Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

For the first time in the history of the Deca, nobody turned to stare because Drax was late. They all still turned—of course, because the door was loud as hell and it was impossible to not be startled by it—but rather than looking to Ushas and waiting for her inevitable scolding, their eyes lingered on Drax; staring at him as if he were a Scendel.

Though his colorful bracelets and sloppily worn clothes were nothing out of the ordinary, the color of his hair (which was dark purple and somewhat resemblant of a grape) was enough to stop the entire meeting dead in its tracks. The entire room froze, no one saying a single word as they stared at his makeover.

“What?” Drax looked around the room, eventually stopping with is gaze turned to Jelpax as if he could provide some answers. “What did I do?”

“It’s just…” The look on Jelpax’s face was utterly bewildered, and he had to blink and shake his head to bring himself back to reality. “I didn’t know that’s what you were doing this morning.”

“Yeah, I told you I had a surprise. What’s the big deal? It’s not even permanent, it’s just a semi.”

“Okay, but still—”

“It’s really weird having two people in here with dyed hair,” said Theta, glancing around the room. “Right? I can’t be the only one who thinks there’s too much color going on in here. It’s like, what’s real? What’s not? Is Jelpax even a natural ginger?”

“Yes, I am a natural—”

“Wait, Millennia isn’t a natural bluenette?” Mortimus made a face, not seeming to notice nor care that he’d interrupted Jelpax’s thoughts.

“No.” Ushas stared at him, shaking her head in what could almost be described as disgust. She pushed her hair back and leaned back against Borusa’s desk. “That’s not even a word, you idiot.”

Thanks to the slight change in subject, Drax managed to slip through the desks into his seat behind Jelpax, still looking around awkwardly. It was quite clear that he was feeling self-conscious thanks to the awkwardness of the last few minutes, but he avoided saying anything. No point in making a bigger deal out of nothing.

“So, what made you do it, Fuckboy?” asked Magnus, turning to look at Drax despite the fact that Ushas and Mortimus were still squabbling in the front of the room.

“Fuckboy?” he gaped. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“No comment. Now explain before I think of a better nickname which I guarantee you’ll hate more than that.”

Drax rolled his eyes. “I just felt like a change of pace, I guess, and Ushas dyed all my hats neon colors anyway, so it just matches better. It’s only temporary, I didn’t realize it was going to cause such chaos. I mean, Jesus Christ, if you hate it so much. I’ll go wash it out right now. It’ll only take like eight showers.”

“No, don’t!” Jelpax whipped around to look at him quickly, glancing around awkwardly when he realized that everyone was looking at him. “I mean, just… don’t give it up just because other people think it’s odd, you know? Don’t be a pushover.”

“I—”

“Shouldn’t I be Fuckboy?” Mortimus, turning around to look at Magnus. He threw his legs over the other side of his chair, resting his arms on top of the back of it and then his chin atop his hands. “I mean, I am the sluttiest one in here, right? No offense to me.”

“I didn’t call him Fuckboy because he’s a slut, I—” Magnus cut himself off, shaking his head slowly. “Never mind, I’ll think of something better. But you are right, you’re the definition of a fuckboy.”

“Rude.”

“You said it first.”

“Anyway,” Ushas began dramatically, “can we get back to me now? Because I was halfway through my chat when Drax so rudely interrupted.”

“I didn’t ask everyone to stare,” he argued.

“But they did. So please, for the love of god, just shut up and listen to me.”

And even though there was not one soul in the classroom who wanted to, they all did just that. No point in delaying the inevitable—it would only make the eventual speech that much worse.

//

“So, I’ve been thinking,” said Theta, half talking and half stuffing food in his mouth, “I’m going to start waking up earlier. Like, I always miss breakfast and barely get up in time to make it to class, and if I got up earlier, I would be able to get more done in the morning, right? I mean, I’d be gaining like an hour. That’s not too shabby.”

“I—” Ushas blinked several times, not quite sure where to start with the ridiculous idea that Theta had just come up with. It wasn’t just unlikely; it was downright impossible. “You’re joking, right?”

“No, seriously.” He popped a berry into his mouth and chewed it quickly before he spoke. Considering his small size, Theta was remarkably good at consuming half the Academy’s lunch. “I want to get back into painting and stuff and I think that an hour in the morning would be a good time to do it. Or I could do my homework in the morning and use the evening to do my art, y’know?”

