"You know she's about half your age, yes?"
Vartan didn't even pause in his methodical meal preparation. "I'm aware."
Alind faltered for a second when he didn't even seem bothered that she'd noticed their sneaky flirting. Damn. "... Well, good. Just wanted to make sure you knew."
"Yes," he answered blandly, "You never know, I might have suffered from an inability to do simple mathematics. Thank you for being so considerate."
In the common room, someone snickered. Alind's brow furrowed. This was not going according to plan.
"Alind is just jealous, man," Darel said, popping up in the doorway. "She hasn't had a good lay in like half of forever."
Alind snorted disdainfully. Darel waggled his eyebrows and tried to look suave.
"You know, an old guy like him, he might have trouble starting the engine, huh? But someone like you, you need it raring to go at a moment's notice."
"I have that already. It's called a vibrator. And its batteries never die after two minutes."
Darel's smile turned sullen. "... Bitch. I can so last way longer than two minutes."
Vartan sighed and picked up his biggest cooking knife. "I'll be much obliged if you'd go and be hormonal elsewhere."
"Man, what are you doing wasting weeks and weeks trying to hook up with some chick in her twenties if your underwear buddy is already all dried up?"
Alind snorted. "You know, when you asked Dhaval the other day why no girl ever wants to date you? That's why."
"-- hey, how'd you hear that? It was a secret!"
"Then don't talk around air vents, stupid."
Vartan sighed, took them each by a shoulder, turned them around, and nudged them out.
"Hey, don't treat me like a kid!" Darel protested. Vartan didn't seem to notice as his eyes scanned the common room.
"Blue?"
Blue hit pause on his videogame. "Yeah?"
"Would you keep them distracted until I'm done with dinner?"
"... Sure. But you'll owe me."
"Pear cookies?"
Blue smirked. "That works. Come here, kids, come to papa."
Alind glared at him, but Blue only smirked harder.
"Hey, Darel, I beat your high score at Kickass Kombat."
"What? Hell you did!" Darel tore the controller away from him and started toggling through the options, offended. Blue reclined in his seat and looked up at the blonde, smug and amused.
"So what's this I hear about you having a crush on Vartan?"
"...Oh, fuck you. I'm going to read engine output data, it'll be more fun."
She stormed out; not quite fast enough to avoid hearing Blue's satisfied "Easiest
cookies I ever earned."