Chapter Text
It was her first day at university, and Nepeta Leijon was utterly, some might say unreasonably, determined to enjoy the experience. Her levels of excitement had been building all day, beginning as soon as she leapt out of bed, building through the car journey in the company of her mother and sister (who squealed with second-hand excitement most of the way), rising to a crescendo as she dashed up the dorm building’s stairs just ahead of her sister and now peaking as she opened the door of her room to find:
“EQUIUS!”
Her best friend turned from his unpacking, adjusting his shades. “Ah, Nepeta. It is good to-“
He got no further before the air was driven from his lungs by Nepeta leaping onto him in an aggressive hug. Despite the fact that he was over a foot taller than her, she had managed to develop her leaping skills over several years so that, from a standing start several feet away, she was able to grab him around the neck and press her cheek against his chest, her feet inches from the ground. It was a niche skill, but she treasured it.
“I am, as ever, extremely glad to see you. However, I cannot but feel that this is overkill, given that we saw one another yesterday. And indeed every day as far back as I care to remember.”
Nepeta released him, managing with care to land back on her feet. She had fluffed landings before, causing both discomfort and embarrassment.
“I’m just so glad that we get to be roomies! I mean, what were the odds?”
“Quite high, I should think,” Equius sniffed. “Given that we both specifically requested such an arrangement. I feel certain the drawing you submitted of the two of us holding hands in what I believe you termed ‘roomie bliss’ also played a part.”
Nepeta pouted. “Can’t you just be grateful?”
“I am grateful. I am grateful that the systems which are put in place for our benefit clearly work.”
Nepeta looked as though she was about to say something, then suddenly leapt onto one of the beds and started bouncing on it.
“I call this bed!”
“Ah. That would be the bed which is surrounded by my belongings, on which my semi-unpacked suitcase rests and which bears a handwritten note which says ‘Equius’s Bed’?”
“Yes. That bed.”
Equius sighed. “Very well. It’s not as though I really had a preference.”
At this point, Nepeta remembered that her sister Meulin had been standing in the doorway the whole time, observing the interplay and attempting to stifle her giggles. Equius, who seemed to have only just noticed her, looked a little ashamed, but Nepeta didn’t mind in the slightest. Equius was like a brother to her, if not better, which made them all family. And it wasn’t as though Meulin would tease her about this. She wasn’t like that. And even if she had been, Nepeta had PLENTY of dirt on the weird things she and her creepy boyfriend got up to. Notebooks full of reference material. Just in case.
Even so, it was clear that Meulin didn’t want to intrude, and after only a few moments of checking that Nepeta had everything she needed, she bid her farewells. After a long and tearful hug from Nepeta, and an entirely one-sided hug with Equius (who refused to hug, having accidentally cracked Nepeta’s rib in the past), she was gone, and the two were left alone. Nepeta busied herself with unpacking, chattering away as Equius resignedly moved his books and alarm clock over to the other bedside table. In the middle of a lengthy speculation about what the orientation week would bring, Nepeta opened the wardrobe, looked in and stopped mid-sentence.
“Equius?”
“Yes?”
“Why do you have a tux?”
“It is my understanding that university life includes a number of gatherings at which formal wear is expected. I can hardly show up to those in a vest and shorts, can I?”
“But a TUX?”
“What did you expect? The horse costume I wore when we were five years old? Although I believe Horuss did wear something similar to a party when he was at uni…”
“A TUX?!!”
“Nepeta, your suddenly limited vocabulary is beginning to alarm me.”
“Do they even make tuxes in your size?”
“It was tailored. As I recall, the tailor’s eyes fairly lit up when he saw me coming. After my fitting, I distinctly heard him call his wife and mention something about a bottle of champagne.”
Nepeta stared blankly at her friend. Even after all these years, it was impossible to tell when Equius was joking. His habitual lack of irony, combined with his sincere, deadpan monotone, suggested that he hardly even knew what joking was. There was a sense of humour in there, all right, but it was very carefully hidden.
“Why are you stunned into incoherence by my possessing a tuxedo?”
“I’m not STUNNED. It’s just… I didn’t bring a dress. Not a really nice one, anyway. In fact, I don’t know if I even have one fancy enough for something like that.”
“Very well. If such an event does arise, you can go and buy one.”