“No, I don’t know. I’m sorry, but you’re truly stupid if you think you can pull this off, Theta.”

“Rude. Hey, back me up here, Nosebung.”

Vansell looked over to him with an almost disgusted expression on his face. “I don’t think so.” He shook his head, taking a sip of his drink rather than looking into Theta’s begging eyes. “I don’t know what this is about, and I don’t really care, but I’m not interested in getting mixed up in any schemes today, so I’ll speak to you at dinner. Or not. Don’t expect me.”

“I never do.”

Theta sighed and dropped his head onto the table once Vansell was gone, not bothering to move his empty plate before he did so and consequently getting a bunch of potatoes smeared on his hair and face. Ushas nearly joked about it but opted to say nothing when Drax sat down at the table, sliding in beside Theta with an odd look on his face.

“Is he dead?” he asked, pointing to his friend beside him.

“Yes.” Ushas nodded, her dark eyes blinking sarcastically. “He ate himself into a coma.”

“You know, that sounds like something I would do too,” Mortimus mused from the other end of the table. “Have you all suddenly realized that I’m more interesting than you, or do you just want to slowly take over my identity?”

“How could multiple people take over your identity?” questioned Magnus, a strange expression on his face.

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Just an idea. Not all ideas have to be smart.”

“Right, you mean like dying your hair neon purple like our friend Gaylord over here.” He jabbed a thumb towards Drax, who quickly turned defensive.

“Gaylord?” he gaped, glancing around the table as if to see how his friends reacted to the comment. “Wait, are you saying you called me Fuckboy this morning because you think my new hair is gay?”

“No, you said that. All I did was give you a new nickname. Didn’t know that was a crime.”

“Hey, Magnus. Hey. Hey.” Mortimus poked him in the shoulder repeatedly, not stopping until his roommate finally turned to look at him. “Stereotyping is bullshit, you know. It’s a real dick move to call him gay just because he wanted to try something new.”

“You’re right.” He nodded slowly, an almost sympathetic expression on his face which faded within seconds. “Guess it’s a good thing that I’m a dick then. And who are you to talk? Aren’t you the one who wanted to be called Fuckboy?”

“Well, not exactly, but it’s different anyway because I am kind of a slut and I am kind of gay. Drax isn’t.” He glanced over at him skeptically, his brow furrowed. “Probably. I don’t want to make any assumptions. But anyway, if you want to pick on someone for being gay, at least go after me. I’ll give you fuel galore if it’ll keep you away from Drax.”

“Thanks for the offer, but you give me fuel galore just by existing. And I don’t mean that just in reference your overt homosexuality.”

“Actually, I’m pansexual but thank you. I enjoy being flamboyant.”

Magnus did nothing but roll his eyes before he stood up, shaking a hand through Theta’s hair as he walked by on his way out of the dining hall.

//

“Are you telling me that I have to actually speak with people?”

“Yes, Koschei.” His professor sighed deeply, crossing her arms with a less than happy expression on her face. “I am telling you that you have to interact with other people to complete a census. It’s only three people, and it’s just an exercise, so you don’t need to make a big deal about it. Please.”

“Fine. I’ll let you off the hook this time but don’t think I won’t bitch again next week.”

Koschei hauled his book bag over his shoulder before he strode out of the room, not looking back to her as he moved down the hallway. He needed to find at least three people to speak to about this and he had no clue where to start. Well, his friends obviously, but which one of them?

And if he only needed three people, could he count himself?

It wouldn’t be long until he got his answers, which were unfortunately not exactly what he was hoping for. Nor looking for. Nor—well, you’ll find out.

//

“Weren’t you going to start working on that at six?”

Theta glanced over at Ushas, who was sitting across from him at one of the tables in the library. He shrugged and looked down to the book beside him, barely acknowledging the homework that he hadn’t yet started. Before he answered, he took a quick glance at the clock—one which ultimately decided what he would do next.

“I mean, yeah, I was going to,” he answered, “but I lost track of time and it’s already five past the hour, so I guess I have to wait until seven.”

