layla and rory learn why padlocks exist: a fanfiction
can't believe my first uca fanfic is about layla fletcher and totally imagined interactions. who would've thunk it. this was written entirely in discord and came with such insightful commentary from my friend as:
in my mind this takes place when they're older and (not that much) wiser but sophia still being alive might un-suspend your disbelief in that aspect. enjoy!
moonlight sidles into the room. layla’s heart skips a beat at the call of near-curfew. she’s been doing her very best to keep out of trouble this year, which has resulted in complete abstinence from her greatest vices: late-night visits to the library, taking up years worth of teachers’ consultation time, and stashing away her humble coffee making kit/fbi-tracked portable laboratory.
it’s of note, then, that layla is now in possession of a living, breathing boyfriend whose heart beats for her and her alone (and mister mendoza as a quote-unquote bit that often lasts one too many texts to be a smidge, never mind a bit) due to drink smuggling. it’s a dangerous trade, somewhere in the suffocating space between opposing sophia and descending to the depths of the underworld. yet as she found herself sucked into a vortical economy of energy drinks and plots to topple the humble skyberry’s monopolization, she reaped a whirlwind romance for the ages. this fact is very unfortunate for her desire to never get detention again. most dormmate-related facts are.
“i’m just saying, it’s fine by me if you never leave.” rory drapes himself over her lap as he pitches a stolen guitar pick to the ceiling. it’s hardly the best position for the aerodynamics of the act, but she can’t find it in herself to protest.
“never?” layla tucks a nonexistent hair behind her ear. this is one of his invitations, she’s hoping, to enter his world of hyperbole and hypocrisy in a non-miss-furi-provoking situation. “would that make your dormitory your evil lair, and me the fair maiden you’ve stolen away from her gilded cage?”
he yawns. or perhaps he burps. or perhaps he does both at the same time. layla has long given up on boxing rory’s actions within the neat lines of basic biological processes, and rory has long given up any inhibitions about being anything but his usual gross self around girls. even the ones that have painstakingly dragged his grades up to the first half of the alphabet. “hey, i dunno about fair maidens, but most girls would consider me not letting them win at pop pong pretty evil.”
“most girls didn’t get assigned to a dorm with the sorest winner in the world and her throngs of sweaty socks.” she giggles, her tone lowering into a conspiratory teasing. “and everyone knows frost glacier freeze is the superior flavour.”
he’s about to refute her argument when something interrupts him. no, it is not something. it is the thing. it is the sound of combat boots battling each and every tile leading up to rory’s room. it is the overture to a symphony of crackling hellfire. it is valentina furi.
“rory carmichael, if i catch you drawing deathly omens on my grandmama’s teacups again, i swear–” the door swings open. the pair of amber eyes presumably about to laser rory to death now jump up and down and all around. the assumption of rory being burnt to a crisp only gains more ground. “just what are you two doing?”
they look at each other. they look at the pile of books on the floor. “studying!”
“at least isa–someone and i workshopped our excuses.” her perfectly drawn brows are drawn at a different angle of disapproval than usual. does she look… sad? “honestly, layla, i expected better from you.”
eventually, valentina grows tired of seeing the anthromorphic puddles they are, and the door is slammed with extreme prejudice. the noise is piercing, causing layla to descend into the hissing whisper supposedly reserved for 3am study sessions, not 8pm perfectly platonic looking casual hangouts. “studying? you expected her to believe that?”
“um, yeah, that’s why i said it.”
it would be the discovery of a lifetime to some, more staggering than mass-energy equivalence or miss primrose’s background in equestrian acrobatics, that rory has reasons for saying things. not to layla. learning that rory has reasons for saying things is to layla as the wright flyer’s first liftoff must’ve been to the wright brothers; all evidence points to a solid truth, but the solid seems to be made of gum to the point where one can’t be faulted for thinking something’s going to go up in flames. she sighs.
“what do you think she meant by having expected better of me?”
“beats me. who cares what carrot top thinks?” rory clears his throat. “i mean, your pupils are a beautiful shade of frost glacier freeze.”
“my irises, rory.” she bats her eyelashes with a practiced innocence. practice makes perfect, indeed. “clearly, you need more one-on-one tutoring.”
a monumental crash of crystal and crockery commences. “HAH! FIFTY BUCKS, FURI!”
layla surmises, by virtue of the sound’s estimated frequency and amplitude and also the sight of isabel’s heels clip-clopping down the hall with as much grace as a horse high on grim magic and gathering book magic and anabolic steroids, that she and rory are going to have a long, long night.
(it turns into a long, long morning when sophia realises she’s been using one of valentina’s acrylic nails to play her guitar for the past week.)