“And YOU’RE coming with me, mister! You forced this on me, so you’re paying the consequences. And let me tell you: I will be trying on ALL OF the dresses. And I will expect your opinions on all of them. And your opinions had better be both informed and incisive.”
Equius sighed deeply, and Nepeta giggled. To think that she would get to do this every day… University was starting to look even more promising that it had that morning.
“Oh!” The sudden exclamation made Equius jump.
“Which of my clothes do you take issue with now?”
“All of them, but that’s not it. You know what this room doesn’t have?”
“Quite a lot of things, really. A waterslide? A bar? A grand piano?”
Nepeta stuck her tongue out at Equius, then went over to one of her bags, fished about in it for a few moments and triumphantly drew out a large teapot and two mugs, all decorated with frolicking cats.
“Tea!”
“True. Or any source of water. Or anywhere to store milk.”
“Pffffft. We can get them in the kitchen. I’ll even draw a picture of you looking furbidding with the caption ‘PAWS OFF’ that we can put on the milk to stop anyone else using it.”
Equius rose to his feet.
“So I take it you want to go and get some tea. And milk, presumably.”
“Yes! Durrrr!”
Nepeta bounded out the door. Equius stretched his legs a little and sighed before following her.
***
Although he would have strangled anyone who suggested as much, Karkat Vantas was in quite a good mood as he strolled down the dorm corridor. University offered a chance to go free and clear at last, not to be tied down by his past life. If there was one thing Karkat hated, it was his past life, which was tainted at every point by the omnipresence of past Karkat, with his determined inability to be present Karkat.
In fact, it seemed that nothing could spoil his good mood; not the four-hour car journey with his older brother offering as much sanctimonious advice as he could think of; not the absurd weight of his bags (what had he even packed that could be this heavy? And why?); not even the trek up six flights of goddamned stairs, or the realisation halfway up that there was, in fact, a lift.
Yes, his spirits were unassailable, right up until the moment he pushed open the door to room 6-12 and there, already perched at his damn laptop, was Sollux bloody Captor.
Oh shitting fuck.
All right. There had to be a calm and rational way to deal with this.
“What the everloving FUCK are you doing here?!”
Or there was that alternative.
Sollux didn’t even look up from whatever he was doing. “Nithe to thee you too, KK.”
“Oh, this is just perfect. Here I am hoping to make a clean getaway, born to fucking run, and they only go and stick me in a room with the same wanker I’ve been stuck with for the last six fucking years of my life!”
Sollux shrugged. “Hey, I didn’t athk for thith either. In fact, I hacked the regithtry tho that I wouldn’t have a roommate. Lookth like there wath a latht minute change, though.”
Karkat shook his head in disbelief. Christ. By the end of sixth form, he had practically begun to think in Sollux’s voice; a Sheffield accent combined with a lisp to create an impenetrable wall that came dangerously close to incoherence. The idea of spending even more time having to listen to it was a real danger to his mental health. And that was just the voice. Sollux himself was even worse.
“I would have thought you and your weird sister would be sharing a room.”
At this point Sollux did look up, his eyebrows raised well above his stupid red and blue glasses in incredulity. “Are you joking? I mean, I love AA, but Jethuth Chritht doeth she get on my nerveth. Almotht ath much ath I get on herth. We agreed that eighteen yearth living together wath more than enough.”
Karkat had backed away from the avalanche of spittle that was “Jethuth Chritht”, and now found himself back in the corridor, which was bustling with activity and laughter. He sighed in resignation, went back into the room and threw his bags on the bed.
“You’re late, by the way. I wath almotht beginning to hope I wouldn’t have a roommate after all.”
“Oh, well, fuck you too. I arrived later than most because I’m actually fucking capable of taking care of myself.”
Sollux frowned. “You shouldn’t really joke about that. There’th a guy in a wheelchair on the ground floor. I thought I thaw a blind chick around thomewhere too.”
“You did? You did thaw a blind chick?”
Sollux actually raised his glasses, giving Karkat a look that by rights should have burned holes in his chest.
“What is this, then, the fucking special needs dorm?”
“Courthe. Why do you think you’re here?”
Sollux grinned toothily as Karkat collapsed back on the bed.
“You just get on with whatever stupid hacker shit you’re doing. I’m going to unpack.”
“Hacker thhit? I’m trying to inthtall Thkyrim.”
“On a fucking laptop?”
