Big fatty Arro wants to go on a diet. Rangavar is certain he can do it. What neither of them are certain about is what the research facility is up to. And it seems their mysterious employers want to keep it that way.

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Kill, Marry, Fuck
Chapter 16


Rangavar woke up to the sight of a huge blob of pink scales. Or, uh, pale-red scales. He realized he’d rolled over in his sleep. He had one arm hanging off the edge of the bed, the other tucked under him, and both wings fully splayed. One of them was practically inches from punching Arro in the face. It was a good thing the Faerian slept so deeply.
The Darkal sighed. He’d been the opposite lately.
He slowly started to roll over. Arro had ended up lying on his back, his huge belly swelling over him. It spilled over his sides to merge with his lovehandles. He looked peaceful right now, not as annoying as he’d been last night.
Rangavar groaned. He wished he could forget what the green dragon had said; it was a bit awkward to know others might think of he and Arro that way. Maybe they should stop sleeping in the same bed. The Faerian did take up all the room anyway; even right now, he was covering almost the entire surface area.
He squeezed his eyes shut. Companions? Really? Not that Arro wouldn’t be able to get one if he wanted to, of course. He was attractive. And Jade was always supportive of that sort of thing. Arro probably just needed a little self-confidence.
A few minutes later, he was rubbing his eyes as he stood in the kitchen. There wasn’t any food, but there sure were a lot of wrappers. And boxes. And crumbs. Just shit tons of trash everywhere. He didn’t even know where to begin picking it up, so he decided to just leave it for Arro. It was the Faerian’s mess, after all.
He wondered if he should go out and bring some food home for himself. But would that be fair? Even though Arro had some interesting ideas about the way to get all his snacks out of the house, the Darkal had noticed how hard he was trying not eat anything while they were out last night. Maybe he could fill the cabinets with fruit or something instead.
His thoughts were interrupted by the stairs creaking behind him. He turned to see Arro coming down, stretching and yawning.
“Oh, sorry, did I wake you?” Rangavar asked.
The larger dragon shook his head. “Nah.” He looked at the trashed kitchen sheepishly. “I actually woke up because I was hungry. But…”
A heavy pause hung between them.
“You should eat before work, you know.” Rangavar looked down at the counter. Well, what he could see of it, from the other side of some empty donut boxes. “If you eat nothing, you’ll be ravenous later. And then…”
Arro picked up the pause this time. “I’ll binge?”
Rangavar looked away.
“Yeah, it’s okay, I kind of figure that.” Arro’s eyes flicked over the mess he’d made. “I’ll—I’m gonna do this, though.”
The Darkal looked back over at him. “I believe in you.”
Arro pricked his ears. He looked a bit surprised. “Thanks. That means a lot, actually.”
Rangavar turned away again. “It’s my day off, so I could pick up some, uh, ‘healthy’ food for you while I’m out. If you want me to, of course.”
“Hmm.” Arro absentmindedly scratched his belly. “Yeah, actually. I could pay you back.”
Rangavar waved his paw. “It’s okay.” He pushed a few boxes aside so he could lean on the counter. He watched as Arro headed to the door. “Oh, your hip bag.”
“Uh…” Arro shifted his feet. “It wasn’t fitting yesterday.”
Oh.
“Well… Good luck today.”
“Yeah.” Arro gave a tiny wave. “Thanks.”
After he’d gone, Rangavar sat for a while as he decided what to do. Food. For now, he should go get food. And it would get him outside for a bit. Oh, yeah, and he needed to get a copy of the key for Arro. That sounded good.
Rangavar disappeared into the shower room to get ready for the day.


The halls were a bit empty around lunchtime. Arro decided to take a different approach to getting past the fence; maybe he could find the way to the basement from inside.
Making his way through the building, he tried to look for any doors that seemed out of the ordinary, or that wouldn’t make spatial sense to have a room behind it. Unfortunately, most of the doors were identical. To be fair, that’s exactly how Arro would have chosen to disguise a secret door.
He felt drawn towards the back of the lab building, though, particularly towards the storage room he and Rangavar had broken into—and had to fix the lock on the other day. He was still a bit miffed that Rangavar had been so careless. On the other paw, the Darkal had warned him that the magic to unlock it would be difficult. Arro still didn’t really understand much about magic, but it had apparently been true.
