comfort | sean and kaycee.

a month of times.

a month had passed in between that nightmare-motivated facetime between sean and kaycee, and the call that he was making presently. there were precisely five rings from his phone before the receiver picked up and responded.

"heyyyy, sean!" the voice was bright and lightly crackling with phone static, "my man, how've you been?

"jul-i-aaaan," he greeted, accenting the syllables as jool-ee-aaaaahn. "i'm good, man, i'm good. what about you?"

"i'm chilling, waiting. i have a date with chloe later today."

sean chuckled. "nice, nice. that's great, man. hey, uh—" he leaned back against his chair and tapped his fingers against his desktop, head facing the ceiling. "i have a question for you. and you have to answer honestly."

julian's voice became skeptical, a little worried. "uh, sure, dude. what's it about?"

sean paused. "and don't make fun of me either."

"can't guarantee that," he scoffed, "what is it?"

sean rolled his eyes, then took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "it's about kaycee."

there was surprise and concern now. "kaycee? whoa, is everything okay with you guys?"

he ran his hands through his hair, gritting his teeth awkwardly. "it's...complicated. i don't really know what we are."

"what? wait, are you guys talking? like talking talking?"

"not reallyyy." sean hunched his shoulders, hand gripping his hair. "but i don't think we're just friends?"

"how do you not know if you're just friends if you aren't talking?"

"um. well." his hand rested on his face. "don't take this the wrong way. i don't know how else i can say it."

"can't guarantee that either," julian laughed.

"okay...well, we don't really do friend things."

there was a suggestive tone in julian's voice. sean could imagine his eyebrow quirked up, a sly smirk signaling a boyish-bullying session about to occur. "ooh, not friend tings? how so?"

"it's not what you think it is," sean huffed defiantly, dropping his hand to cross over his stomach.

"i'll be the judge of that, sean lew."

sean sighed and muttered under his breath. "goddamnit, julian."

julian laughed in response and sean reciprocated it with a small smile.

"bro, just say it," julian said.

sean bit his lip and hesitated.

"we're like," he began, "... kind of sleeping together."

there was an overdone, loud, shocked gasp from julian.

"you're banging kaycee rice!?," he yelled.

sean yelped at his friend's inappropriate assumption, his face beginning to burn.  "i told you not to take it the wrong way!"

"and i said i couldn't guarantee that!"

"no! oh my god, no." sean stood up from his seat, forcefully pushing himself up with the arm rest.