“That’th why I thaid ‘trying’. I’m buggered if I’m gonna thpend a whole year not playing it jutht becauthe I couldn’t be arthed bringing a whole dethktop here.”
Karkat unzipped one of his bags and frowned. “Why the fuck was this so heavy? There’s just clothes in here.”
“Maybe it’th not. Maybe you’re jutht a weakling.”
“Says the guy with no fucking muscle tone.”
“Dude, you know I have dythprakthia. That’th not cool.”
Karkat sighed. “Shit. I’m sorry, man. You know how my mouth likes to run away with me like it’s training for the fucking London Marathon and I’m its long-suffering co-“
He broke off when he realised Sollux was grinning.
“Oh for fuck’s sake! Why do I always manage to fall for the fucking ‘please don’t talk about my disability, I’m too sensitive’ act?”
“Becauthe you’re a moron. Obviouthly."
Karkat’s profane comeback died in his mouth as he cleared away some of the clothes and saw the bottom of the bag.
“He didn’t… no fucking way…”
Sollux glanced over curiously, but Karkat’s body hid the bag from view. He noted the position of the progress bar on his screen, stood over and peered around his friend (for want of a better term). At the bottom of the bag, under layers of grey t-shirts, was a lining of thick books with bright covers and titles like “How to Survive at College!” and “Dos and Don’ts for Your First Year Away from Home!”. As he watched, Karkat, as if in a reverie, pulled out a particularly bulky title called “Check Your Privilege: How to Survive the Minefield of Contemporary Academic Discourse”.
“Fucking Kankri,” he breathed with soft venom.
***
Kanaya Maryam was nervous. It wasn’t just the knowledge that she was about to enter into a period of her life which would determine the rest of its course, though that was certainly part of it. It wasn’t some nebulous fear of failure, either academic or social, that hovered over her. It was something much more specific, something she knew she’d be confronting in the immediate future.
The presence of her sister was helping a lot, though. Porrim had a distinctly maternal air about her, despite her imposing height and the fact that every visible inch of her arms and legs was covered in tattoos. She had been there for her little sister at every juncture over the years. What was more, she knew exactly what was troubling Kanaya, and her encouraging little smiles made it infinitely easier to face.
As they walked across the campus, Kanaya became gradually aware of something odd. Usually when they walked together, eyes were inexorably drawn to Porrim’s distinctive presence. Some of those stares were simply curious, but there were always a few fearful ones; usually middle-aged or elderly men, presumably afraid that Porrim was about to swoop on their daughters and carry them away with her pansexual wiles and Arabic beauty. Here, though, no stares were forthcoming; almost as though Porrim wasn’t considered to be at all different here. Her sister seemed to notice Kanaya’s surprise, and smiled.
“The lack of stares is definitely one of the easier things to get used to at uni. I mean, you’ll probably get the odd stare, but it’ll just be some girl in raptures at your devastating beauty. It’s the curse of the Maryams.”
Kanaya grinned. It was a nice thought, but as far as she was concerned, Porrim, with her slender figure and alluring eyes, had monopolised both sisters’ share of the family wellspring of beauty. Not that she herself was a hideous ogre, but she knew that if the two sisters stood side by side, most people probably wouldn’t even register her presence. When Porrim wore black lipstick and eyeshadow, she looked like a queen of the night. When Kanaya did, she looked like Robert Smith.
After what seemed like far too short a time, they arrived at the entrance to the dorm building. As they stood awkwardly outside, Porrim looked worried for the first time.
“Do you want me to come in with you? It might make it easier."
Kanaya shook her head. “I’ll have to face her alone for the rest of the year. Might as well start as I mean to go on.”
Porrim nodded, and handed over the red suitcase she had been wheeling from the car. “You never know. Maybe you got put with someone else after all.”
By way of reply, Kanaya simply held up her phone:
AG: Hey roooooooomie! You’d 8etter get over here quick, 8efore I take up all the wardro8e space!
Porrim made a face. “And you’re certain you don’t want me to go in and smack her about a bit? I really wouldn’t mind, you know.”
Kanaya laughed. “It might make the rest of the year a bit awkward. Vriska’s the type to hold grudges.”
“I thought she might be. Can I take a random guess at your room number?”
“No need. I suspect the first thing she’ll do when I get in there will be to complain that there’s no 8th floor.”
Kanaya turned to go on. Porrim took her arm gently.
“Seriously, sis. I’m just the other end of a phone line if you need me.”
