Zach tries to convince himself he is not a creep. He is still in his jersey after the game, hair damp. The rest of his team sits on the bleachers watching and supporting the girl's basketball team who is now on the court. 

He sighs and leans against the railing on the second floor of the gym. He's staring at Sage on the other side who sits in front of a table. He is recording statistics. 

He's just so... perfect, he rests his head on his arm, tired after a long day. He could just look on forever. 

Sage's arms, he thinks, holding him comforting him, and eventually...

Zach jolts up and shakes his head. Any further down the line and he will officially cross into creep territory.

Then, the referee blows the whistle as the match ends. The gym roars in triumph as Zach's school wins by a massive lead. Zach, however, is not as enthusiastic--when the match ends, Zach will lose his opportunity to stare at Sage some more.

He is scared mid-thought by Jason, who swings an arm around him. Zach wants to move Jason's arm away but does nothing.

"Which one are you looking at?" He asks, half-teasing as he usually does. Stormy blue irises that most girls would kill for a gaze, flick back and forth between their classmates beneath them. 

"What do you mean, which one?" 

Jason laughs, like he does not have a care in the world. "Oh, you know exactly what I mean." 

Yeah but not the right gender. Zach ignores the question. "What are you doing here?"

Jason laughs, "I came to fetch you. We should go down there to congratulate the girls for their victories."

"You can go, I'll pass."

"What do you mean you'll pass? The girls cheered for us, we should return the favor. And you know the girls will be happy if you go." he smirks.

Zach doesn't want to argue with Jason so he follows him downstairs. As he makes his way down, he notices a small crowd in front of the scoring table, mainly girls, who are talking with Sage.

Zach understands the appeal. After all, what kind of a girl wouldn't like Sage?

He's conventionally attractive, with the right amount of sophisticated-to-interesting ratio. Black hair and ebony eyes, tall but not scrawny, smart too, with consistently scoring top at their frankly insane school and president of the Student Council. Or at least, that is Zach's thoughts as he walks down the stairs. 

Unlike Sage, Zach knows full well he is only here because of his family. 

Zach tries to eavesdrop on Sage's conversation but is stopped by two girls on the basketball team. They compliment Zach's great performance on court today, and Zach tries to respond as politely as he can while quietly moving their hands off his arm.

"Thank you," Zach smiles, but his gaze is towards at Sage, who smiles and laughs as he jots something else down on his clipboard. The other girls seem to be flirting with him though he looks oblivious. There is sudden pain in his heart when he imagines that Sage will one day, inevitably get a girlfriend.

Sage catches Zach's gaze and it takes Zach a moment to realize Sage is moving toward him.

In Zach's mind, the next scene plays out like this: Sage will come over and pull him to a secluded corner, where he will kneel down and confess his love for Zach, and Zach will cry tears of happiness and they rejoice.

In reality, Sage says: "Congrats on today's game."

Zach is for a moment, disappointed. And immediately recovers from his daze.

"Thanks," he says. "Also for helping out. I know this probably wasn't a worthwhile way to spend your time." This line he has rehearsed a million times.

"Of course it was. It was fun watching anyways," Sage smiles. "By the way, you're MVP again, cap." He hands over the stats sheet. "Will you give this to your coach?" 

Zach has to jerk his head away, or else he would seem too interested. But he is careful when he takes the paper, being careful not to touch Sage's hands, or else he would break into an uncontrollable blush.

And just thinking about it makes Zach embarrassed.

Fortunately, Jason comes to his rescue (unintentionally).

"Zach, what's taking you so long?" Jason asks, in a voice that most teachers have always considered loud. "You missed it, but the team wants to catch a movie this weekend, to celebrate."

"What's there to celebrate?" Zach raises an eyebrow. Zach is not keen to come. He can tolerate Jason, but the others are always late. And sports humor always seems to revolve around homophobia doesn't it? 

Jason rolls his eyes, "Just shut up and come." He says, good-naturedly. He glances at Sage."Do you want to come with us? The more the merrier. And thanks for your help too."

Sage looks surprised at the offer.  He puts a hand behind his neck and his gaze wanders. "Well, I don't want to disrupt your plans or--"

"Please join us!" Zach cuts in before Sage says any more. He speaks louder than he would like. 

Their eyes meet and Zach has to look away again. He laughs nervously as if it's some joke, and perhaps the noise will cover the sound of his pounding heart.  "Only if you have time. It won't bother us at all."

Sage smiles back, "Sure, when?"

And Zach is more than happy. 

This couldn't count as creep behavior...right?

A/N

Hey, Lickorish here. Originally I wasn't going to continue this series, not because I don't have any story ideas or anything, but because I have been working on something other projects. But now, literally half a year, later, this thing is still getting reads. So if you do want more of Zach and Sage, please comment so that I know that there are actually people out there and not just me accidentally clicking my own story a million times. Feel free to PM me too if you want to talk about Sach/Zage (someone please help me with ship names)