A/N: Hello all! I figured I'd break in this new account with a series of ficlets based on writing prompts I found scattered around tumblr. The prompt for this one is "it's 2am and i'm drunk and i need some goddamn french fries right now so open your fucking door", from endingcas on tumblr. This is actually my first time writing for anything Symphonia related, so critiques will be helpful! I am so so sorry though if any of the characters are OOC though, like I said, this is my first time writing for any of them so I hope I captured them well enough for a modern-day college AU at least.

(The song lyrics may be a little odd at times but they're mostly to show what I was listening to at the time for the inspiration)

I'd also like to say that most of these stories are going to be Zelloyd based, but other ships will work their way in every now and then should I find the courage/inspiration to write for them. Here we go!

I got two hands, and one beating heart,

And I'll be alright, I'm gonna be alright

-"Girls Chase Boys", Ingrid Michaelson

If Lloyd had ever wanted to hear pathetic yowling outside his door at two in the morning, he would have just bought a damn cat. But that didn't help or change the fact that one of his friends from class was outside his door, whining about something unintelligible and apparently was so loud he could hear him all the way in his bedroom.

"Lllloooooyyyd! I know you're in there."

No I'm not go away.

"Look man I didn't—" His voice got quieter for a moment and he was probably mumbling something, "I'm starving man, you gotta let me in. Lloyd." There was a thunk, either his head hit the door or he was doing a lame attempt at knocking on it.

So go yourself the restaurant is literally within walking distance.

"Llooooyd. Please. I need someone to walk with me. Don't know if I can stand."

Oh my god.

He grumpily sat up and scrubbed his eyes and looked at the clock, which read in unforgiving bright green: 2:30 AM. Ugh. He should've been used to this, but those were under different circumstances. His friend would've just been there to drop in with a crowd of their mutual friends to stay up late and avoid studying. He probably would've been able to deal with that better than the drunk mess outside of his door right now.

Sighing, Lloyd got out of bed and scratched his fingernails through his messy brown hair, walking out into the small living room and placing his hand on the doorknob. He swiftly opened the door and couldn't even bring himself to laugh as his friend fell backwards and hit the floor from leaning on the door, his red hair splayed out in an instant and he grimaced, letting out an uncharacteristic squeak.

"Ow! Holy shit, where did the door go—Lloyd! Hey bud, what's up?"

"Me, apparently, since you woke me and probably half of the apartment complex by now."

The redhead snorted in a slurred way. His face was partially flushed and Lloyd was waiting for him to start shooting his mouth off like he always did when he was drunk. "Oh come on, it's only eleven!"

"It's two thirty in the morning, Zelos. You're several hours behind."

The man on the floor blinked at him. "What? No, man, it's eleven—"

Lloyd ignored him as he began to ramble about something that he couldn't understand with his speech distorted from the alcohol, and reached down to hook Zelos' arm over his shoulders to pull him off the floor. He wobbled slightly but managed to at least lean on the wall nearby. If he could barely walk, this was going to be a long, long night. Lloyd was beyond aggravated and cranky, looking Zelos up and down told him that he apparently tried to dress to go out somewhere, but didn't do a very good job at it. He had thrown a hoodie on over a button up shirt that was mussed a little, his hair was a damn mess and he, of course, stunk of alcohol. Or something to that extent.

"Okay, what do you want?" Lloyd asked.

"Something to eat."

His speech was slurred a little but at least he was still somewhat coherent. "Like what? You couldn't get Sheena to drive you?"

"Yyeeaahhh kinda pissed her off, may or may not have gotten kicked out for the night."

Lloyd groaned. "Oh god. What did you do this time?"

Zelos found his grin and waved a hand, shrugging and laughing a little. "Don't know. Guess I insulted her with my beauty." Lloyd had half a mind to slug him on the shoulder. If there was one thing he was good at it was pissing women off by just existing around them. Even when he was drunk he still retained his piss poor personality. He probably tried to bring home a date in his tipsy state and forgot about his voluptuous roommate still being around. Lloyd can only imagine.