“Thanks,” Kanaya smiled. “I’ll let you know if Vriska blows up the room.”
“You mean when.”
The two sisters embraced, and made their farewells. Kanaya watched Porrim’s retreating figure with an air of doom. Despite what she’d said to her sister, she was not at all confident in her ability to face the girl with whom she’d been in love for as long as she could remember. Delaying it was senseless, though.
She made her way inside gloomily, cursing her ability to be rational at times of emotional crisis. It seemed that quite a few people had already arrived. A short girl wearing a hat in the shape of a cat’s head was somehow dragging a huge behemoth of a boy, who was holding a plastic shopping bag, up the stairs by the arm. Voices were coming from some of the rooms; roommates getting to know each other, or expressing delight at their good fortune in ending up together. Finally she got to room 8 on the ground floor, and pushed it open, the slight squeak of the door sounding to her ears like the tolling of some doom-laden bell.
Vriska had already put some music on; something loud and abrasive, probably by some band with “death” or “skull” somewhere in their name. Kanaya hoped that this might preclude the possibility of conversation, at least for now, but as soon as the door swung open Vriska paused the music as she sprang to her feet with delight.
“Maryam! You took your fucking time! Let me guess: tearful farewell with big sis?”
“Yes, but without the tears. She just wanted to see me to the door.”
Vriska shook her head, as if ashamed. “I keep telling you, you need to be more independent. Don’t get me wrong, your sister can be pretty cool, but she’s all… meddlesome. Like you, but worse. And you just enable her. I mean, do you think Aranea walked me here?”
“Certainly not,” replied Kanaya, the ghost of a smile playing about her lips. “I don’t see any evidence of a recent fit of rage anywhere in this room.”
Vriska looked as if she was about to shoot something back, but instead simply grinned. That was almost worse. Kanaya had often thought that she would have long since been over Vriska if the latter were as unpleasant to her as she was to almost everyone else, but the fact that she seemed to be almost unique among the entire human race in actually being liked by Vriska Serket was torture. Every moment by her side was agony, but breaking ties was entirely out of the question, since it would leave Vriska essentially friendless.
“So, hey!” Vriska was never one to dwell on a conversational topic for very long. “Do you know anyone else who’s coming here this year?"
“Are you so very desperate to find other friends?”
“Come on, Kanaya, you know you’re my girl.” Vriska’s grin was actually painful at this point. They had barely been in the same room a couple of minutes, and already it was everything Kanaya had feared; initial attempts to mould her into Vriska’s own image, followed by a disarming, if brief, glimpse of sincerity, compounded by a rare use of her first name.
“Well, my faith in the constancy of your affections notwithstanding, I’m afraid that I don’t really know anyone else here. Most of our former classmates went to Beforan University, I believe.”
“Oh, boo,” Vriska sulked. “Not that I’m sorry to be rid of those losers. But the only person I know here apart from you is my neighbour, and he’s not exactly a barrel of laughs.”
“I’m certain you’ll make friends once lectures start. What with your winning personality and all.”
“You may mock, but you’ll see. Give it a few weeks and they’ll be lining up around the block for my attention.”
She tossed her auburn mane dismissively. It would have been a silly gesture for most people, but Vriska had spent years perfecting it, and Kanaya had to admit that she had really honed it. It would bring tears of jealous joy to Scarlett O’Hara’s eyes.
Kanaya realised her attention had been focused on Vriska, and she had failed to inspect the room in which she’d be spending the next several months. It was… quite nice, actually. Fairly spacious, though she would have been happier had the beds been more than an arm’s length apart. She could do without the temptation of being able to reach out and touch Vriska in the night. She hastily tried to distract herself with something else. Anything but the thought of Vriska’s soft, pale sk- Erm, everything seemed in order. Although…
“Did it have to be the ground floor?”
“Sure it did! Otherwise we would have had another number before the 8, and that would have been unacceptable!”
“Zero is also a number.”
“Yeah, but we can just refer to it as ‘room 8’, or ‘room 8 on the ground floor’. People will get it.”
“If you say so. I must insist that we keep the windows shut as much as possible, though. I will not have some drunken loon leaning in and vomiting all over the place at two in the morning.”
Vriska shrugged. “Might add a little colour to the place.”