The door was exactly how they’d left it, and it was locked, and without any magic, there was no way for Arro to get in by himself. He began to retrace his steps, paying extra attention to each and every door on his way back out. They didn’t have windows, which was inconvenient, but not necessarily suspicious.
He was feeling a bit disheartened as he returned the main part of the building. Maybe he’d have to find a way to peek in through the windows out back after all. It wasn’t that he needed to get inside the lab anyway—or at least, Rangavar hadn’t made it sound like there was a reason—he just wanted to SEE what was inside. His only real obstacle was the fence.
Arro was lost in thought as he crossed paths with a familiar dragon in the hall; not Jethe, but the pale green Faerian from yesterday. Arro still didn’t know her name.
“Oh, hello.” She smiled.
It would have been too weird to ignore her. “Oh, hi.”
She looked up at him earnestly. “I know this is a bit straight to the point, but I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable last night. I didn’t mean to intrude.”
Arro was a bit taken aback. “Oh, uh, thanks. It’s okay.”
She sounded sincere, but still had the same mischievous glint in her eye as the night before.
“We are roommates,” Arro admitted. “But that’s it. Roommates. Nothing else except roommates.”
She smiled a bit. “Okay.”
“I just—I really wanted you to know that. That we’re just roommates, I mean.” Vaugh dammit, he felt his face grow warm.
“Gotcha.”
“You know, in case we gave you the wrong idea.”
“I see.”
He shifted his feet uncomfortably. “I have to get back to work,” he lied.
“Okay. It was nice speaking to you!” She gave him another knowing smile as she turned away.
He let out a quiet sigh of frustration as he watched her disappear down the hall. He tried to think of ways that short conversation could have been more awkward, and nothing in particular came to mind. She was just trying to be nice, though, right?
He took some deep breaths once he was outside, enjoying the smell of fresh air and letting it clear his head. He wanted to go check out that fence again during the rest of his break; maybe it would help take his mind off things, too.
Checking to make sure no one was looking his way, Arro casually began strolling towards the back of the building.
At first, he was startled to see that the fence was gone—He was even MORE startled to see that the windows were gone, too. They’d been filled entirely with cement. Just, each rectangular indent into the foundation, sealed up. What?? He wasn’t so much frustrated as a little afraid. It was too close to his and Rangavar’s little expedition to be a coincidence. He found it worrying that someone must have noticed them.
Would the person recognize them if they ran into each other? Would he and Rangavar get in trouble? He gulped, feeling really warm under his jacket.
After his break, he was distracted all shift, lost in thought. Someone had clearly noticed them, and clearly didn’t want them poking around.
He’d just have to find another way into the lab.


Rangavar was growling softly as he finished taking out the trash. Arro’s pile of trash. It should be Arro doing this.
He pricked his ears at the sound of the heavy dragon coming up behind him. Rangavar had been able to sense his aura for a while now, but figured it was ironic that he would reach the house just in time to see the Darkal cleaning up his mess.
Walking towards the front door, Arro flattened his ears sheepishly. “Oh, I could have gotten that.”
The smaller dragon sighed. “And sit around in garbage all day? No thanks.”
“Sorry…”
Arro was right behind him as they walked into the house together. Rangavar gestured at the counter. “I picked up some fruit today. You can help yourself.”
He’d gotten more apples. He’d gone back and forth over the amount earlier, picking through them indecisively. He was fine eating one apple for a meal, but Arro was significantly larger. Rangavar tried to think back to when he, himself, was a Faerian; it was a very long time ago, but he was pretty sure he’d eaten maybe two per meal? He’d been about Arro’s height. Although, he’d never been very muscular; did that make a difference? Did Arro need more because he was muscular?
He’d eventually just grabbed an armful. At worst, he and Arro could go back out later. It would be nice to take a walk. Or, they’d have leftovers. That would be fine too.
“Oh, thanks.” Arro inspected the contents of the counter thoughtfully. “It’s all fruit.”
“Yep.”
“Great.”
Rangavar got the sense that he didn’t really think that was great.
“I went out and bought something, too.”
“Oh?” Rangavar had noticed him carrying a bag, but assumed it was just in lieu of his hip bag.