"I'm serious, did you get into an argument or something?"

"Geez, bud, you're askin' way too many questions and all I want are some damn french fries."

Lloyd sighed and rolled his eyes. He was probably stuck with Zelos at this point. Might as well get him what he wants.

"I sure hope you aren't going out like that."

Lloyd stared at him before glancing down at himself, realizing he was still in his t-shirt and boxers. He gave Zelos an annoyed look and took hold of his shoulder to lead him away from the door.

"No, I'm just gonna put on a jacket and some pants—now come over here and sit on the couch before you fall over again."

"'Kay."

Before he could close the door he heard a click and another door opening from a little down the hallway, and noticed someone else had stepped out of their apartment while yawning, a young girl with long blonde hair had spotted him.

"Hey, Colette, sorry did we wake you?" Lloyd said, trying to be quiet.

The girl rubbed her eyes and yawned again, but she looked fully awake this time once she spotted Lloyd. "Oh, no no! I just heard someone talking outside and didn't know who it was. Is everything okay?" She noticed Zelos in the doorway and he must have heard her, because as soon as he leaned backwards enough to see her his face immediately lit up and he grinned from ear to ear.

"Heeey, there's my cute little honey!" He piped up. Lloyd was ready to close the door on him, but settled with lightly smacking him on the back of the head.

"Shh! You're gonna wake everyone up!"

"Oh, no, Zelos are you okay?" Colette walked up to them and looked at the redhead worriedly, completely unaware that he was most definitely drunk.

"Totally fine, honey—"

Lloyd immediately cut him off. "No, he's not, he's completely hammered and I'm going to get him some food before the landlord gets called to come and kick me out." He sighed and looked to the girl with a pitiful expression. "Do you mind watching him for a second? I need to go put pants on before I leave."

Colette nodded at him brightly, offering Zelos a warm smile and helping him sit on the armrest of the couch. She kept a hand on his shoulder while Lloyd disappeared into his bedroom.

"Zelos, you don't look injured, what exactly were you hammering?"

The redhead just stared at her and busted out laughing, Lloyd heard them both from his room and tried hard not to splutter into a giggling fit. Bless her.

"Oh my god, sweetheart, I'm not—I wasn't," Zelos lost himself in his fit of laughter, and it was loud. God. He was always too loud when he was drunk. Lloyd could distinctly make out the sound of a startled yelp from Colette and more laughter—the idiot must've nearly fallen off the couch.

He sighed again and merely settled for pajama pants and pulled his shoes on and his jacket, walking back into the living room and nodded at Colette appreciatively, trying to ignore Zelos who had fallen onto the actual couch, thank god.

"What I meant by 'hammered' is that he's actually drunk off his ass, right now." He said, regaining Colette's attention and she responded with an 'oh'. He gave her another apologetic face, rubbing his forehead while looking down at his friend on the couch. "Sorry we woke you. I didn't really expect him to show up tonight. Not like this, especially."

Colette just shook her head and smiled. "No, it's okay. I don't mind. Do you need me to wait up for you, just in case?"

Lloyd shook his head and tried to ignore the incoherent babbling of his friend on the couch. "No, it's alright. We're going to come right back anyway, and I don't think he needs to go back to his own apartment tonight."

Zelos tried to pull himself up but wobbled enough that he almost rolled off the couch. "Aw, wait a sec! Why can't we eat out?"

Lloyd put a hand on his hip and stared down at him. "Really? With you in this condition? I don't think so. The last time that happened you got us kicked out of a bar." He shook his head. "You gotta seriously learn to hold your liquor better, Zelos."

Zelos blew a raspberry at him and attempted to stand, startling his friends for a moment but he managed to succeed, shockingly, and put both hands on his hips and tried to puff his chest out. "I can hold it just fine, thanks! I think you're the one who can't handle it."

"Zelos, I drank you under the table the last three times you tried to challenge me to a contest. Do you really want to do this." Lloyd actually smirked at him.

