Survival Of The Fittest

Myles was a little surprised that Zen hadn't texted back immediately, but he wasn't going to complain for once. He'd come up with something for them to do when he wasn't sick, and they'd go along with it happily enough. Maybe something like the aquarium or the zoo? Zen would probably get a kick out of that.

When Declyn called just a moment later, as promised, Myles waited until the third ring to pick up. Sure he was sitting right there holding the phone, but answering too fast would just make him seem desperate.

"Hey," he said, wincing again at his scratchy voice. "How's it going?" Ugh, he hadn't taken the time to think of a better opener.

"You weren't wrong when you said you sound like death....."

Declyn teased playfully as his grip tightened just a tiny bit around the phone. He was more used to talking to him in person and hoped Myles wasn't straining his voice too much. He didn't want to slow down his recovery but it's not like it would.

"Your voice is still nice though uh. Yeah. I mean, I can hear you well enough." He wrinkled his nose and shook his head at himself. Declyn meant it but he didn't want to sound cheesy or embarrassing by stumbling over his words. "I'm fine," he said, "despite the small chair accident." His face softened. "I hope this is not the moment where you tell me that you really are dying."

Myles laughed despite himself, though it morphed into a cough after a few seconds. After recovering he cleared his throat again. "Nah, it's fine. I think we'll both make a full recovery." He smiled at the compliment too, despite nobody being around to see it. "If I do die though, you have to dramatically throw yourself on my coffin at my funeral, okay?"

A tension he hadn't fully realized was there eased, and Myles settled back more comfortably as they struck up a banter. They weren't the closest, but Declyn was usually a good conversationalist. "I, um. I was actually wanting to ask if you had prom plans yet." There. No need to beat around the bush more than he already had.

"I guess I got bitten by a zombie who really didn't want me to ask you earlier in the week though," he added after a moment, throwing a bit of levity in just in case the question didn't go over as well as he was hoping.

Declyn grimaced as if he could feel Myles' pain when he heard him coughing. "Would it make me a jerk if I deny your dying wish? You know I'm no drama queen." He paused for a second. "I'm not gonna say okay, but maybe. When the audience is gone." There was no need to seriously think about it anyway. Declyn didn't want to. So he was glad when Myles switched to the next subject.

And then, there it was. There was the important something Myles wanted to talk about: Prom.

Of course. There were a couple of weeks left but you don't want to be too late and right now everyone seemed to be doing their promposals. He thought a lot of them were too much. Now this was unexpected. "Uh. Heh." Declyn couldn't help but grin. Shit. Was this a big deal? Was Myles that much into him? But wait, all he had done was ask him about his plans. Myles hadn't asked him out, exactly. "I don't. I've been thinking. But no solid plans." He had considered Drew for example, like a best friend thing. Or Cecil. Or Camilla. Was Lorenzo going? "How about you....?"

"Would it be too much if I said it was my dying wish for you to go with me?" Myles laughed a little again, wary of another coughing fit. "Actually yeah, that's too much. Sorry. But I thought if you weren't already going with someone, it could be fun? Ivy's got after-party plans and all..."

He trailed off with a shrug, again only visible to himself. It was hard to know without seeing someone's reactions in real time where the line between casual and earnest was and how closely he needed to walk it. "If you were thinking of asking someone else, I won't be upset. Sorry for the lame promposal but if I asked you in person right now we might both end up in qu... quarnt... I might get you sick."

Ugh, this was not smooth. Myles could only hope that Declyn would be won over by relative sincerity.

Declyn was staring down at a rain puddle he almost stepped into. He hadn't realized he had actually stopped walking. There was absolutely no time to think about it, so saying nothing for five minutes straight to do exactly that was not an option. It would have been more acceptable if they were doing this via text. Still, Declyn preferred to hear Myles' voice. His tone made his heart skip for a second. He could tell he was serious.

".....Right. Where are the flowers and donuts and bad puns? Are you gonna send them to my address?" He let out a single, soft laugh. "I'm just kidding. I-- This might be lame but who cares? The main event is what's important." Were there any graphs that showed the percentage of the ways of people asking others out? Declyn would be interested to take a look at them.

"That means, yeah. I want to go with you."

Myles didn't exactly jump around and punch the air or anything - it wasn't his style, even if he wasn't sick - but the grin that spread across his face was completely genuine. "Awesome! ...Um, I didn't think about what to do if you said yes." He mussed his hair with one hand as if that would make thoughts appear in his head. "I can totally bring flowers on prom night though, if you want them."

Score. Suck on that, cold virus. Single-celled organisms were no match for Myles.

(Did viruses even have cells? He couldn't remember. Probably since most everything was cells? Whatever.)

It was settled. Declyn exhaled slowly with a smile on his face. Myles was right. It was going to be fun.

