Geese and The Soft Morning Sun
From: @beercheesecasserole
To: @disneyinnocent-blog
relationship: Lardo x Camilla
Nonbinary character
Fluff
tw for moderate amounts of drinking, like a slight bit of racism, and fools getting rekt and pong.
~~~
Larissa sat in her new dorm room, fiddling around on her computer.
A blonde head popped in from the door.
"Larissa," said her new roommate, Candy, seriously. "Have you seen my dunko doll?"
Larissa looked at the tall girl dumbly.
"What in the goddamn hell are you talking about."
Candy moved fully into the room, standing by Larissa's bed.
"My dunko doll! You know? Dunko dolls? Have you not heard of dunko dolls?"
"No?"
Candy's eyes lit up.
"They're like little figurines of your favorite characters! They're soooo cute, mine’s a princess Biona from Shrecc. It's my favorite movie."
Larissa knew if she listened to more of this she would have a pounding headache in under an hour. Not that her roommate was annoying. She was just very high-pitched.
With a sigh she pushed her computer off of her lap and slid off her bed.
"I haven't seen it. I'm going down to the cafeteria, I'll be back in a few."
"Okay!" Candy said enthusiastically. "By the way, they're serving Chinese there, I'm sure it's not what you're used to at home but I think it's so nice that they're serving something so cultural! You should give it a try!"
Lardo sighed again. She wasn't sure if Candy was just dumb or didn't remember when she had asked 'so... what are you' a month ago. Larissa had never been anything less than Vietnamese-American her entire life. Well, served her right for submitting her roommate papers a day before deadline.
Larissa screamed internally and muttered a quick thanks before escaping down the hall. She would get out of this room if it killed her.
~~~
Larissa looked at the Samwell Sports pamphlet in her hands. Aven from her Ceramics II class had given it to her. Aven had said they managed for Men's Rugby and talked about how they managed to get a room in the team house this year.
"There's not like, a ton of rooms?" they said, chair leaned back and clay covered hands emphasizing wildly. "But it's the BONDS you make. I feel like a part of the team. And I don't even have to play or anything. The guys are great, love em to bits, it's just like SUPER messy all the time. Best house on campus though."
Larissa thought about that. She didn't mind mess. She wouldn't work in 3D media if she did.
~~~
"Ey Lardooooo!" A huge blonde man yelled over the haus crowd in an obnoxious Boston accent. "Be pong partners with me"
Lardo looked over from where she was chatting with Billy about neorealism and its role in the movement of art nouveau and squinted.
"Holster, my dude, respect, but you couldn't hit the flat side of a barn," she said cheerfully. "Hard pass brah."
The blonde giant put on his best puppy-dog eyes while also pushing through the drunk, loud waves of people between them. Lardo likened him to a cute bulldozer. Kinda a good concept, she thought, filing it away for later. Being around jocks all the time surprisingly gave her some great ideas. Lardo wondered for a moment if this had bedazzling potential.
Adam reached her just as soon as the thumping bass of the last song died and just before the new one began.
"Come onnnn," he said with a light in his eyes. "We don't even have to be partners. Ransy wants to play too so you could take his partner and I'll be his! Win win!" He emphasized his argument with a hand motion that seemed to say 'ey? ey?'.
Lardo rolled her eyes.
"Alright. Depends on who it is though."
~~~
Camilla came to the SMH end-of-midterms kegster with Jack but he let her know pretty early that he wasn't going to be around for most of it. Which like, she got. The noise and people could get to be too much for her sometimes too. But as she looked over the crowd tonight she felt tipsy in just the right way to want to get a little rowdy. Then Justin started talking about pong and her plans were set. She wanted to toast some fools.
"Rans!" She called to him as she moved closer "I'm in. Who're we up against?"
Justin pointed wildly over to the living room where a bunch of younger students were moving around to a pulsing beat.