Arro grinned. “Yeah. Check his out.” He reached into the bag to reveal a mysterious plastic box. It was pretty nondescript; it was black and looked like it had some weight to it.
“You’re right, that’s super cool.” The other dragon waited patiently for Arro to tell him what it was.
Arro brushed past him and headed for the living room. “Remember when I showed you what a TV was? Because they weren’t around before you got stuck on Glitara?”
“Oh, yeah.” He did remember.
The Faerian beckoned him over, still grinning. “Well now, I’m going to introduce you to videogames.”


“Fuck!” Rangavar threw down the controller, putting his face behind his paws as he leaned back on the couch.
Arro stood up and pumped his fist in the air. “Yes!”
Rangavar groaned. “I don’t like this videogame. Videogames are stupid.”
“That’s only because you’ve lost eleven times in a row.”
Rangavar shot him a glare.
“What??” Arro looked down at him innocently. “Come on. The more you practice, the better you’ll get. Please play again?”
The Darkal sighed heavily. “Fine. Just ONE more, though.”
A few minutes later, he was pleasantly surprised to see that Arro was right; he really was beginning to improve. A few minutes more, and he absolutely creamed the larger dragon. “Wait, I think I just—Hey, I did it!” he exclaimed. Grinning, he glanced over at Arro.
“Yeah, that was great!” The Faerian turned away to hide his smug expression.
“Wait.” Rangavar scowled. “Arro, did you let me win?”
“Wellll…”
“Arro!” He smacked the larger dragon lightly on the arm. “That isn’t fair!”
“But you were having fun though.” Arro leaned back, looking very pleased with himself as he grinned at Rangavar.
Rangavar wrinkled his snout. “It’s not fun if I don’t do it myself.”
“Okay, how about this. What if I sit out a round, and you play one by yourself on the easiest possible setting. Then you know I can’t interfere.”
“Hmm.” He squinted suspiciously at the other dragon. “You can’t interfere?”
“Nope.”
Rangavar leaned back on the couch. “I’ll try it.”
He tried it three more times. Both of the dragons were leaning forward on the couch, staring intently at the screen, on Rangavar’s third try as he got closer and closer to winning.
He won.
He leaned back, throwing both fists in the air victoriously. “Yes!”
Arro cheered, wrapping Rangavar around the shoulder and squeezing him in a side hug. When Rangavar tensed up, he immediately let go and scrambled back. “Vaugh, I’m so sorry, I just— When you won, and— I was just so excited for—”
“It’s okay, Arro.”
The Faerian was blushing furiously.
Rangavar looked away. His face felt warm too.
After a moment, Rangavar cleared his throat, interrupting the silence that had filled the room. “So, uh, we could go again. Or take a break.” He cast a glance at the counter. “I don’t think you’ve even eaten yet.”
The fat Faerian shifted in his seat, still a little flustered. “Oh, yeah. That was the idea, actually,” he admitted. “I really wanted to show you how to play, but I wasn’t sure you’d like it. But then I figured, at the very least, even if you didn’t, it would be a nice distraction…”
“Yeah. Well, you were right.” Rangavar leaned back with his arms up on the back of the couch. “I mean, I really do like the videogame.”
“A while ago, you said you didn’t.”
“Heh. I changed my mind.”
Arro smiled again. “I’m glad. Also, you don’t have to call it a ‘videogame’ every time, you can just say ‘game’.”
Rangavar stayed on the couch as Arro got up to get food, observing curiously as the larger dragon picked through the apples. He wasn’t wrinkling his snout or anything, but the Darkal could tell from his emotions that he wasn’t super excited.
He eventually came back to the couch with all of them. He offered one to the Rangavar, but the other dragon waved his paws. “I ate earlier.” He eyed the pile. “Are you going to eat all of those right now?”
“Well, uh, I was thinking until I’m full. I thought they were healthy?”
Rangavar glanced back over towards the screen. “I mean, well, yeah. Technically. But I think the idea is that it’s not healthy to eat them all at once.”
“Oh, of course not,” Arro scoffed. “Just until I’m full. I’ll put the rest back after.” He began to munch down.
He chewed thoughtfully for a few moments. Around a mouth full of crunchy apple, he said, “You know, these aren’t as bad as I thought.” His eyes widened. “I mean, not that I thought they’d be BAD or anything. I mean, I’m grateful, even though they’re not what I expected, but not like I WOULDN’T expect them to be good, bec—”
“It’s fine.” Rangavar leaned back, brows raised with amusement. “I know it’s not your usual.”