***
Terezi Pyrope was finding her usual eagerness for new experiences somewhat tempered today. This had nothing whatsoever to do with nerves, anxiety, homesickness or in fact anything related to her life at university. It had everything to do with the determinedly cheery RA to whom she had been handed over by her mother after getting out of the car.
She could have found her own way to the dorm. It wouldn’t have been too difficult; follow the noise, maybe ask a few people for directions (but not help). The last thing she needed was someone holding her hand (not her arm, her actual hand) and chattering away about how fun the student life was, making absolutely sure to slip in the word inclusive wherever possible, as if to say “I’m well aware that there is an elephant in this room, so I shall press myself against the wall and see if I can squeeze past it without anyone noticing”.
For once, Terezi couldn’t even work up the will to take the piss. Sure, whenever the RA used the word “look” or “see”, she would repeat it with a beatific smile purely to hear the poor girl’s tones of horror as she hastily apologised, but then that was just par for the course. She couldn’t work up the will for any of her usual tricks; claiming to need to lick people’s faces to know what they looked like, or pretending not to even know what colours were. Sure, the RA was a bit dim, but she was well-intentioned. She wasn’t trying to be insensitive, and that earned her a few points. Only a measly few, though.
After an interminable walk, the RA finally announced: “Here we are! Inside the dorm building!” Terezi didn’t bother pointing out that she was well aware of this; it wasn’t terribly difficult to tell the difference between indoors and outdoors.
She heard a rustle as the RA consulted her notes: “Let’s see… it says you’re in 4-13. OK, let’s go!"
Now or never. “Actually, I think I can find it myself.”
“Are you sure?” Oh God, she was just asking for snark at this point.
“Room 13 on the fourth floor, right? I’ll be fine.”
It took a few minutes, but she finally persuaded her hitherto implacable supervisor to leave her alone. Fortunately, she had never relinquished the large rucksack which contained most of her belongings (her sister was bringing the rest over the next day), which could well have been used as an excuse for the RA to accompany her otherwise. She stood in the corridor, savouring the sounds around her. Shouting, laughter: here was a place full of life. A place she could call home. She felt uncomfortable in quiet places.
She found the stairs quite easily, and began to climb. It seemed a little odd that they would put the blind girl up four flights of stairs, but perhaps there’d been a mix-up. Or perhaps the authorities had simply had the sense to realise that she had in fact climbed stairs before. There was probably a lift too. She should ask at some point. Her roommate, whoever that was, would know.
After a few flights, she stopped. The staircase was enclosed from the rest of the building, so it wasn’t easy to tell where the doors to the corridors were. But let’s see… she had climbed seven… no, eight flights since the ground floor, so assuming this worked like most stairways, that should make this the fourth floor.
She heard the sound of someone coming down the stairs. A very light tread. Someone fairly small, maybe barefoot? When they came to her level, she spoke up:
“Excuse me, is this the fourth floor?”
A high voice answered: “Um, yeah, it is. Are you OK?”
She grinned. “Just fine. It’s just that my seeing-eye cane can’t read signs.”
The voice giggled (and it sounded genuine, not nervous), and Terezi felt a rush of affection towards the person to whom it belonged. Laughter was better than concern or pity.
“Can you find your room OK?”
“Sure. Don’t worry about me.”
“OK then. See y- um, bye!”
Terezi grinned again at the person’s mistake. To her relief, she heard them walk down the stairs again, rather than stay to make sure she got to her room. People who didn’t believe you when you claimed to be able to do things for yourself… well, it was like they were calling you a liar. Terezi had no time for liars, and to be thought of as one was the height of rudeness.
She located the door and walked down the corridor. Thankfully, she was able to feel the numbers on the doors. All the odd-numbered rooms seemed to be on one side of the corridor. 5…7…9…11… here it was. There was a sheet of paper on the door too. She presumed her name was printed on it… oh! It was there in Braille too. That was a considerate touch. She presumed her roommate’s name must be there too, although it was less considerate that that didn’t seem to be in Braille.
She opened the door. No sound of greeting, or of any presence within. So she was the first one there. She tapped her way over to the bed, and put her rucksack down on it. She felt around for a moment until she located her scalemates, and quickly pulled them out. Lemonsnout, Pumpkinsnuffle and, of course, Pyralspite… with them placed at various angles around the bed to judge any who dared enter their sacred space, the room truly seemed like home. That said, one of them would probably end up strung up in a mock trial by the end of the week. But WHICH ONE?