"Holtzy just went to go grab Lardo" he said, grinning "oh man Camilla you gotta witness her back shot, its holy"
Camilla squinted over across the hall into the dim room and saw Holster dragging a small person with a sleek head of black hair behind him.
"Hells yes." she said, turning back to Ransom. "I'll play with whoever, I don't care."
Holster came up behind them and started talking loudly over Camilla's shoulder to the two.
"She's in but only on the condition she doesnt play with me. I'm too rank." he said, dramatically wrinkling his nose. "Cam, you game?"
"Sure" Camilla said enthusiastically, turning to see her new partner.
Holy shit, Camilla thought, face erupting in flame.
~~~
Lardo looked at – no, beheld – the tall honey blonde jock giantess before her. If height wasn't enough to fuck her up, her arms, good god, they looked like she could crack walnuts with them.
Realising she was probably giving this crop-topped stranger a pretty thorough undressing, Lardo took a step back and extended a hand.
"Larissa. Call me Lardo. Sup."
The literal Amazon of woman took her hand and shook it firmly.
"I’m Camilla," she said, smiling, cheeks delicately blushed in a way that set off her sweetly quirked lips. "Are you ready for some pong?"
Whats pong, Larissa thought, staring at her lips.
"Oh... Yeah this is going to be s'wasome," Lardo said, quickly regaining her senses.
There was no way she could lose this for them, Larissa thought resolutely. She needed to impress this literal goddess.
~~~
Ransom almost seemed to be crying.
"It was so beautiful... But I feel so devastated? So many emotions man," He slurred as he leaned on the broad shoulder of his blonde wingman. They both looked worse for wear after having drunk nearly every drink so far in what was shaping up to be a increasingly unbelievable pong game.
Camilla lined up her next-to-last shot at the remaining cup and grinned wickedly at the two boys. "Better get ready. This one’s going in. I call it."
There was no way she could miss this one. The tiny Asian girl beside her had sunk nearly every shot that night. If Camilla hadn't been buzzed, she would have knelt at her feet and declared her the pong god. Or maybe she still would. The night was still young.
"You got this," Lardo said encouragingly beside her, placing a hand on the small of her back. "One last cup."
And Camilla did have it.
Or she had, until Lardo's warm hand had rested on her so gently.
Her ball bounced weakly off Adam's chest and onto the table.
"Ohhhh," Holster said, a light in his eyes. "We aren't done yet, Ransy. You gotta rally for me. Get your second wind bro! Brothers for brothers! This is our shot!"
Lardo snorted. "You still have FIVE cups left. We have one. No way."
Holster lined up his shot and said in a fake hurt voice, "We'll see about that" and the shot landed squarely in their middle cup.
Ransom and Holster both shouted, whooping it up and drunkenly performing a sloppy, involved, handshake.
"Psh. Alright," Lardo said cockily to the two boys. "Ball's in my court."
The two boys quieted down as Lardo squinted at the table before them
Lardo shot Camilla a confident grin before grabbing their sunk cup. "Watch this."
It was a moment that Adam would wax poetic about for the next three years. It was the moment Camilla fell into something with this short, loud, wild girl.
Everyone watched as Lardo grabbed the tiny white ball from the cup and raised the beer to her lips. Camilla could see the sweat running in lines down her olive tanned arm in the heated room. She followed its trail to the crook of her elbow where it glistened before dripping down.
Lardo tipped the cup back and chugged the entire thing in one go. Tossing the cup behind her, she stepped away from the table, raised the pong ball, cocked her elbow, and spun around.
Over her shoulder, the ball sailed through the air.
It was like watching liquid honey for Camilla, but she turned to stare openly at Lardo instead.
She couldn't believe it.
She didn't even see when the ball landed squarely in the last cup and everyone watching erupted into screams.
Ransom and Holster at the other end were losing their minds. Absolutely just yelling at the top of their lungs and staring at each other with ecstatic looks.
Then Lardo walked over, grabbed the cup, drank it too and released the loudest, longest, rankest burp into both of their faces.
Both of the boys looked stunned.