Arro flattened his ears guiltily. He continued to shove apples into his mouth, barely even leaving cores in his wake. Rangavar considered starting up another videogame match, but was feeling pretty satisfied with his last run and was enjoying the break.
“Thanks for showing me the vid— uh, the game.”
Arro swallowed. “Yeah. No problem. I’m glad you like it.”
“I wish they were invented before Glitara was sealed off,” the smaller dragon said. “We could have been playing them there.”
“Yeah.” Arro rummaged around for another apple. “I can’t imagine what you did for fun.”
The Darkal grimaced. “Not a lot.”
“How come you never talk about it?” Arro took another bite of apple. “About Glitara, I mean?”
“Not a whole lot to tell.” Rangavar looked away.
Arro reached for another apple, and looked surprised to see that they were all gone. He leaned back. “Well to the rest of us, there’s probably a whole lot to tell. No one seems to know what happened there.”
Rangavar looked down at his paws. “Arro?”
The Faerian looked down at the smaller dragon on the seat next to him. “What?”
Rangavar bit his lip. “Is the reason you hang around because I’m from Glitara?”
To his credit, Arro seemed really confused for a moment. “Huh?”
Rangavar didn’t look at him. “You know. Like, I know you’re obsessed with Glitara. Do you hang around because you think I’m intriguing, or ‘exotic’ or something?” He continued inspecting his claws. “I feel like you haven’t been helping me just out of guilt.”
Arro blushed. His signature move. “Is that really so hard to believe?”
“That you’re just helping me out of guilt?”
“No, that—” Arro paused for a long moment. “Wait. Which answer do you want?”
Rangavar leaned back and groaned.
The Faerian was quiet a long moment. “What if I’m just here because I want to be?”
The other dragon stared at the ceiling, his arms on the back of the couch. “You mean like it’s convenient?”
“No!” Arro shook his head. “I meant more like, maybe I just like being here. Genuinely.”
Rangavar finally turned to look at him, raising a brow. “I’m starting to lose track of how many ways you’re evading the question.”
“Okay.” Arro took a deep breath and started ticking things off on his fingers. “I’m not here because you’re from Glitara, not here because you’re ‘exotic’, not because of ‘guilt’, and not here because you’re ‘convenient.’ Did I miss anything?”
Rangavar was quiet a long moment. “So you don’t feel guilty about what happened?”
“What? I— Of course I do!”
Rangavar snickered. “I’m kidding.” He looked back over at the TV screen absentmindedly. It had turned itself off by now. “I’m not really mad anymore, you know. Like, I don’t think about it or anything.”
“About what?”
Rangavar shot him a look.
After a moment, the Faerian turned red. “Oh…” He fidgeted for a moment. Then he frowned. “Wait, you’re not?”
The other dragon shrugged. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, that’s still pretty shitty. You should probably never do that again. To anyone, I mean.”
Arro looked away. He could hide his face, but his feelings of embarrassment were still transparent to the Darkal. Rangavar thought he probably forgot about that sometimes.
“We all have extreme reactions sometimes.”
Arro shifted uncomfortably. “Heh, like, uh, murder?”
Rangavar pressed to lips together. If someone hurt Jade, he would absolutely want to murder them. He wondered if part of the reason he forgave Arro was because it was so relatable.
When Rangavar didn’t answer, he hadn’t meant anything by it, but Arro looked away awkwardly. He gazed at the dark TV screen too. “Do you want to, um, go for a walk or something?”
Rangavar glanced out the window. “It’s sort of late, now. I mean it’s genuinely late, not just ‘dark’ because the sun sets so early.”
Arro pressed his index fingers together and looked out the window. “You know what we should do?”
“More videogames?” He’d be down for that.
“Uh. I mean, that’s a great idea, but I was thinking what if we…” Arro faltered. The Darkal could tell he was worried about something. “What if we went to the research facility and looked around while no one’s there?”
Rangavar frowned. “What would we find at night that we wouldn’t be able to find during our shifts? We wouldn’t even be able to get inside right now.”