Colette nodded in response. "Lloyd can hold his liquor better than you, Zelos."

"Good to see my friends have such faith in me." He said dramatically, but Lloyd almost wanted to laugh at how horrible it sounded coming out of his mouth in this state.

"How are you still talking? Come on, let's go get your damn fries before I lose any more sleep."

What was supposed to be a trip to just get french fries turned out to be an entire late night meal, and Lloyd and Zelos sat in the small living room of Lloyd's single apartment and had a few burgers on the side, with the TV on quietly in front of them. As expected, Zelos ran his mouth about god knows how many things all at once while drunk, commenting on everything and with the attention span of a kid. He just let him ramble about whatever, unable to bring himself to interrupt no matter what it was. He'd offer comments on a few things here and there, but Zelos was more interested in talking about things from new videogames that were coming out to how vast and empty the universe is and it was a little startling hearing this coming from Zelos. But it wasn't unpleasant, just annoying.

At some point, he had leaned over, while still talking, to bite into his burger and his absolutely preposterous red hair had fallen over his shoulders and into his face, Lloyd had to sit his food down and stare at his friend incredulously.

"So anyway, I said—"

"Zelos your hair is all over the place, why didn't you pull it up at least?"

Zelos had blinked a him, and Lloyd actually snorted into a small laughing fit because he looked so absolutely un-Zelos right now with his mouth stuffed full and his hair a complete catastrophe. It was hilarious. Kind of cute, but mostly hilarious. He wished he could see this more often.

"I always have it down though," He muffled out a reply while he watched Lloyd reach over a nearby table and plucked a hairband off of it, probably a spare of Colette's or something, and warily watched him scoot to one end of the couch and reach over to him in the opposite chair he was sitting in.

"Stop moving, jeez, you didn't even brush it." Lloyd idly moved his bangs out of the way and reached back to comb his curls into his palms and oh my god how much hair did he even have? He didn't understand how he dealt with it. A part of him really liked it, though.

"Lloyd that isn't necessary."

"Wow, you actually said that without slurring, I'm shocked."

Zelos' eyes had widened and he just sat there, petrified and a little awkward, but let Lloyd pull his hair back anyway. Something about having the brunette's hands on his scalp made his stomach drop into his ass in fear and he felt his heart speed up and all he could do was stare at the t-shirt blocking his view.

"Okay, there, now stop getting food in your hair. Seriously, you're usually pretty anal about how you look." Lloyd sat back down and returned to his food, glancing up at the TV and making a face, grabbing the remote, and with his mouth full muttering something about "hate this movie" and changed the channel.

Zelos still didn't move and had stopped chewing for so long he was getting a rather unkind aftertaste but only glanced awkwardly to the floor, eyes still about to pop out of his head.

"Woah, you okay? You look like you just saw Professer Curtiss in a speedo or something."

Zelos turned his eyes back to Lloyd, his brows still raised and frozen in place, giving him a comical display of shock. They stared at each other for a moment before Zelos slowly scrunched his eyes shut and gave him a disgusted groan, leaning back in the armchair and covering his eyes with his forearms.

"OH my god now you've said that and I can't get it OUT of my head! Why would you say something like that?" Zelos cried and Lloyd found himself pointing at him and laughing. "I'm gonna have to drink a lot more now so I can black out and completely erase that from my mind."

Lloyd had laughed again and rubbed his knuckles under his nose, shaking his head and waving a hand at him. "No, don't do that, then I'd have to deal with you being stuck here for another day."

"Eugh," The noise had died down and Zelos returned to eating his burger, poutingly this time.

To Lloyd's surprise, Zelos had actually stopped talking as much and was more focused on eating, and was now staring at his food with a sort of glower on his face, not even looking at the TV. The sudden silence was more than enough to catch Lloyd's attention and he looked at him expectantly.