As Terezi busied herself with plans for the next exciting stuffed courtroom drama, a knock sounded on her door, which she realised she had left open. A voice she recognised sounded from the doorway.
“Hi… Terezi, right? I’m Nepeta, the girl from a few minutes ago, on the stairs? I just wanted to see if you were settling in OK.”
Hmmm… it was either a bit patronising or a genuinely nice gesture. Terezi decided to reserve judgement until she knew this girl (so it was a girl; she hadn’t wanted to make assumptions) a little.
“Hi Nepeta. Come on in.” A mischievous thought struck her; a test of character. “Come and meet the scalemates.”
Nepeta must have sat in a chair, because her voice came from a slightly lower and somewhat closer position: “Oh! They’re so cuuuute! Do they have names?”
A solid ten minutes went into introducing Nepeta to the scalemates, talking about their personalities, backgrounds and the clashes she had had with each of them in court. By the end of this, Terezi had decided that she thoroughly liked Nepeta, who had shown genuine interest. Most people would have attempted to change the subject, or played along in a spirit of silliness, but Nepeta took it entirely seriously, asking questions and gasping at some examples of particular villainy.
“I’m glad you appreciate their chequered past,” Terezi admitted, when the stories had finished. “Hopefully my roommate will too. Well, either way they’ll have to deal with it.”
“Oh, I meant to ask about that,” Nepeta said. “Do you know who your roommate is? Since it doesn’t say on the door?”
“It doesn’t?” Hold on, that couldn’t be right.
“Nope!”
“Does it say on everyone else’s?”
“Sure does! Every door but this one.”
But that must mean… How strange. Nepeta seemed to have come to the same realisation, by her sudden intake of breath.
“So I don’t have a roommate. Weird. Kinda cool, though.”
“You won’t get lonely? Oh, no, of course not! You have your furriends the scalemates!”
“Furriends?” Was she just rolling the R a strange way?
“Oops!” Nepeta sounded genuinely contrite. “I’m sorry! I used to speak in catpuns a lot. My best furri- I mean, my best FRIEND has been trying to get me to stop, but it’s slow going.”
“You shouldn’t stop!” Terezi was genuinely indignant. “It’s endearing! In fact, it’s cool!”
“You really think so?” Good God, she sounded like a small child. She had to be at least eighteen, though.
“Sure! I’ve never met anyone else who talks in catpuns. Never really imagined I would, to be honest. That makes you unique! You should totally keep it up!”
“Yay! I’ll keep it up for you – no, FUR you anyway!” Nepeta laughed, and Terezi laughed with her.
Nepeta suddenly stopped laughing and looked worried. She seemed to move between emotions remarkably quickly.
“Oh… I furgot about my roommate. He’ll be wondering where I am.”
Terezi heard her stand up, and stood up as well.
“Oh! You should come up later on! We’ll have a tea purrty, and I can introduce you to my best furriend. We’re in room 5-9. Say in about an hour?”
Why not? “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
“Great! See you then!” Nepeta left the room at speed. She must really want to get back to this friend of hers.
Terezi sank down onto the bed. No roommate, but at least she’d made a friend. Possibly two, if Nepeta’s friend was anything like her. That was much better; in fact, the lack of a roommate removed an unknown quantity from the equation, which was excellent. In a flash, she realised that the eagerness which had deserted her earlier was back with a vengeance.
***
As she sat staring at the door to her room, Aradia Megido didn’t quite know what to make of the mixture of excitement and nerves which played about her stomach. Ever since she had arrived at her room and read the name of her roommate, she hadn’t been able to shake the feeling.
Tavros Nitram. There was a name she had never expected to come across again. A relic from her childhood, consigned to hazy memory. A boy obsessed with stories of fairies, who, once you got him out of his shell, would never stop smiling; an energetic playmate of afternoons which in her memory seemed to stretch on forever.
Tavros had dominated the middle part of her childhood; the four years spent in south Wales, between the early years in Sheffield and the move down to London, where they had lived until now. She had missed the rural beauty which stood like an idyllic island in her life between the two sprawling cities. She even missed the sound of the Welsh accent. Its beautiful, musical quality contrasted so sharply with her own plain accent; hybrid London retaining a northern twang, or the accent of their birthplace which her brother, though less than a year older, had managed stubbornly to cling onto.
