a/n: so guess who's finally back with another chapter? I'm sorry it took so long, but it's here. Thank you guys for being so patient with me, I've been taking some time to work on my mental health, but I got the motivation to write this last night. Anyways, I hope you guys like this and have a great day or night wherever you are.

Kayden didn't know that the stickers thing would actually work, of course, he wasn't going to erase years of bad habits with a little picture of a plant, but two weeks later he was still taking notes in all of his classes. Some of those notes were a little messy and there was occasionally some information missing, but on the whole, he took them, and every week he was rewarded with those little cartoon potted plants. At first, he hadn't really known what to do with them, but then Elias brought up that maybe he'd like a sort of calendar. He'd get a sticker on every day that he took notes for, and he'd have the added motivation of keeping a streak up. Even if the idea was childish, it was working, he had three weeks' worth of stickers on the plant-themed calendar that Elias had bought. 

Now Kayden and Elias were where they usually were on Friday afternoons, sitting together in the library at one of the tables. The blond smiled as he looked over Kayden's notes, and the redhead just felt so proud of himself seeing that, he always did. 

"Alright, here you go," Elias said as he slid over the pack of stickers and Kayden excitedly picked a few out to place on the calendar. "You've been doing good, I'm surprised it's been this easy to keep you on track." 

"Yeah well...you're not half bad as a tutor," Kayden said, scratching his cheek with a small smile that he couldn't seem to wipe off his face. He knew his success was mostly based on the notion that he couldn't bear to see Elias disappointed in him, not after he'd built up a rapport with him. Elias expected something of him, and Kayden didn't want to let him down. It wasn't about the stickers, not really. 

"You've been doing better in history, it seems the recent unit on Greek history caught your interest, so is there anything you're having trouble with?" Elias asked, looking at him. His gaze was always so intense for some reason, Kayden didn't know if he realized it, but he'd be kind of intimidating if he wasn't so arrogant and annoying. He was tall and he looked strong, did he work out? Probably, Kayden had no idea when he found the time to though. Maybe he did push-ups in his dorm every night or something. His eyes were a silvery color, but Kayden realized now there was a slight bluish tint to them. "Kayden." 

The redhead snapped out of it, his cheeks flushing as he wracked his brain for an answer. "Oh u-uhm, my Latin test- y'know, th-the...vocab, it's coming up so we should probably study that." He said quickly, running his fingers through his hair. 

Elias chuckled softly. "Where's your head today? Did you get enough sleep last night?" He asked, pulling his Latin book out of his backpack. 

"I guess not, I mean, I got five hours, but that's usually enough, I've just been spacey lately."

"Clearly," Elias muttered, flipping through the pages. 

"Fuck off," Kayden said, hitting his shoulder. "I could do without your stupid comments."

"Yeah, I'm sure you could." The blond said with a little grin, Kayden rolled his eyes. Finally, Elias seemed to reach the page he was looking for and glanced at the boy, sighing softly. "So what is it then, is it that you're not getting enough sleep, are you stressed about the Latin test coming up, are you eating enough?" 

"I...I guess so, I mean, I am sleeping and eating just as much as usual, and the test isn't that stressful, so I don't know, I've just had to try harder to focus in my classes today and yesterday, maybe the day before too, I'm not sure." He shrugged. 

"Do you want to try going on a walk?" Elias suggested. 

"Like right now?" Kayden asked, looking up from where he was picking at his nails in his lap.

"Yeah, we could just take a stroll around campus, you know, maybe a quick detour into the woods, then we can get back to studying." 

"I wouldn't want to take up your time though, I know you have a lot of other stuff to do, so-"

"It's alright, I can take a half an hour break to go on a walk, I probably would at some point anyway," Elias said, getting up. He took his phone out of his backpack to tuck it in his pocket. "Ready?" He asked, pushing his chair back into place. 

"Okay." Kayden finally agreed with a small smile. He didn't know what they were, friends maybe? No, not quite. Theo, Grant, Ezra, and Brooks were his friends, Elias was different somehow. He was still a mystery that Kayden had no idea how to solve, maybe he didn't want to solve him either. Elias kept him at a distance, but sometimes they felt so close, like Kayden could talk to him about anything. "Hey, I was wondering something...so there's this party at St. Williams on Halloween, I have some friends from there and they're getting Grant, Me, and possibly Ezra in. I was just wondering if maybe you could keep a lookout for Walker while we're out, we're planning to leave a window unlocked to sneak back in after curfew, but maybe you'd be able to let us in if that falls through?" He asked hopefully.

