Kevin and Thea are the ultimate power couple who are Definitely Judging your choice of drink, attire, and dance move in the club. A Kevin/Thea date night!

badacts:

BEHOLD, everyone: my favourite person on this planet who is a regular and fantabulous caffeinator of me, badacts, via ko-fi ❤

Thea takes one look around Eden’s Twilight and says, “So this is where your little friends hang out? Somehow I’m not surprised.”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “Last time we drank together it was cheap tequila in the red dorms.”

“Yes, and I have no desire to relive that experience,” Thea replies. “They better have good drinks.”

“They’re fine,” Kevin says, ushering her to the bar with a hand on the small of his back. She lets him even though she’s hardly the fragile type. They’re of a height, and it’s always been something he likes about her. It’s hot, for a start.

It hasn’t been straightforward, trying again. It’s impossible to start over, but this feels like a second chance. Kevin, despite all of his mistakes and his youth, knows deep in his chest that there’s no one else for him like Thea. And they’ve been trying, starting with…dates.

They never did any of this the first time round – that was more fucking in empty dorm rooms and texting when Riko wasn’t watching – so it’s. Nice. It’s – something. Kevin hasn’t decided how he feels about it yet, but he knows he wants more.

Thea orders for him but lets him carry the drinks to a tall table off the wall. She draws eyes from around the room, and it’s not clear whether it’s because of her looks or the fact she’s a famous athlete. Either way, her attitude is all dismissal, like no one in the building is worth her time – besides Kevin.

Kevin likes being worth her time.

Thea, sipping a drink so yellow it glows, tucks her high-heeled foot between his on the bar of his stool and says, “This music? Really?”

“Take your complaints to the disc jockey,” Kevin recommends, and tries not to think about running a hand up her smooth leg. It’s an even split as to whether she would let him or kick him off his chair.

“Disc jockey,” Thea snorts. “We’re not from 1995. Unlike this song.”

Kevin heard this song on the radio on the way over, on the normal top-40 station he leaves his car tuned to, shakes his head between mouthfuls of his drink but doesn’t say anything.

Thea looks over the crowd, frowns like they aren’t meeting her expectations, and then takes another sip of her own drink. She taps a nail on the glass – she always has her nails done, squared off because of Exy but in jewel-bright colours. “This is good though.”

“‘Good’?”

“The company is alright, too,” she continues as though Kevin didn’t say anything.

“I aim to please,” Kevin says, though he can feel his mouth quirking up and knows she can see it.

She looks him dead in the eye and smiles the smile that he likes – more than likes – all heat and challenge. 

“Another drink?” Kevin asks.

“Hm,” Thea says, looking at her glass pointedly. It’s still half-full, and just like that Kevin’s mood drops. She’s been at him for what she calls his ‘bad habits’ for a little while now. Well, she did call it that, up until she got pissed at him and called it his ‘shitty coping mechanism’, and told him to get his ass into therapy. “Why don’t you slow down?”

Kevin scowls. “What does it matter?”

“If you get too drunk to walk I’m leaving you here,” Thea tells him, “and then you definitely won’t get laid tonight, or in the foreseeable future.”

“Only because Andrew would kill you.”

Thea snorts. “As if, Day. In his dreams maybe.”

Kevin pointedly pushes his empty glass away from him. “Happy?”

She leans across the table, grabs the front of his shirt, and jerks him across the table so she can kiss him on the mouth. She’s generous with it, her mouth plush and controlling, her spare hand scratching at the back of his neck the way he likes.

When she breaks it, Kevin stays in the spot she’s put him, the edge of the table cutting into his belly and his hands spread on the surface of it in the pooling condensation. It takes him a moment of processing to even recognise those things are what he’s feeling.

“Sure,” she says, her voice a purr. Kevin feels it more than hears it. “But not as happy I’ll be when you’re in therapy.”

Kevin doesn’t lean back, though that does shatter the moment a little. He rests his elbow on the table and leans on it, casual like his heart isn’t drumming. “And what would you know about therapy?”

“You think I didn’t start seeing someone the second I graduated?” Thea asks. “I didn’t turn out this well-adjusted without professional intervention.”

Kevin blinks. “Really?”

“Of course,” Thea replies, tracing his mouth with a finger almost absently. “I still go now.”

She’s dead serious, even with the lilt of humour in her tone. Kevin touches a finger to the raven pendant she still wears about her throat, pressing the metal tight to her skin, and says, “Are you sure you should still be wearing this, then?”

“What, because I’m not as psychologically damaged anymore?” she says, and then smirks. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, it’s not a bad reminder.”

Kevin, whose life has been defined by the number on his face, and the chess piece covering that, and the scars on his hand, kind of understands that. He might understand it better after therapy.

Maybe. Maybe not. The only thing he knows for sure is that when Thea looks at him like she is right now, there’s not much he won’t agree to.