It was just like something from a novel; two close childhood friends finally reunited by serendipity as young adults. Of course, in a novel when Tavros strode through the door he would be a handsome young man with bulging muscles barely concealed by his inexplicably tight shirt, and she would swoon at the mere sight of him. She grinned at the thought, surprised that the Simone de Beauvoir book she had lain on the bedside table did not pick itself up and slap her about the face for indulging in such a thoroughly unfeminist fantasy.
She heard an intake of breath outside the door, almost as though someone was, oh, say, recognising the name of a childhood best friend on their door. She steeled herself. Any moment now…
The door swung open. She gasped, and immediately regretted it. It was demonstrably Tavros; she would almost have said he had hardly changed in nine years – except, of course, for the wheelchair being pushed by someone she dimly recognised as his brother, whose name she couldn’t recall.
But how had -? Oh God, she was staring. And not in the right way. He looked singularly uncomfortable. What to do? Stand up, of course. But mightn’t that make him feel worse, since he can’t -? Oh for fuck’s sake just stand up. Try to look happy. Remember happiness?
She smiled. It definitely looked fake. “Tavros! Oh my God!” Shit, her voice was way too loud. Sollux had probably heard that up in his room, six floors up. Jesus, what was she going to do?
She was relieved when Tavros managed a weak smile too. “Aradia? I-is it really you?”
He was trying to indulge in the cliché of the moment so that neither of them would have to dwell on its intense awkwardness. OK. That was probably a good idea.
“Yes. It’s really me.” Brilliant. Give him another dose of your rapier wit. “How have you been?”
He paused, not unreasonably, before answering the incredibly stupid and banal question.
“O-OK. I mean… it’s been hard. But, y’know…”
Wow. Could it be possible? Had the conversation genuinely run out after “how have you been”? Then again, how did you follow that up? A potted biography detailing the ups and downs of the past nine years?
Unbelievably, at this point help arrived from the most unexpected quarter.
“Hey, AA, I think you took one of my hard driveth… oh, hey there. Didn’t mean to- holy thhit, Tavroth?”
Tavros turned around in his chair. “Oh, hi, S-Sollux.”
“Thhit, man, never ekthpected to thee you here. And Rufioh, right?”
Tavros’s brother (so that was his damn name) nodded and grinned. “That’s me, man. You’re the kids who used to live up the lane, right?”
Somehow Sollux, for whom “friendly banter” usually consisted of a glare and an invitation to perform some form of sexual act, managed to actually strike up a conversation with Rufioh, albeit one peppered so heavily with the word “man” (a distancing form of address if ever there was one) that testosterone seemed to hang heavy in the air. As their brothers inexplicably got on, Tavros turned back to Aradia and smiled, more genuinely this time.
“Sorry. I know it must be a shock. You p-probably remember me as a kid who used to run around playing with animals, right?”
Something about the way he spoke was oddly hesitant. His stutter wasn’t very pronounced, but he seemed to pause in the middle of longer sentences, which combined with the sing-song quality of his accent to create a strange kind of rhythm, almost as if he were speaking in some kind of metre.
“Well… yeah. I really don’t mean to be rude, but-“
“Don’t worry about it. Really. There was an accident. A few years ago. I’ve gotten used to it.”
“I presume you’ll need help though? I mean, getting in and out of bed, that kind of thing?”
“No, I should be OK. I’ve still got a little feeling in my legs, and I’ve b-been through years of physiotherapy.”
He blushed and looked down, still smiling. “I mean, c-company would be nice.”
Aradia beamed. This was more like it.
“Sure. I can manage that.”
Tavros looked back up and smiled. How exactly did you strike up a friendship that had lain dormant for nine years? There wasn’t an easy answer, but perhaps they could search for one. It would be an adventure.
***
Feferi Peixes could hardly contain her excitement. Then again, that was hardly a new feeling for her. The same had been true the last time she went swimming. Also the last time it had rained. And, indeed, the last time it had been sunny. She had practically burst into song this morning at the discovery that the milk which she poured into her tea was not, as she had half-suspected, gone off. But this was excitement of a different order; not simple enthusiasm or joie de vivre, but genuine anticipation.
What’s more, she had to be excited enough for two, since her cousin Eridan stubbornly refused to view university as anything other than “a fuckin wastea four precious years of my life”. Eridan’s heart was in the family shipping business, but his father had insisted that he get a degree before taking up a position at the firm, and nobody argued with Eridan’s father. Feferi, in her nastier moments, suspected that the decision had been intended as much to get rid of Eridan for a few years as for his own benefit.