"Hey, really though, you sure you're okay?" He asked, maybe a little cautiously since there had been times when Zelos got a little too drunk and his mood had swung back and forth. Sometimes he could be a really depressing one, too, one that had scared Lloyd when he did become witness to it. That didn't seem to be the case at this moment, but he still wanted to make sure.

"Hm?" Zelos spared him a glance and tried to play nonchalant. "What d'you mean, bud?"

Lloyd shrugged. "You just got real quiet all of a sudden."

Zelos watched him and slowed his chewing a bit and glanced to the food in his hand. "I'm eatin'?"

"Well yeah, I know that, but I mean, a second ago you were talking about just about everything even with your mouth full." He saw him tense up a little bit, which didn't go unnoticed, and something clicked in his head. "Was it—"

Zelos plastered his drunken grin back on his face and continued talking with his mouth full, much as Lloyd wanted to smack him for it. He had a bad habit of doing it himself after Colette and Sheena had told him to stop inhaling food and talking all at once. Was that how he looked all the time when he ate? "Man, I don't know what you're worried about! I'm just glad I finally got some food. You're a lifesaver."

Lloyd gave him a disapproving look. He knew exactly what had just happened, Zelos always had bad habit of trying to get out of serious conversations by masking them with either boredom or humor. He never really tried to contribute to them, and he often wondered how he even stayed in their college. He knew that Zelos was amazing at mathematics, so that could've been one thing, but for the most part he seemed very laid-back and more interested in partying than studying.

Probably his parents being rich or pulling strings or something. Lloyd thought suddenly, but shook it off. He didn't look down on anyone for things like that, but he could admit that he didn't care much for Zelos' family. He didn't like how whenever he would get a tiny sliver of Zelos outside his fake demeanor, the redhead would almost instantly recoil back into his shell and laugh it off. No matter who it was. Though, he could at least take pride in the fact that he was able to even get such little hints and/or slip-ups out of him. And it only happened when Zelos was around him. He had caught him once or twice trying to open up to Colette at one point, but it was vague and he never got the chance to even ask about it.

"Zelos, come on, look at me." Lloyd prodded, and the other man froze mid-bite to look at him questioningly. "You're acting weird as hell tonight. I know I'm not the brightest guy with a lot of things but I can tell when one of my best friends is hiding something from me."

Oh. Well, fuck him, he'd forgotten about that. All he wanted was fries. Some kind of food so that he wouldn't get sick later from drinking. He didn't want to get into all this so late, and with him slowly coming down off of his drunken stupor, now was probably a good time for more liquor-if only he'd brought some with him or if Lloyd had kept any at his place. Lloyd was good at reading people. He should've kept that in mind.

"Can't I just finish my food?"

"Yeah, and then you get to spill about why you show up at my doorstep at 2 am drunk and crying about wanting food and avoiding my questions and then completely going silent after—oh." A sudden look of realization appeared on Lloyd's face and Zelos wanted to jump out of his window right then.

"Um."

"Don't give me that look, Zelos, I'm not stupid."

"I didn't even say anything!"

"But you were thinking it." Lloyd had tried to scoot back to the end of the couch near the armchair Zelos sat in and gave him a stern look. "Come on, for as long as we've known each other I'd think you'd at least try to...I don't know...confide in me or something. I thought we were done with you trying to put a mask on everything." He sighed and shook his head. "We've talked about this before."

Zelos had sighed aggravatingly and sat his food down so that he could rub his face in his hands, propping his elbows up on his knees and making pathetic groaning noises of protest as his only indication that he didn't want to do this, not now and probably not ever if possible. He had dragged his hands down his face so that he could at least stare out into nothing, trying to think of a response. Lloyd waited patiently.

"Can it—" Zelos made a small 'mrf' noise while he rubbed his face in his hands and groaning again. He was still somewhat tipsy, couldn't really think straight. But he knew where this was going and this time he didn't think he could back out of it, or that it'd be right. Me? Thinking about what's right? Well that's a laugh. He thought, before brushing it away. "Can it just...wait a bit? I don't...I'm still a little fucked up right now, can't really get anything straight in my head."

