Heron Lake Plateau [expletive deleted]

"yeah!" agreed tegan, "she's deaf! she's been reading lips since the day she was born -- she'll be good at it, swear." and then bat got real enthusiastic and tegan's ears pricked up in surprise. "bat," he returned when she signed his name, and he tried hard to read her lips. 

i...stay with... i... to... back... she had to come back -- okay, he got the last bit, at least. had to come back... to you. is that what she said? his ears flicked at the recognition of the words, but he didn't really say anything. especially when the next words she mouthed were i love you. oh no. dude. are you -- kidding me? tegan blinked, feigning complete oblivion, even as she repeated it. he forced a small smile at the word whackass, not quite catching the first bit of it. 

here's where it gets fucky.

there was a moment of silent pondering on tegan's end, which was easily interpreted as him trying to decipher words (but he knew exactly what she'd said). he was pretty positive he already knew this about bat. she'd hinted at it before, or something, and tegan had always done a fantastic job at playing dumb -- but tegan was not dumb. and he was also pretty sure he didn't really return those feelings. or, well, okay, maybe he did. but not right now. and, look, i know what you're gonna say, but hear me out. as perfectly perfect of an beginning as this is for bat and tegan's relationship, it totally wasn't right. tegan's spent all these weeks being sad and missing his very best friend. friend. f r i e n d. tegan hadn't once come to a realization that he loved her, or that he'd made a mistake not giving her a chance. cause, like, he never felt like that. and while he might've felt obligated to say i love you too!! just because he got caught up in the moment, it totally wasn't true. and it would've been way worse for him to half ass a fake relationship than to just play dumb...

right?

either way. tegan spent a few moments searching her features as he thought about what to do. bite the bullet and just tell her that he returned her feelings without really knowing if he did? this was such a shitty moment -- and a perfect moment -- for her to say anything. like, yeah she'd almost died. she should be saying this. and tegan should totally be eating it all up and like tilting her back and kissing her like in the movies. but... did you read that? tegan. tegan wouldn't ever do that. no matter the circumstance. even now, in the midst of a joyous reunion. he still hadn't changed.

"ah, i don't really understand what you're sayin, pup," he said weakly -- a complete and utter lie. he gave her a gentle nudge to the shoulder since she'd given him a little punch. "but, if you're callin' me a whackass," he said with a flick of his ears, "it takes one to know one!"

and without giving her any time to try to get her point across again, tegan looked around. "let's just go find raven -- i want her to look at you."