The Faerian shifted his weight, readjusting himself on his cushion. Well, his cushion-and-a-half. It made his gut jiggle as his thighs pressed up under it. “You know what I found today?” He moved his arms up to lean on the back of the couch. “After we were there, they sealed up the windows with cement.”
Rangavar frowned. “Are you sure?”
Arro scowled at him. “What do you mean ‘am I sure’? I went around back and they were just sealed up with cement.”
“What, like someone just dumped it into the window well?”
“Yes!”
Rangavar thought back to Jethe’s thinly-veiled threat during his last shift. Rangavar couldn’t think of a way he’d know about him sneaking into the lab—or even just he and Arro were poking around outside—but this seemed to be evidence that he’d noticed at least something.
He supposed it was possible that Jethe could have seen his or Arro’s aura, despite being a Faerian. The ability wasn’t as common among Faerians, but wouldn’t be at all strange. Or he could have the type three mutation, and heard Ranavar in the room? Seemed less likely. Rangavar knew he’d barely made a sound getting in and out, certainly not enough of one for Jethe to identify the Darkal in particular.
“You know, he said some weird stuff to me the other day,” Rangavar mused. “He pointed out all the constant security and said ‘bad things’ happen to dragons that poke around. I think I know who he’s talking about, if you know what I mean.”
The larger dragon grimaced. “What do you think that means for us?” He gestured vaguely with one paw. “I mean, even though we’ve done practically nothing, they’ve obviously already picked up on us ‘snooping’ somehow. If they’re already suspicious, then we have targets on our backs before even really starting.” He returned his arm to the back of the couch. “Are we supposed to give up?”
“Well, that’s definitely what they want,” Rangavar pointed out. “That’s the whole idea.”
He leaned back to put his arms up on the couch, only to feel one of them settle on something soft and warm. It took a half second for his brain to catch up. He jolted and snatched his arm back. “Ach! Sorry.”
Arro, too, had jerked his arm away. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to take up all the space,” he blushed. Rangavar could tell Arro’s heart was beating fast. He hadn’t meant to startle him.
The fat Faerian looked down at himself. “I mean, I am working on that. Thanks for getting me those apples by the way. So I wouldn’t snack on anything unhealthy, I mean.”
“Oh, it’s fine.” Rangavar absentmindedly went to put his arm on the back of the couch before he remembered. Great. He wasn’t sure what to do with his arms now.
Arro was watching. “We could share the back of the couch.” He looked away. “You can touch my arm. You’ve already, uh, touched other things.” He didn’t say it.
Rangavar didn’t say it.
Arro said it. “You touched my butt the other night.”
“Heh. Yeah, I did.” He’d had to; they were trying to get the stuck Faerian out of the window. He hadn’t really thought about it since.
“So, you can touch my arm.”
Rangavar thought of a more recent memory. “I’ve also touched your belly.”
Arro was quiet for a long moment. “You’ve seen me at literally all of my most embarrassing moments lately.”
Rangavar didn’t respond. He wanted to say something encouraging, but couldn’t think of anything that would sound true. Getting stuck in a window was pretty embarrassing.
“You know what you need to do?”
“Huh?”
Arro grinned. “You need to do something really embarrassing so we’re even.”
Rangavar rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah, I’ll get right on that.”
They sat in silence another moment. Rangavar didn’t put his arm back up on the couch; it would have been weird at this point. He thought back on Arro’s suggestion to break into the research lab at night, but he didn’t even know how they’d do it, let alone whether or not they’d be caught. If he were better at magic, they could just unlock the front door and stroll right in, but they both remembered how that’d gone at the storage room.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by Arro’s stomach growling loudly.
Arro sheepishly clutched the squishy mound, his fingers sinking into it. “Sorry. I’m usually used to, uh…”
“More food?”
The larger dragon looked away and nodded awkwardly. “Vaugh damn, this is so hard.”
“You’re doing a good job though,” Rangavar pointed out. “And also, the last time you were really full, your stomach hurt so bad I had to help you massage it. It could probably use a break from that much food.”
Rangavar wasn’t sure what he kept doing wrong, but Arro was blushing again. Maybe his scales were just becoming permanently that color. “Thanks for massaging me. It felt really good.” Arro looked away. “Sorry, that sounds so weird out loud.”
The smaller dragon snorted. “There’s nothing weird about liking a massage.”
