A/N: I haven't written my OTP in far too long. I'm sorry, JeTi. I swear I didn't abandon you for TaengSic. This is far from my best work, but at this point I'm just happy I wrote something. i've been plagued by the most terrible case of writer's block I've ever had.

By the time Tiffany gets home from the library, it’s almost midnight. She slips off her boots and hangs up her coat, shuffling into her favourite fuzzy slippers.

Like every night when she gets home, cold and exhausted to her bones, there’s a mug of hot chocolate waiting for her on the kitchen table. It’s not hot anymore, lukewarm at best, but as she gulps it down she feels a trail of warmth fill her stomach, not so much from the drink but from the thought behind it.

“Jessi?” she calls softly as she pads into her room.

Jessica is sitting on Tiffany’s bed, her head bent over her laptop, intently typing something. Upon Tiffany’s entrance she looks up and her lips quirk up ever so slightly, making Tiffany’s heart skip ever so slightly. She’s bundled in Tiffany’s blanket, only her head and arms in the open.

“Hey,” Jessica greets. “You’re back.”

“Yeah. Sorry I missed dinner.”

They haven’t had dinner together for more than a week. If Tiffany doesn’t come home late, Jessica does. They just can’t get their schedules to align, and with school being so busy and stressful they can’t afford to clear plans for each other. Sometimes Tiffany feels like she’s dating her textbooks instead of Jessica.

Jessica shrugs. “It’s okay. I just made grilled cheese anyway. Nothing special.”

Tiffany frowns. “You’ve been eating either tuna or grilled cheese for the past four nights.”

“That’s not true,” Jessica says. “I had ham and Swiss yesterday.”

Tiffany smiles at that, but the expression fades away all too quickly. Jessica has always been slight, but she looks downright tiny enshrouded in Tiffany’s blanket, her face pale and wan, bearing signs of too little sleep and too much stress.

“Hey.” Jessica’s voice is soft, and her touch is too as her fingers brush gently over Tiffany’s face, like she wants to wipe the frown right off it. “Did you finish your project?”

Tiffany shakes her head. “We still have some final touches to go over.”

“That’s what you said yesterday,” Jessica says mildly.

Tiffany exhales. “It’s a huge assignment, it’s worth—”

“—35% of your final mark, I know.”

Tiffany feels like she should give a reply to that, but for once, she doesn’t know what to say. She clears . “How’s your essay going?”

Jessica shrugs again, her eyes fixated on her laptop screen. “It’s not.”

Tiffany takes a seat on the bed, suddenly feeling like it’s much bigger than it actually is, like the single bed is really a king size. She leaves half a foot of space between them, even though all she wants is to press right against Jessica, to wrap her arms around Jessica, to surround herself with Jessica. All she wants is Jessica.

“Poetry gives me mixed feelings,” Jessica suddenly says.

“I thought you liked poetry.”

(Before Jessica asked her out, she left little notes with lines of poetry in Tiffany’s locker, sometimes from other poems, sometimes from things she wrote herself. When Tiffany finally figured out the notes were from Jessica and asked her why she didn’t just tell Tiffany how she felt, Jessica had flushed and stammered that she wasn’t good with words.

Tiffany had kissed her afterwards, because sometimes words weren’t necessary.)

“I do,” Jessica sighs, “but not these stuffy Romantic poems. They’re not even romantic. What a misleading name.”

Tiffany laughs softly. “You should make an official complaint about that.”

“Maybe tomorrow.” Jessica yawns and shuts her laptop. She looks at Tiffany then, really looks at her like she hasn’t seen her for days. It almost feels like she hasn’t. “Did you drink the room temperature chocolate?”

Tiffany blinks. “What?”

“Well, it’s not hot anymore so I can’t really call it hot chocolate.”

Tiffany smiles again, and this time, it lasts longer. “Yes, I drank it.” She reaches for Jessica’s hand, squeezing it as a silent ‘thank you.’

Jessica frowns. “You’re freezing.” She lifts an edge of the blanket, a silent invitation, and Tiffany burrows under it and into her side. Jessica folds the blanket around her, around them, sealing them in.

Tiffany lets her head fall against Jessica’s shoulder, a reversal of their usual position. She’s so tired that she could easily fall asleep right now, but she isn’t ready to leave the waking world, to leave Jessica, yet.

“Jessi—” Tiffany means to say her full name, but her voice cracks and doesn’t make it to the last syllable.

“Yeah?”

“Do you want to do something on Saturday night?”

“Don’t you have another group meeting?”

“I’ll come back earlier.”

“And you have a midterm on Monday. So do I.”

Tiffany finds Jessica’s hand under the blanket and holds onto it like a child clutching a kite string, like Jessica will float away if she doesn’t hold onto her.

Jessica squeezes her hand. “We can study together. I’ll make some hot chocolate.”

Tiffany squeezes back and then laces their fingers together. “I like your room temperature chocolate. It’s grown on me.”

“Okay, I’ll make hot chocolate and you can wait until it cools to room temperature.”

“Okay.” Tiffany’s too tired to be grinning this broadly, but she lets her smile take over her face, and Jessica smiles back like it’s taken over hers too. “It’s a date.”

They spend some more time talking about everything and nothing, wrapped up in Tiffany’s blanket and each other. Jessica continues complaining about the Romantic poets, starting from Wordsworth and then continuing down the line.

“You know,” Jessica says through a yawn, her voice at half-mast. “When you came home tonight, it reminded me of a poem.”

“Really? Which one?”

“Byron’s.” Jessica’s eyes rove over Tiffany’s face, intense and intent, speaking words beyond poetry. “You don’t just walk in it, you are it.”

Tiffany knows her fair share of poems, but she has no idea which one Jessica is talking about. It’s okay though, she can write her own poem using the words swimming in Jessica’s eyes, in the air between them.

She doesn’t know whether it’s she or Jessica who leans forward, closing the distance between them. Tiffany feels Jessica’s lips against hers, feels Jessica’s heart beat in sync with hers, feels beyond all the poetry in the world.

A/N: The poem Jessica was talking about is She Walks in Beauty, by Lord Byron. Jessica complaining about The Romantics is actually me.