thanks to everyone who read through this while it was being rewritten! that means you, old reviewers. last update is 1/27/14!

"So, so, so bored..."

Dawn moaned this with her head in her hands, sitting on the edge of her bed. Or, the guest bed.

Whatever. It's basically mine.

It was a little alarming, though, now that Dawn thought about it. This place was already kind of starting to feel like home...

It's only because I've been here for like, three days. Nothing else. Or... almost nothing else.

No, argh! Shut up, tiny voice in back of head!

And now she was having an argument with herself inside of her head. She bet Paul never did anything as ridiculous as this. Luckily, she wouldn't have to deal with the plum-haired emo boy much, because her mother would be returning tomorrow on Monday. But still, this left her with one more day to go... Sunday.

"You're still bored?" Paul looked to her with an expression of disbelief.

Dawn nodded, pouting.

"Well, don't look at me. I've learned my lesson from last time." Paul had to suppress a shudder as the flashbacks of braids and bows and beads ran through his mind. No man should ever have to suffer such a traumatizing experience.

"Oh, that." Dawn smiled despite herself.

That was so funny, I wish I had a picture. ...Oh wait! I do!

Holding back the impulse to voice that thought (because she didn't have that much of a death), she instead begin to wonder what it would be like once she left here. Would Paul just go back to being his usual self and ignore her?

She didn't want that.

"My head hurts again," Dawn abruptly said, hands reaching up to cradle her cranium.

Attention. Wait, what!?

Paul stood up and left the room, grumbling to himself. Dawn thought she caught the word 'Troublesome' in there and had to hold back an impish grin.

He loves me, really. (Platonically, self! No getting ideas!)

He showed up moments later, but the bemused expression on Dawn's face died immediately at the sight of a very familiar dark red bottle.

"Oh god, not that again!" Dawn complained. She crossed her arms and pressed her lips together tight, like there was no way in hell that medicine would enter her mouth.

"It's not like I'm going to shove it in your mouth. It's your choice whether you want to heal or not." Paul rolled his eyes. If she wanted to stay sick forever, that wasn't his problem, was it?

But Dawn started snickering.

"What?" He frowned.

"That's... what... she said..." she got out between snorts of laughter.

He stared for a few moments, allowing the information to sink in before his face twisted into a disgusted expression. "Leave it to you to take that in the sickest way possible," Paul growled. Despite himself he felt something in his stomach flip, and he assured himself it had everything to do with her cold and nothing to do with her.

"I'm still not taking it!" Dawn's arms remained defiantly crossed as she looked straight ahead. Yeah, she was pretty dead set on not taking that medicine.

"It's honey flavored this time." Paul waved it in front of her face with a flat look, secretly awaiting her reaction.

Her eyes brightened. "Ooh, honey!? Gimme!" She snatched it from his bands to turn it over in her hands and read. He restrained himself from face-palming and instead convinced himself that maybe this stupid, stupid attraction would go away when she was gone.

Because it wasn't like he really liked her or anything ridiculous like that. She was just really pretty for a girl, and she had been... sticking around for so long. This had to be the explanation. He could never accept that he'd developed one of those things...

What were they called? It was always the main source of drama on the stupid soap operas Reggie was always watching. It was more commonly found in the high school era... right, relationships.

Of course, it wasn't surprising that Paul automatically dismissed the thought of any sort of mushy, love related thing.

It was stupid. Paul never understood it. He had never stopped to think about it, but now he couldn't stop. How the hell did you know when you were in... like? And more importantly, when you were out of it?

Was it when you felt something pulling you toward the person, smiling at the sound of their laugh, heating at the face of their touch and just never wanting it to stop?

Because Paul knew, if that's what this love was, then he had it bad. He was terminally ill, in fact.

But... then again, it wasn't like Paul actually liked watching Dawn and her foolish antics. Sometimes, he wanted to laugh, though - because he thought she was hilariously ridiculous. But he couldn't. Years of suppressing his emotions had that effect on him.

But these weird feelings... it was scary. It felt like she had some sort of power over him. Paul didn't like the idea of that at all.

Damn it. To hell with love and all of its screwed up side effects. Was there any sort of medication for this?

It was just...

Distracting.

Creepy.

A Weakness.

But this only confirmed what he'd been wanting to deny for so long. He had feelings for her.

Yes, like that.