The Faerian glanced down at him shyly. “Maybe next time I should do you.” He slapped his forehead and put both paws over his face. “Nothing I say comes out right.”
Rangavar pretended to put his chin on his paw to muffle his laughter, curling his fingers to hide his grin. He felt like he was torturing the fat dragon. “Okay, if it’ll make you feel better, you can… I don’t know, rub my back of something.” He still had that sore spot between his shoulder blades from fall on the floor the other night. “Then we’re even?”
Arro finally glanced back over at him. He still looked flustered. “Uh, sure. Then we’re even,” he laughed nervously.
The Darkal positioned himself with his back to Arro. There wasn’t much room. He leaned against the back of the couch and flexed his wings a little bit. There was always that spot between his wings that was impossible to reach. If it made Arro feel better, and managed to hit that spot, it was like a win-win for—
Fuuuuckkkk that felt so good. What the fuck. Shit. It was amazing.
Rangavar immediately felt himself relax into the couch. Fuck. Why didn’t he think of this a thousand times sooner? He closed his eyes. He probably would have stretched out if there’d been room. He let his wings unfold and felt one droop over the edge of the couch. No wonder Arro had liked being massaged earlier. This shit felt great.
He probably would have appreciated it even more if he didn’t slowly slip away into sleep.


Arro found himself gazing at the sleeping Darkal next to him on the couch. The area between his wings was warm, the wings on either side soft where the fur brushed his scales. He’d never really gotten to touch the thick fur before, not in this way. The wide wings were splayed over the couch, all of the tension gone.
He looked at the way Rangavar’s face rested on the couch. The side with the scar was hidden. Arro realized that the side visible right now made him look younger, softer even. Less angry, more calm. Not that he was normally angry, but he never looked quite this peaceful awake. There was something satisfying about it. Up close, Arro could see that there were two tiny spikes on either side of his jaw, on the very back curve. He’d never been close enough to notice them before. He had the urge to reach out and rub his thumb over them, brushing over Rangavar’s cheek.
Careful not to wake the other dragon, Arro got up from the couch and quietly headed into the shower room. His heart was beating fast. He went up to the mirror and scowled sternly at his reflection. He jabbed one of his fingers at it.
You are NOT getting a crush on Rangavar.
His reflection scowled back defiantly.
The Faerian tried splashing his face with cold water. He’d been ignoring every single cue that his deepest feelings were screaming. There’d been no way they were true, right? He’d never develop a crush. He didn’t want anyone else. One relationship with Jade was more than enough to focus on.
He was having more trouble ignoring the signs now, though. He’d been through all these feelings before, even if they had been dormant since mating Jade. He still recognized them. He knew. He dried his face with a towel and gazed back into the mirror. Now that he’d identified the problem, he had to figure out how to stop it.
And of all the dragons. Rangavar? If anything, that was the most ironic piece of all. The dragon who’d seen his every embarrassing moment. He’d been there when Arro gorged himself the other day, when Arro got stuck in the window, when Arro got fatter than his clothes, and he’d even been there, seeming so long ago now, when Arro had stuffed himself and needed help getting out of a booth. They had barely even known each other at the time.
Arro’s reflection flattened its ears in shame, his eyes flicking over his body. Obviously, one of his ‘biggest’ problems was that he was incredibly fat. He cringed at the memory of Rangavar almost suffocated by his fat stomach in the closet, and the way he’d had to help him undo his belt—however unsuccessfully—because Arro couldn’t get his fucking weight under control. He couldn’t even do that correctly. He had nothing going for him.
Rangavar? By comparison, way out of Arro’s league.
He wrapped his arms around his belly and squished. He’d never gained so much weight so quickly before. Maybe there was something about being around the smaller Darkal that made him relax. He’d never treated him differently for being fat. Even though he himself was healthy, and relatively fit, he’d never pointed out how pathetic Arro’s body was.
The fat dragon stared down at himself, ashamed. And worst of all, there was still ‘The Incident’ that had made them start living together in the first place. Whatever Rangavar said about forgiving him—which was nice, although seemed impossible to Arro—it had still happened. That wouldn’t just go away.
Arro had a better chance of wooing a lamppost.
His reflection grimaced. He’d just have to ignore his feelings until they went away. Yeah. It seemed like a solid plan.
He’d just have to stop having a crush.