Then Ransom solemnly grabbed her hand and did a complicated shake.
"Respect" the man choked out, full of emotion, pulling her into the bro-y-est of hugs.
Holster looked like he was crying now.
Camilla could make out "... j'st so happy..." Before he bawled and joined the group hug.
Well. Camilla thought. Who knew. Hockey players are big AND emotional.
~~~
A little while later when the party dies down a bit Camilla and Larissa find themselves outside on the porch.
It feels so easy to talk together. Maybe it's the tub juice, or the high from the most immaculate pong game in history, but Lardo knows there is nothing that could ruin the night now. She already has had the time of her life. Everything else is just frosting on the metaphysical cake.
Camilla shifts on the warm wooden stairs and moves her arms back to prop herself up on them. Her soft yellow curls tumble back over her shoulders with the movement and she stretches her legs out in front of her.
"So what exactly is a girl like you doing in a house of jocks?" she asks, mouth quirking again. "Not that you don't seem the type, you're just so... well-read."
Lardo laughs, and also stretches her legs out in front of her, positively bathing in the soft, warm, late night air.
"It all started with my roommate actually," she says, chuckling at the memory. "I really needed to get out of the house, you know? And Samwell men's hockey needed a trainee manager and I had those nights free. It felt like fate, kinda."
Lardo lets herself swim in Camilla's soft brown eyes for a second. "Like it was meant to be," she finished.
Camilla just looks back at her. And keeps looking back at her.
Finally she speaks into the moment, all shining eyes, all bright smile.
"Yeah, I think I know what you mean."
And all of inevitable, they kiss.
Lardo pushes herself closer to the taller woman and slides her gently back to against the railing before deepening the kiss.
As the two break away to breathe for a second, Camilla moves her hand up to cup Lardo's face.
"Huh..." she murmurs faintly before Larissa moves in again.
It’s deeper this time, and Larissa lifts her hand up to curl in Camilla's golden, perfect locks. There's something in her that just wants to mess them up a bit. Let people know she's been there. Leave a little mark.
Camilla groans and arches her head back as Larissa tugs on the mass of curls she has threaded through her fingers.
Lardo takes this as a sign to immediately start attacking the blonde's neck and pulse point, leaving quarter sized bruises like a string of pearls down the column of pale skin.
Camilla groans again.
"People will –" she sighs into a particularly hard nip of Lardo's teeth. "People are going to see"
"Let them," Larissa gravels out, kissing back up the bruises to recapture her mouth.
And they stay like that for god knows how long.
A loud pop from the back yard and a series of whoops and yips finally breaks apart the pair and a second later a firework blooms across the sky above the house.
Lardo and Camilla watch it fade out, both panting slightly, before Camilla turns back and rests her forehead gently against Lardo's.
"I just," she murmurs, looking at Lardo's bruised lips. "Have never met anyone like you"
Lardo smiles and traces the curve of her jaw with her thumb. "I'm pretty unique."
"This might be taking it too fast," Camilla says, switching her heated gaze from Lardo's mouth to her eyes. "But I live not too far away from here. A couple of blocks. We could walk if you... ?" She quirks up the side of her mouth again, eyes dancing, leaving the sentence in an open question.
Lardo stares at her in something like adoration for a second before kissing her hard and deep one last time.
"Fuck yeah," she whispers onto the thoroughly abused lips, nipping softly with her teeth. "I’m definitely down."
And no one sees them leave the party. If anyone sees them on the sidewalk they don't care enough to comment. No one sees them pushed up against Camilla’s front door before making it inside.
Only the Samwell geese and a few other bleary Wellies see Lardo walking home the next morning, grin the size of a lighthouse and a certain string of digits in her phone.
And if Larissa Duan, on top of the world, decides to fist pump like in breakfast club? Well, she's sure no one sees that either.
Just the geese and the soft morning sun.
Written by @beercheesecasserole for @disneyinnocent-blog for the 2019 Bitty's Valentine's.
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