"Okay. Let's see who can bring more flowers." He suggested more or less seriously. Small challenges could be fun, plus he loved flowers and thought Myles deserved some too. Preferably some that would match his outfit. "Did you think I was going to say no? You can tell me what you would have done in that case when you're back. I don't want to disturb your recovery sleep any further, if I am."

"It's fine, no big deal." Myles waved Declyn's statement away, even though he was truthfully feeling a bit worn out. "You got it, though. Flowers."

He was still grinning. He didn't like Declyn in that serious a way, but having things go well despite the setbacks was enough to lighten his mood. He'd have to hit Ivy up and see if she knew anything about where to get good flowers. Delivering gifts had never really been his thing, but it was prom. She wouldn't let him live it down if he didn't at least try to make things memorable. (Plus he might or might not have designs on borrowing her credit card for it. He just bet that these bougie places loved to charge three times what they should for some plant you could probably pick yourself at the park.)

"Yeah, sorry I'm not bringing anything else to the table right now. I should probably let you get back to studying, huh?" Plus, Zen should be texting back right about now, not that Myles was going to let Declyn in on the fact that he'd had his backup plan so readily lined up.

"Well, right now talking to you has been more fun than studying so thanks for letting me call you." Declyn said honestly. He was almost tempted to ask what going to prom together meant for their relationship but left it unsaid. He didn't feel the need to define their current level of friendship even though he liked to look at things in a systematic way. Which didn't mean he was doing it all the time.

"Now rest your voice. See you soon then?"

"Yeah, see you soon. I'll text you and we can plan more later." Good. Great. Success. That was most of the hard stuff out of the way. Now he just had to hope that Declyn wouldn't decide to wear something that totally clashed with Myles's planned outfit. At least he was better in that category than Tristan (to Tristan's credit though, he could at least pull off most of what he wore).

Myles idly wondered if Tristan had made plans for prom yet. He hadn't heard much from that direction ever since the blowup with Nick and Gaelan, and for once, he hadn't gone poking around. It would all come out soon enough, and Myles was pretty invested in making sure that prom went as smoothly as possible. Ivy was vying for prom queen, and while he couldn't guarantee that she won, he was hoping that he wouldn't have to clean up too much after it all went down.

Now what the heck had happened to Zen?

Declyn ended the phone call.

His smile had grown wider and he found it difficult to stop. Now that the question of who his partner for prom would be was out of the way, a small sneaky weight that had crawled its way up his shoulders had fallen off. The rest should be manageable. He had an idea for his outfit (simple but not boring) and then he'd just have to deal with telling his dad about his "date".

Yes, manageable.

[Declyn continued elsewhere]

> sorry sorryry sorry ysorry soryr sorry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zen typed furiously into their phone as they left the classroom, bouncing in place. They'd left Myles on read for a stupidly long time and that was SO rude and okay, it wasn't entirely their fault. It wasn't their fault Mr. McClellan had decided for like the first time ever today that he was gonna Care about people not paying attention. They figured they were off the hook after the first time they caught out but nope! Apparently they weren't doing a good enough job of hiding their phone (and okay, they weren't trying all that hard) cause suddenly Mr. McClellan was confiscating it. Luckily he decided to be """nice""" and give it back at the end of class instead of like, giving it to the principal, or making their mom come pick it up, which were both things that could happen, so they had heard. But they got a hearty lecture on their way out and it had been like probably twenty minutes and Myles probably thought they were dead now.

> mcclellan took my phone :c
> sorry forleaving u alone!!
> im here now
> ru right tho we havent hung out enoguh!!!!!!!
> theres a thing this weekeknd i think
> gotta remember whos house i wanna say ashleys but im not sure
> u wanna come with :3

Oh, there they were.

Myles guessed he probably should have expected that a teacher might swoop in on Zen. Stealth had never been their strong suit.

> It's ok
> Ur not in too much trouble right?
> Anyway tho
> If I'm not sick anymore by the weekend sure

An easy "if", Zen kept happy, and everything smooth sailing until prom in the Myles department. He sighed and sank back into his pillows, surprisingly relieved. He hadn't really been worried that he would end up going alone, but it was nice all the same that things had turned out okay despite the setbacks.

He wondered if Tristan had found a date yet, or if he was going to go solo. Not the kind of thing he could really ask out of the blue without sounding like he was leading into something, unfortunately. Anyway, he should focus on Declyn for now. Myles wasn't tight with anyone in the gardening club, but he could probably ask around and figure out if there was anything specific that Declyn liked in flowers. If all else failed, he'd just let Ivy pick out an arrangement for him.

Myles closed his eyes, letting the hand still holding his phone rest on his chest. He'd wanted to shower after everything was taken care of, but he felt a bit drained. Anticipation was a hell of a drug.

Before he realized it, he'd dozed off.

((Myles Roux continued in Bloom))