Lloyd frowned a bit, but gave a single nod. "I can wait. You know I'll wait." Not really, he thought. Lloyd was a generally impatient person when he wanted to be, but there were times when he knew when to keep his temper in check.

"Don't wanna make you wait like that, though." Zelos grumbled, and Lloyd barely caught it and knew that he was probably referencing to something else when he said that—just another one of his many past regrets. Nothing new there, not that Zelos would admit it. "Okay, okay. I'll...yeah. Yeah, just lemme eat first and settle down. Okay?"

He nodded again and went back to his food. "Okay."

There was mostly silence in the room after that. They continued watching the TV on and off, and occasionally would delve back into conversation, even though it was a little awkward now. There was a somewhat uncomfortable atmosphere that lingered for a while, up until they had both stood to move around; throw garbage away, go to the restroom. Eventually they found themselves both sitting on the couch and watching a movie that was a favorite for both, and they fell back into a comfortable conversation about the movie on TV, chatting for at least a good couple of hours before either of them realized that the clock hit 5 AM.

Lloyd had returned from throwing away the remainder of their food in the small kitchen space next to them and sat back on the couch, before stopping himself and turning around to look at Zelos closely. He looked like he'd fallen asleep. Well I'll be damned, he thought, a little disappointed but unable to bring himself to shake the man awake for a while. Instead he merely settled back into the couch to prop his feet up on the coffee table and turned back to the TV.

He heard a soft grunt from the man next to him and turned his head to look, and noticed that he had shifted a little closer and pulled himself up into a ball next to Lloyd, surprising him a little. He leaned back a bit but ultimately let the redhead curl against him, and he heard him grumble "fuckin' cold" and sunk his hands into the long arms of his hoodie to try and keep them warm. Lloyd smirked at him and his rather uncharacteristic display of grumpiness and clingyness. Though, this only made his earlier curiosities surface again.

"Hey," He tried, though softly. "You still awake?"

"Tryin' not t' be." Zelos mumbled.

Lloyd laughed softly before sighing a little, glancing around for a stray blanket. He found one on the opposite end of the couch and reached to grab it, ignoring Zelos' pitiful objections, and dragged the blanket over to them to unfold it. He leaned back and draped the blanket over them both, propping his feet back up and putting his arm around Zelos to try and get him to scoot closer into the warmth. He felt Zelos immediately tense up, and tried to force himself back and out of the arm that soon encased him against the brunette, but seemed to accept his fate of being trapped between his friend and the blanket and settled down.

Zelos stopped for a second, however, once they got settled and sat up a bit more, dropping the blanket off of him and grouchily muttered an unintelligible 'hold on' before pulling his long hair out of the ponytail that Lloyd had set it in.

"God that hurts. Hate having my hair in a ponytail." He said, staring at the band in his palm with his eyes half-lidded and tired, slowly sobering up and full, comfortable and ready to fall asleep.

Lloyd watched him thoughtfully, lifting one of his hands to cup Zelos' own underneath and the other one moving to take the hairband from his fingers. "I think it looks nice when it's pulled up."

He thought that Zelos might've meant for it to go unnoticed but he didn't miss the little whine in the back of his throat before the redhead put a hand over his face and rubbed it, sighing heavily.

"You're makin' this too hard." Again, he wasn't doing a very good job at saying things quiet enough, because Lloyd was focused and caught every bit of it.

"I'm not the one who hides things from people who are close to me. Especially it involves my own mental or physical health."

"Can't help it." He grumbled again and finally took his hands from his face and realized how close they were, attempted to look all around the room, mentally cursing himself for getting himself into this situation and damn it all he should've just passed out face-first in the parking lot instead. Though, much to his surprise, he found that Lloyd wasn't freaking out or pulling away or shoving him off and kicking him out. That eased the sickness in his stomach a little.