“What?” The look on Ushas’s face was nothing less than bewildered. “You’re kidding me, right? You’re going to wait almost an hour to get started just because you didn’t start exactly on the minute that you wanted? Theta, that’s insane. Do you understand how much time you’re going to lose?”

“Yes. Almost an hour. Isn’t that what you just said?” Theta rolled his eyes. “Anyway, it makes sense, you know? ‘Cause like, if someone asks what I did, then I’ll be like, ‘I did homework from seven until eight’ rather than ‘I did homework from five past six to five past seven’. That just sounds stupid.”

“Okay, one: nobody cares what you did tonight. And two: nobody is going to ask you exactly what you were doing at those very times. You could easily just say six to seven. Five minutes isn’t going to make a difference.”

“Maybe not, but now it’s ten past, and that does kind of make a difference, so I think I’ll wait. I’m getting close to beating minesweeper anyway.”

“You will literally never beat minesweeper.” Ushas sighed, knowing that she was attacking the wrong thing at the moment but not caring enough to do anything about it. “You’ve been trying for the entire time I know you, and you can’t even get past the easiest level yet. It’s almost embarrassing.”

“It is not embarrassing,” Theta argued, his cheeks flushing pink. “And for your information, I have beat the first level. Almost. Like, halfway there.”

“You blow up after two clicks, don’t you?”

“Uh… no?”

“Right.” Ushas made a face, raising her eyebrows in such a way to tell him that she knew exactly how bad he was at the game. She packed up her things quickly, then tossed her bag over her shoulder, flipping her dark brown ponytail over in the process. “Anyway, I’m going to go somewhere quiet. You have fun never getting your work done.”

“I’ll get it done in ample time.”

“Yeah, right.”

Ushas snorted before she walked out of the library, shaking her head the entire way back to her room.

//

Koschei was surprised to find that Theta was nowhere to be seen when he got to their room that evening. More than that, however, he was disappointed. Not because he wouldn’t get to chat and lowkey flirt with him, but because he wanted to recruit Theta as one of his two other census participants, and he couldn’t do that if he was nowhere to be seen.

He groaned and flopped back onto his bed, sending Theta a quick text before he considered his other options. Who else was there he could ask (that he actually felt like dealing with at the moment)? Drax and Magnus were the first two who came to mind, but he doubted Magnus would be on board and if he wasn’t, Mortimus would try to take his place which Koschei was not in the mood for that evening.

So, when he finally dragged himself back out of bed and out the hall, Koschei did not turn into Magnus’s room, but instead knocked on the one opposite to it. It was a few seconds before anyone answered, and when they did, it was not the face that Koschei was hoping to see. He glanced around Jelpax’s shoulders, but his roommate was nowhere in sight. Dammit.

“Are you going to say something, or…?”

Koschei blinked, shaking his head quickly as he noticed the odd expression on Jelpax’s face. “Uh, yeah. Sorry. I was just wondering if Drax is around.”

“No.” Jelpax crossed his arms, leaning against the doorway. “I think he went out with Mortimus or something. I wasn’t really listening. You want me to send him a message?”

That should have been an odd request, considering Koschei had his number just the same as anyone else in the Deca, but when it came to Drax, Jelpax was the only one guaranteed to reach him at almost any time. For some reason, when he was avoiding everyone else, Drax still found the time to respond to Jelpax; though he sometimes sent back snarky comments when it was obvious, he was only messaging for someone else.

“No, that’s all right. Actually…” He looked Jelpax up and down, an idea forming in his mind. “Do you think you could help me with something? It won’t take more than an hour. Probably.”

Jelpax looked at him skeptically. “What is it?” he asked slowly.

“Am I more likely to get you to say yes if I tell you it’s for school? Which it is, of course. I’m not going to lie ‘cause you’d obviously figure it out and then I’d end up looking like an idiot.”

“Well, you already look like an idiot, so…”

“Just forget it.” Koschei sighed and shook his head. “I’ll message you tomorrow if I still need the help.”

He didn’t bother waiting for Jelpax to respond. He had another day to work on the assignment (AKA another day for him to find different helpers), so there was little chance he would have to contact him again.

Hopefully.

//

Magnus had been sitting in a peaceful silence for nearly half an hour and that was why he wanted to throw his laptop across the room when Mortimus suddenly walked in; his swagger speaking before he even had the chance to open his big mouth.