But he also knew he'd be damned if he told anyone other than himself.

"Hey, what are you thinking about?" The innocent little question pulled Paul out of his thoughts immediately. Suddenly, something seem to hit her. Her face. Was it always this... this alluring? This cute?

"I'm not thinking about anything. Just drink the medicine already," Paul growled back. He felt himself flush as he realized he had nearly been caught.

"I know, I did," Dawn replied obediently, offering him a cheerful smile while she placed the medicine bottle back on the table.

But this just annoyed Paul even more. As he has thought to himself before, love was so distracting. He wanted to shout at her to stop doing that, to stop smiling at him like that! It had come to a point to drive him insane.

Yeah, he definitely needed to get out of here.

Unfortunately, that plan came to a screeching halt when he felt a gentle touch on his shoulder.

He turned his face in shock to realize it was Dawn. Well, then again, there wasn't really anyone else in the room.

"What are you doing?" he asked suspiciously. Another thought - her touch was burning a hole through his jacket. He wanted to shrug her off, but his body wouldn't obey him.

"Ohhh, nothing... Hey Paul, as your hair always been like that?" Dawn drawled out each word like it was maple syrup. She had a glazed look in her eyes as she studied him (who was frozen in confusion) before ultimately pouncing and latching on to him.

"What are you DOING?" Paul stood up from his chair, knocking it over as he shrugged out of her grasp.

"What do you mean, what I'm doing?" Dawn stood up and stumbled her way over to him, eventually backing up against the wall. She wrapped her arms around his back and nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck. "You smell nice..."

Paul let out a strangled noise despite himself. He had no idea what to do, but this was getting bad, fast. He couldn't bring himself to pry her of again, so his face slackened in defeat as he realized there was only one thing left to do.

"REGGIE!"

"So let me get this, straight, she randomly started latching onto you...and...told you random things...?"

Reggie and Paul were still in the guest room, but Dawn was safely asleep in her bed instead of...other things.

"Yes!" Paul replied as if Reggie didn't believe him. But he had to, after all. Once Reggie had walked into the room like that, seeing Dawn latched onto him, he thought that they were, well...doing what normal couples do. That is until, he saw Paul's terrified expression. He looked like he never wanted to be near another girl again.

Of course, Reggie had a laughing fit and he just might have taken a picture before he actually got around to helping him with the whole issue.

"Oh, I think I know what happened..." Reggie suddenly lit up a bit with his theory. He walked over to the bedside table, picking up the bottle of medicine. After examining it closely, he smirked and gave it to Paul. "Read it."

"Warning: This medicine will or may include side-effects, including drowsiness and-oh," Paul stopped abruptly.

"Yeah."

Dawn was probably the only one who could manage to get herself drunk on medicine.

Damn himself for ever even picking the new medicine for her. She was fine with the old one! But of course, he had to give in to her stupid urges and go buy her a fancy flavor. Because of his idiocy, she had gone and gotten drunk and attempted rape!

...Okay, so maybe not rape. But for our romantically challenged Paul, the experience seemed close enough.

Thank god Reggie was there, though. Who knows what else might have happened.

"Well, it's your choice whether you want to tell her what happened or not." Reggie stood up from his seat with a slight yawn. "It's getting late. You should go to bed soon."

Paul sighed and sat back down, emotionally taxed from the day's events. This was beginning to get really confusing. As Reggie left the room, he shut the door behind him.

And to add to Paul's ever-growing headache, Dawn awoke with a large yawn while she stretched her arms out.

"What time? I've been having such irregular sleep patterns," Dawn frowned, rubbing her eyes.

"Eight thirty," he responded, thinking back to Reggie's suggustion. No, it was a bit to early to sleep. Besides, he wanted to stay with Dawn just a little longer.

"Wow. So what did you do all day?" Dawn questioned him. For some reason, it felt natural to talk with Paul now. He wasn't so... intent on being a complete jerk, she guessed.

Paul seemed like he was having a really hard time deciding to answer her question.

"You really want to know?" he asked forebodingly. He had to restrain a smirk. Even though at the moment of the incident it wasn't quite funny, but now he could look back at it and use it as blackmail.

"Uh...do I want to know?" Dawn asked, eyes widening.

"You got drunk," Paul said as casually as possible.

"Wh-What? Drunk? What the heck are you talking about?" she demanded to know, a certain panic rising in her voice.