Elias seemed to think about that for a long moment, finally clicking his teeth as he made his way down the library steps with Kayden beside him. "Alright, I'll do it, but you owe me one. I don't do favors for free." 

"Okay, but whatever I do for you has to match this, nothing illegal or dangerous."

"You act like you're not going to be out drinking and very likely getting high which is both illegal and dangerous," Elias said, but then Kayden crossed his arms with a look in his eye that very likely called the blond a buzzkill with a stick up his ass. "But fine, nothing illegal or dangerous." 

"So, could you just like, call me if Walker comes looking for us? Give some kind of signal so we can get back as soon as possible if things go south?" Kayden suggested. 

"Yeah, don't worry, I'll keep watch, but I'm not going down over this, you got it? I have a reputation here and it needs to stay intact." Elias said, looking at the boy with raised eyebrows, Kayden nodded. 

"Deal then." It was comforting to know that he'd at least have someone looking out for him, making sure everything went to plan. "So um...you like nature?" He asked, wanting to make conversation, and noting that they'd made their way into the forest. 

"I do, I suppose I'm a sort of romantic in some ways. I don't know that I believe in the spirituality of nature, but it's certainly beautiful and it's nice to think that some things have inherent goodness." 

"Like what?" Kayden asked curiously. 

"Well, plants, animals, people. That is to say people before corruption, in their natural state. I don't believe in spirituality, I think all that is is right here, no afterlife or gods, but if I did...maybe I'd be Buddhist, it seems like a peaceful way of life," Elias said decidedly. 

"Jeez, 'Lias, I didn't know you were such a hippie," Kayden said and Elias laughed, really laughed. It was a beautiful sound, unrestrained. Kayden found that he liked the parts of Elias that were unmanaged, he liked seeing him when he looked so normal. Mostly at night when they sat on the steps and Elias' shirt was untucked, his hair a bit messy, smoking a cigarette in a way that should not have been as attractive as it was. Not that he found him attractive per se, well, not in a way that everyone else wouldn't find him attractive. It was just a fact that Elias was kind of objectively good-looking, no way around that. 

"So what do you believe?" Elias asked him after a moment. 

"Like, as far as God and stuff?"

"As far as anything. What do you believe about people and the earth, and what do you make of the meaning of it all?" 

"I don't know if there is any meaning. I don't believe in fate, I think everything that happens is kind of a coincidence or being in the right place at the right time, having the right resources. Y'know, you only make friends with people because you're near them, you only fall in love because of instinct and chemicals. There's no such thing as soul mates or the perfect partner, people just came up with that concept to sell more romance novels and to make themselves feel better about the fact that love and connection are entirely arbitrary. So yeah, nothing means anything, we're all dying, and Hemingway had the right idea." Kayden said with a small smile. 

"Hail nothing full of nothing, nothing is with thee," Elias said and Kayden looked at him with a bit of confusion. "It's Hemingway, A Clean Well-Lighted Place. You know, the suicide rates for nihilists are pretty high."

"Are you trying to say something, Astor?" Kayden asked, glancing up at him with a quiet snicker. 

"Just that people tend to be hopeless when they believe life is meaningless and the greatest achievement is only a shout into the void. What is there to live for if love, passion, laughter, if it all means nothing? Even if it doesn't, I like to believe it does."

"Life is too short to waste it lying to yourself about what is and isn't," Kayden said simply.

"It's also too short to waste contemplating things that don't matter. So what if love means nothing? It's beautiful and painful, even if practiced between two specks of dust in a neverending universe. If life is meaningless, I'll give it meaning." 

After a moment of thought, Kayden shrugged. "I guess that makes sense." 

Elias chuckled softly. "We should get back to the library, we have a test to study for." 

Kayden groaned. "Don't remind me, I hate Latin."

"Floreat qui laborat," Elias quoted their Latin teacher with a grin, it seemed to be one of Mr. Griffin's favorite phrases. "Let the one who labors flourish." 

"If I never hear those words again, it will be too soon," Kayden said, walking back towards the library.