“Do you think I should dye my hair?”

Without a glance in his roommate’s direction, Magnus groaned and dropped his pen onto his desk; dragging his hands down his face as if he were already sick of the conversation that had barely even begun.

“I’m thinking pink,” Mortimus went on, even though Magnus did not respond to his initial question. “I don’t want to do purple or blue because that would just make me look like I’m copying, but I need something striking. I think neon pink would do the trick.”

Before Magnus could even think of a snarky response, the door to their room swung open (because Mortimus forgot to lock it, again, like the classic idiot he was), and in walked Drax. He was holding a folder in his hands, a look of casual urgency on his face.

“Hey, Mortimus, you forgot your—what?”

He turned to look when he realized that Magnus was staring at him, instinctively reaching up to touch his face and his hair—likely the things he was most self-conscious about at the moment. Mortimus walked over to grab the folder out of his hands, interrupting before Magnus had the chance to make any snide comments.

“He’s just admiring your incredible new look.”

“Your incredibly homosexual new look,” Magnus added, snorting as he spun his chair back around.

“For the last time,” Mortimus snapped, “appearance does not dictate sexuality! Is Millennia gay because of her hair? Is Dourgonn gay because of his?”

“Millennia’s not gay because she’s a girl and she has a boyfriend. No comment on Dourgonn.”

“All right, well, if your criteria for Millennia being straight is that she has a boyfriend, shouldn’t Drax’s criteria for being gay be the same?”

“No, because that’s just a joke. Millennia is definitively into men. Not to say that she’s exclusively heterosexual.”

Mortimus sighed exasperatedly, narrowing his eyes deeply. “How can you act like you’re supportive and not assuming and then go out and blatantly stereotype the way you do? It’s such bullshit.”

“You know, you really don’t have to fight about this,” said Drax awkwardly. “Magnus does this stuff all the time, so it’s not really—”

“Yes, it is. I’m going to fix this. Believe you me, by this time next week, Magnus will be thoroughly convinced that gender roles are something to be destroyed.”

With a very serious look on his face Mortimus turned and stormed out of the room. Fortunately, Drax was not left with Magnus for long, as only a few seconds passed before their friend suddenly came back into the room, a slightly embarrassed but still determined expression in his eyes.

“I’ve just realized I stormed out of my room and I had nowhere to go,” he said awkwardly, shuffling back over to his bed. “Just imagine I didn’t come back, yeah? Yeah.”

Neither Drax nor Magnus decided to comment on what happened; both just shaking their heads and heading back to what they were doing before.

//

“I thought you were going to wake up earlier.”

Theta said nothing when Ushas spoke, only rolling his eyes as he took his seat across from her at the table. Yeah, it was about an hour later than he said he would wake up, but what was the big deal? He stayed up late the night before and he needed the rest.

“I know, I know.” He waved a hand around dismissively. “I messed up a bit. Schedule change starts tonight though, I swear. No more fucking around just because I don’t feel like doing my homework.”

Ushas gave him a look. “Somehow, I don’t really believe that’s true. If you couldn’t stick to your plan the first day, who’s to say you can suddenly figure it out the second day?”

“I am.” Theta rolled his eyes, reaching over to grab half a bagel from her tray. He took a bite before he spoke, almost as if he wanted to intentionally piss her off further. “I think that I should keep trying because just failing once doesn’t mean that I will never succeed. You’re really one hell of a downer, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a downer, I’m a realist, which is more than you can say.”

“Why would I want to be a realist when I could spend so much of my time daydreaming about the world being a better place? Not to say that Gallifrey is a shithole or anything, but—”

“Gallifrey is absolutely a shithole.” Drax chose that moment to sit down—or, back down, Theta presumed based on the fact his backpack somehow beat him there—and took a swig of his drink before he went on. “If I had the chance, I’d leave this place in a heartbeat. What a fucking place to live.”

“You ungrateful pigs.” Ushas shook her head, her brown eyes narrowing. “Gallifrey is the strongest planet in the entire universe and you think that it’s a poor place to live? Especially as Prydonians, you should be far more grateful for the fact that you even have the opportunity to step foot on this planet, let alone live here and gain an education.”

