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How did Kevin and Thea meet?

How did Thea and Kevin meet? When did Kevin come to terms that he liked her?

I promise this was only supposed to be like five sentences long but

Thea was a Raven, and Kevin grew up at Evermore. He got to know the team pretty well even before he was old enough to join the line-up, so he met Thea when she first showed up EAU for her freshman year. Thea is.. four? four and a half? years older than Kevin, so Kevin was only fourteen or so when he met her the first time. His first opinion of her was that she was pretty but she had a very brutish playing style. By spring championships he was used to it, and he started appreciating the presence of an angry tank on their court.

After Riko & Kevin slept with Lydia, it was probably inevitable that he'd look at Thea differently. Lydia was not at all Kevin's type, with strawberry curls and constellations of freckles, but he'd known better than to argue when Riko picked her. Thea, though, who was tall and dark and muscled ((and wore exactly two expressions: pissed off or murderous)), Thea was nice to look at. ((in a certain light, Riko added snidely, the one and only time Kevin was stupid enough to say something about her))

For a while Kevin was sure he was just interested in her playing style, and for a while that really was it–yeah, she was attractive, but her athleticism was what he was really in love with. Exy first & always, right? win win win. The first few times he caught her making out with the goalkeeper all he had to say about it was that if the goalkeeper was too busy watching her ass to watch the ball the master would have their heads.

The Ravens worked in short extra scrimmages for Kevin & Riko wherever they could in their crazy schedules, but it wasn't until Kevin & Riko started EAU as freshman that Kevin and Thea really started getting anywhere. Now that Kevin was fully integrated into the team, he saw Thea all the time, and they faced off on the court more often than not. ((Kevin's request–he wanted to test his quick shots and sharp instincts against her unyielding, unapologetic violence)) They bickered a lot, critiquing each other's performances in increasingly petty ways, until Riko finally got bored of watching it and told Kevin to "just fuck her and get it over with" ((at the end of practice, with everyone present, because Riko is the king of tact and give-a-shit)).

So Kevin did**–but didn't get over her. Fucking Thea took the bite out of their on-court tension, but it didn't get rid of it completely, and Kevin didn't know what to do about that. Kevin had a destiny, had a purpose, had a leash stretched tight from his throat to Riko's hand, and Thea was not part of the plan. Thea was more than willing to do a repeat performance ((you fuck like a virgin, maybe some practice will make you better at it)), but Kevin knew he could only get away with it so many times before Riko & the master caught on. That was the only rebuttal Thea needed, because Thea was a Raven. She understood.

So Kevin did the only thing he could think of, and he and Thea started passing notes. Kevin hid his in his textbooks so he could reread them with Riko none the wiser. Most of what they wrote about was ((predictably)) about the day's practice and scathing reviews of their teammates, but once in a while something real would sneak in, some hint of who they were beyond this team, like Kevin mentioning an interesting fact he'd read in a history book or Thea being angry that the campus gym had shut its pool down again.

But this was a little bit of unexpected stress at the worst possible time in Kevin's life. He and Riko had too many teams, had college classes, had Raven jerseys now and too many eyes on them. This childish, secretive "flirting" with Thea was more weight where too much weight already was. Kevin looked forward to her graduation if only because he'd lose contact with her and would have one less thing to worry about.

Thea's last words to Kevin–until she showed up at Fox Tower in TKM–were to get some more practice in with the girls so he'd be ready for her when he graduated. Halfway a joke, but also a promise that she would still be interested four years from now–because they were Ravens, because they were the best, because they deserved the best, and for better or worse that meant each other.

**((Remember that "line of sight" thing Riko and Kevin have going on? Riko was definitely in the room when Kevin & Thea fucked that first time. Eyyyy. Ravens, thy issues know no boundaries.))