"You know, the medicine I gave you had some side effects. I guess that compelled you to latch yourself onto me and-"

"LATCHED ONTO YOU? WHAT!" Dawn screamed, jumping out of the bed and facing Paul.

"It's not like I wanted you to, Christ. But you did, proceeding onward to hugging me and saying that I smelled nice... which I really didn't know about myself," Paul told her sarcastically, resisting the urge to roll his eyes.

"ARE YOU SERIOUS!" a loud screech from Dawn silenced Paul as he nearly winced and covered his ears. Oh god. That had been a secret thought in Dawn's head that was meant to stay secret! Not come tumbling out in some pathetic drunk confession!

"No, I'm lying. Of course I'm serious," Paul insisted, glare sharpening at her continuous noise.

"Well why did you let me? You could've stopped me or something!" Dawn told him frantically. Oh god, she could feel it, she was blushing so hard.

Can I be blamed? This is the most embarrassing thing to happen to anyone on the face of the planet?

"I was shocked. What would you do when someone was trying to practically rape you?" he asked in an annoyed tone. He was laughing on the inside, because Dawn's reactions were priceless.

"Okay," Dawn said, peering at him throw narrowed slits, "'Rape' is going overboard."

"Actually, it's not. You wouldn't know, I'm the one who experienced it," Paul replied coolly, rendering Dawn speechless. She couldn't argue against that.

"Well, what do you want me to say? I'm-I'm sorry, okay? You know I would never do something like that!"

"Would I?"

Dawn glared daggers. "You're not implying anything are YOU?"

"I pretty much am." He only gave her a flippant look before turning away, inspecting the scenery out of the window in a display of feigned disinterest.

"Take it back," Dawn growled, suddenly falling onto him as she clutched his collar.

"I'm not going to take it back. Get off of me."

"Take it back!"

"No, and get off of me!"

What was he doing? Had he finally lost it? Had he really stooped down to having such a meaningless argument with Dawn?

Then, both parties froze.

Her nose was close enough to touch his. Her face was close enough to touch his.

Her lips were close enough to touch his.

So they did.

And all Dawn could think was that it felt nice. It felt good to kiss him. It felt like something she had never felt before. Hesitantly, she pulled away, heart thumping in her chest as she awaited Paul's reaction. She was definitely dead this time, she had gone and kissed him, she hoped she had her funeral planned out-

But as she sat up, he leaned and pressed her lips to hers once more.

That answers that!

This blissful feeling didn't laugh, unfortunately.

"Oh please, don't make me vomit."

Dawn drew back as quick as a flash and whipped around to see the voice that had spoken.

Barry, yet again, had intervened at the wrong time and place. One could only wonder why Reggie kept letting him in. It was 8:30 at night! They had school tomorrow, for God's sake.

"Shut up!" Dawn yelled at him, having no other good retort.

"I was just joking," Barry grinned, clutching his leg because of the almost-bruise he had gotten from Dawn's kick.

Paul remained speechless, just as stunned as Dawn. There was a word for how he felt about the situation at that moment, what was it again? Oh, right.

Absolutely humiliated.

But you know what? Screw it. They kissed, didn't they? He didn't have to hide or trick or deceive anyone.

"You know you're gonna get a cold now, Paul," Barry added mischievously, winking.

"Worth it." He allowed a small smirk to rise onto his face as he found Barry's jaw drop to the floor, and Dawn predictably blushing so hard she seemed ready to faint.

But the dramatic tension was ruined in one fellow swoop when he let out a strong, loud sneeze.

"Well I sure hope that doesn't mean I have to be the doctor and you're the patient now," Dawn tutted. She smirked victoriously.

"I'm more concerned about what you would to to me as a doctor, Troublesome."

"Huh? What are you talking about?" Barry frowned in confusion.

"Nothing," Dawn spat out under a clenched jaw as she kicked Paul.

"Okay then, doctor."

"You mean girlfriend, Paul."

"Will everyone shut up and get the hell out of my house?"

-FIN-

Jansee: THE END. :D What a nice story!

Dawn: I have nothing to say...

Paul: ...

Jansee: XD Oh come on, I gave you guys so much fluff!

Dawn&Paul: ...

Reggie: Be appreciative.

Jansee: See, Reggie understands! Well bye guys, R&R!