitting silently in her seat, about two rows back from the stage, where even though she's a little further from Emily than she would like to be, Alison could safely steal lingering glances whenever she could. At one point Emily meets her gaze again, and Alison's breath instantly hitches in her throat when she receives an almost shy smirk in return.

It's those little things that drive her insane.

It has been just over a week and a half since that moment in the classroom, when Alison's previous fantasy became reality in the form of a mind-blowing kiss that she can't forget even if she tries. Since that day she and Emily have been getting along well, more than well if the heated make out sessions in between classes are anything to go by. Alison would typically stay after class on various occasions, or simply meet up with her professor in the library or in her office for conversations that would last hours.

Paranoia will always be a given. It shows in the way Emily would falter before leaning in for a kiss, or glance around nervously in fear of someone watching. In a way it doesn't bother Alison, probably because she's practically the definition of paranoia. She understands that this... thing she's having goes against so many moral codes, it's a wonder how she hasn't lost her mind.