“Wow, look at Ushas, acting like she’s all high and mighty. Newsflash, bitch, nobody gives a shit.” Somehow, Drax’s tone sounded more sarcastic than rude, and Ushas only scoffed in response. “Anyway, has anyone seen Magnus this morning? Not that I want to talk to him, but I’m trying to avoid him, and any warnings would be much appreciated.”

“I’ll let you know if I see him,” said Jelpax, his tone slightly bothered. He was sitting beside Drax and had, up until that moment, remained silent as if he wanted nothing to do with the chaos around him. “Do you really mean that about leaving Gallifrey?”

“Yeah.” Drax shrugged casually, taking another quick sip of his drink as if he were talking about something as mundane as cutting class. “Haven’t I mentioned this to you before? I fucking hate Gallifrey. Like, with a passion. This place is hell in the universe.”

“Okay.” He blinked several times, his eyes wide. “I guess I just never thought you’d take off at a moment’s notice. I mean, you’d speak to me first, right? Or would you just go without me?”

“I—” He hesitated, wetting his lips before he managed to finish his thought. “It’s too early in the morning for this, Pax. Stop trying to make me think.”

Jelpax nodded, not saying anything else as he turned back to his meal lamely. For a split second, it looked as if Drax was going to turn back and speak to him, but stopped before he did and went back to his own drink; stirring it lamely as if he realized he said something wrong but was uncertain how to fix it.

Either unaware of or simply not caring about what was happing a few feet away from him, Theta whipped his head back to Ushas and glared deeply at her, his brow knit in either anger, confusion, or a mix of both because it was Theta and frankly, confusion was almost always a part of his mood.

“So,” he said, his tone dark, “you got anything else to say to me? About how I’m going to fail school? Should I just drop out now because if I can’t do my homework now, I’ll never be able to do it? Anything like that that you’ve just been dying to tell me?”

“No.” Ushas shook her head simply. “Actually, if I was going to say anything to you, it would only be that—”

“Hey, Gaylord.” Without even a hint of a warning, Magnus strode up behind them and flicked Drax in the back of the head, a joking expression on his face. “You tired of that hair yet?”

“I’m tired of you making comments about it,” he answered, giving Magnus a look.

“What? It’s not like I’m calling you an idiot or anything. I’m allowed to poke fun at something you’ve chosen to do. Not that your idiocy is entirely involuntary.”

“I don’t know if you’re implying I should study more but if you are, thanks for the advice but Ushas beat you to it several decades ago.”

“Can you stop bickering?” Mortimus whined. “You’re ruining my breakfast with your awful stereotyping and negativity and all that bullshit. And don’t think I’m going to stop yelling at you I just can’t do it before I finish my pancakes. Jesus Christ.”

He went back to stuffing his mouth, barely looking up when Magnus snorted. “If you really want to prove to me that gender roles are bullshit, then all you really have to do is just wear a dress for a day.”

“What?” He made a face, not seeming to notice the syrup on his chin. “Are you implying that the robes we have to wear aren’t already a dress?”

“No, they’re not, and no, I’m not. I don’t want you to wear robes, I want you to wear a proper dress. Like, something really frilly and girlish and just generally something that no man would ever be caught dead wearing.”

“Bold of you to assume no man would ever wear a dress. And in fact, bold of you to assume that I’ve never worn a dress before and that I identify as a man.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if you’ve done either of those things but I’m not in the mood to comment on that right now either so let’s just move on, yeah? You going to wear the dress or not?”

“Uh, I think not.”

“So, gender roles only go so far, yeah?”

“No, they—”

“Mortimus, stop.” Millennia held out a hand from across the table from him, shaking her head slowly. “You know that he’s just winding you up right now. And Magnus, I don’t understand why you do this to your friends. You don’t even care, you’re just trying to push his buttons. It’s really not nice.”

“Coincidentally, I am not nice,” said Magnus, his tone flat. He crossed his arms, raising one eyebrow as he looked around the table. “So, who thinks that Mortimus should wear the dress? And don’t think about his feelings when you answer, just tell me if you think it would be amusing or not.”

“Stop talking about this!” Mortimus cried, his face flushing pink. “God. Just because I don’t want to wear a dress doesn’t mean that the whole male population wouldn’t do it. I mean, you out of anyone should know that I’m somewhat of an anomaly.”