Such uncharitable thoughts never lasted long, though. After all, they’d been brought up side by side, like siblings. More importantly, they both despised their actual siblings, and instead had clung to each other all their lives. University was one more thing they would face together. Maybe the last thing, said a small voice in the back of Feferi’s head, but she refused to listen. After all, they would probably be working together after they graduated. And how could anything they would face here tear them apart after they’d been through so much?
Aware that her current line of thought was akin to Hamlet saying “say, I do hope I don’t run into any ghosts tonight”, Feferi shook her head and concentrated on the room in which they had just dumped their bags. Eridan had argued passionately for the two of them renting a house just off-campus (their families could easily afford it), but Feferi had insisted that they “stick with everyone else”, and Eridan had reluctantly acquiesced. He might complain (endlessly), but he always deferred to Feferi when she put her foot down. It was a useful power.
Besides, staying in dorms more or less protected them from running into any of Eridan’s fellow old boys; or, at least, allowed them to keep from seeing Rocco or J-Man or whatever their stupid names were at any time of day. Such encounters invariably ended with bizarre drinking games, frighteningly ritualised chants and oddly euphemistic reminiscences about changing room escapades. And all of that besides the sheer whiff of aristocratic privilege that hung over them. It was like a meeting of Bertie Wooster impersonators.
“I don’t like it,” Eridan huffed. This seemed to be his considered opinion of the room, delivered apropos of absolutely nothing and after several minutes inside it.
“Well of course you don’t like it,” Feferi said, deliberately emphasising certain words beyond reason in that way that Eridan despised. “It’s nothing like anywhere you’ve known before. That’s what’s good about it!”
“Well maybe you wanna live with common people-“ Eridan began, then realised his mistake. Feferi leapt straight onto the bait.
“SHE CAME FROM GREECE, SHE HAD A THIRST FOR KNOWLEDGE! SHE STUDIED SCULPTURE AT ST MARTIN’S COLLEGE, THAT’S WHERE I! DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOODOO DOO DOO! CAUGHT HER EYE! DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOODOO DOO DOO!”
Several minutes later, when Feferi had finished singing ‘Common People’ in its entirety, Eridan continued.
“But I’m accustomed to a certain standarda livin’.”
While she was impressed by his ability to resume a sentence as if she hadn’t interrupted it to belt out a mid-90s classic at the top of her lungs for five minutes, Feferi knew she couldn’t let this kind of attitude fester.
“That’s exactly why we need this time! We’ve spent our lives going from huge houses to the best schools! That’s why I didn’t want you going to Oxbridge! We need to experience another side of life for once!”
“Wait, I thought you said that Oxbridge had lowered their standards unforgivably?”
Feferi rolled her eyes. “That was a lie, Eridan. Of course they haven’t lowered their standards, they’re fucking Oxbridge.”
Eridan sighed. “So you’re tellin’ me I could’ve gone to onea the best fuckin’ universities in the world, and instead you dragged me to this shithole?”
Feferi considered for a moment, then nodded brightly. “Yep, that’s pretty much exactly what I’m telling you!”
Eridan shook his head. “I would threaten to leave and find a decent fuckin’ uni, but I’m guessin’ you’d stay here, right?”
“Right!”
“So I’m trapped. Brilliant.”
“You know, most people would take pride in that kind of loyalty.”
“It’s just a facta life. I’d have to be a real shit to leave you on your own, Fef. Besides, after yearsa bein’ apart for school, it might be nice to be together.”
Feferi hugged him tightly. “See? That’s more like it!”
After letting him go, she smiled intensely at him for a few seconds. Despite himself, he felt his face beginning to crack into a corresponding smile.
“So… do you feel like meeting some of our new neighbours?”
The smile vanished immediately. “No.”
“Oh come on, grumpy gills! You can’t sulk in this room all year!”
“Wanna bet?”
She sighed, grabbed his hand and dragged him to his feet.
“Eridan Ampora, I will force you to make friends and have a good time here if it kills me. Now, get out that door!”
With that, she pushed him in the direction of the door. He looked over his shoulder pathetically; seeing no mercy in her eyes, he opened the door and slipped out. She grinned and followed suit.