Lloyd nodded gently, raising his arm again to slowly, carefully wrap around the redhead's shoulders and coax him to lie back down against him, trying hard not to startle him and scare him off. Zelos seemed too fed up with himself to bother in objecting, so he merely followed the direction of his arms and nestled back against him, trying to let his hair cover his face so Lloyd wouldn't look at him.

"I know. I know why you can't help it." Lloyd said quietly, tugging the blanket back up over them. "I just...wish you trusted me more. I know that it's hard, I just wish I knew what to do to make it easier for you." He idly noticed that the blanket didn't cover his legs all the way, and he furrowed his brows while he pulled his own legs up against him onto the couch and completely wrapped them both under the soft cover.

"I do," Zelos had responded a little too quickly, but he figured that it was a little late. He knew Lloyd knew what had happened earlier, knew what he was thinking and why he was acting the way he was. Their current positioning wasn't a part of their normal 'buddy' routine where Zelos often would playfully hang off Lloyd's shoulders and invade his personal space just to joke around. No, this was different. And the absurd thing was, the redhead actually found himself okay with it, found himself perfectly fine with how it was turning out.

Lloyd had already pieced some of it together, which led him to believe he could try and convince his friend that it was okay, that how he felt was okay, and that he had thought the same way for a long time as well. Lloyd would be lying if he had said that he wasn't nervous right now or that his heart wasn't beating a little fast, unsure of where this was going, but still trying to be supportive of it.

"You're important to me," he said, trying to do what Lloyd had suggested and not constantly talk so quietly or evasively on subjects like this. He felt Lloyd fully turn his head to try and look at him, no, no, shit don't look at me I'm so scared and embarrassed right now, his thoughts ran frantically. He wasn't used to this. He was used to finding a cute girl or guy and immediately heading to the bedroom, this was just flat out weird and alien to him and he didn't know how on earth he should go about it. This was his friend, his best friend, and it had scared him to the point where he'd lose a night or two of sleep.

It was why he had gotten drunk and shown up at Lloyd's apartment after Sheena had attempted to confront him on the matter since Lloyd was a good friend of hers too and she may or may not have been a little protective of him, but also wanted to help Zelos work out whatever had been stressing him out and, since he was absolutely horrible at expressing anything involving 'feelings', had locked horns with her and upset her on numerous things without really, really meaning to and damn it he's going to have to apologize to her once he goes back.

He was brought back to where he was by the faint smell of what he assumed was burnt leaves during cold fall weather, and realized it was from Lloyd. It was always a pleasant thing, what with Lloyd being from the mountains. He had only been there once or twice to meet his dad, not used to the hardy, rough atmosphere of living up in the mountains...but it was so very Lloyd that it he had developed a bit of a soft spot for it, not that he'd ever let him know because, well, it was Zelos. That was when he realized he'd been thinking too much again and how close he was to Lloyd's neck and body as a whole.

And then Lloyd smiled at him.

"Well, the feeling's mutual."

Was all he said, and Zelos felt his worry and anxiety slowly melt away at that. Lloyd had seemed so nonchalant and careful, like it was the most natural thing to do between them, like nothing had changed or was going to change just because of...whatever this was. Zelos tried to turn his head away from his gaze towards the brunette's neck so that his hair covered it more and shielded him from sight.

"Don't deserve you."

He heard Lloyd sigh with a bit of irritation, and felt him raise his hand to brush his hair out of the way so he could look at him fully. "Shut up, don't say stuff like that, you dork." He said. All he could offer was a blink of the eyes and stared. Lloyd leaned in a bit and brushed his lips against the redhead's temple and then readjusted himself to lean back against the couch with the other man against him. Zelos made a hilarious face in shock and Lloyd laughed a little at him.

"Now go to sleep. It's almost six and I'd like to get a little bit of shuteye before explaining why we're late to class." He said with finality and curled up under the blanket with the redhead.

Zelos wasn't sure what the hell just happened, probably still too buzzed to think on it but was pretty sure he'd still be confused and about to cough up butterflies with how many were stuck in his stomach right now. So instead, he shut his eyes, and let himself finally drift off in peace.