“Somewhat? You’re not representative of anyone except the sporadically brained.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Based on the definition of sporadic,” Ushas began, “I’d guess he’s saying you’re only intelligent on random occasions rather than all the time.”

“That’s basically what I was implying, yeah.” Magnus didn’t look remarkably amused despite his earlier jokes, most likely indicating that he was unhappy with Ushas’s interjection. “Anyway, I’ve had enough fun pushing your buttons for now so I’m heading to class before I’m late. See you lot at lunch.”

Magnus didn’t spare them one more glance before he ducked out of the dining hall; no doubt heading off to find the next person’s buttons he could push.

//

The last thing Koschei wanted to do was work with someone who bored him out of his brain or someone who mocked his every move, which was why he tried to recruit his closest friends. But, despite his efforts, Drax, Theta, and Magnus were all busy or refused to help, leaving him with substandard choices.

Ushas and Millennia were both unavailable when Koschei asked, and he was slightly grateful for that as he didn’t really want to work with either of them, albeit for different reasons. The same went for Mortimus when he popped over to speak with Magnus; he practically had to bite his lip to keep the relief on his face when Mortimus revealed he wouldn’t be able to help in Magnus’s place.

That left Koschei with only one more decent option, which would be Vansell. He crossed all his fingers as he walked up to his dorm room, taking in a deep breath as he knocked on the door. To his complete and utter disappointment, it was not Vansell who opened the door, but his significantly less entertaining roommate.

“Hey,” said Rallon, his brow furrowed. “Did you need something?”

“Vansell wouldn’t happen to be around, would he?” asked Koschei, already bracing himself for the disappointing answer.

Predictably, Rallon shook his head. “No, he’s out at a politics thing for the rest of the day. Why?”

“I was just hoping to get his help with this stupid assignment I have to do. I need to talk to two people to get their opinions on something or some shit and… never mind, it doesn’t really matter. I’ll just make stuff up. I doubt my professor will notice anyway.”

“Wait, I can help,” he offered. “I know we don’t really like, hang out as much as you and Vansell, but if you really need someone to get this done, I’m not doing anything right now and I’d be happy to help.”

It took everything in Koschei’s power to not groan. Though he was far from the worst person to work with, Rallon was the last friend Koschei would have considered for this particular project. Not because he was rude or annoying, but because he was remarkably indecisive and getting his opinion would likely take closer to a year than an hour.

But still, regardless of his personal biases, Rallon was his only hope. Well, him and Jelpax, who was unfortunately guaranteed to show up in his room later following another failed attempt to find Drax. So, even though they would inevitably be the most boring people to spend an hour with, Koschei finally gave in.

“Yeah, okay,” he said reluctantly. “Yeah, that would we be great. Thanks, Rallon.”

Rallon nearly called out to Koschei as he walked away, wondering why he was acting so disappointed at the offer for help, but decided not to bother. He would deal with it later if he had to, and otherwise it was probably best to just ignore Koschei’s bizarre moods for the time being.

//

“So, you’re telling me that you actually dyed your hair to match your beanies?”

Drax shrugged casually. He and Millennia were walking back from a late maths lecture, hoping that there would be at least some dinner left when they finally made it to the dining hall. They made small talk along the way, if only to fill the silence of the oddly empty corridor.

“Yeah, it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Drax answered. “I realize now that my original light brown hair was probably a lot more versatile than this dark purple shit, but it is what it is, I guess. It’ll be gone in a few weeks anyway.”

“Are you going to do it again, or…?”

“Nah.” He shook his head. “It’s a really big deal to people for some reason and it’s just weird so. I think I’ll just leave it natural after this. Not that I don’t like the look, but I should probably leave the wild colors to you from now on.”

“To be fair, I’ve only ever done blue,” said Millennia. She glanced down at her watch, confirming that the dining hall wouldn’t close for another hour. They had time. “You could go for all kinds of fun colors. You don’t have to stop just because Magnus makes some stupid comments.”

“It’s not just about Magnus but thank you.”

“What do you mean?” It was impossible to tell when Drax was actually willing to talk, and Millennia felt like it was the time for her to push for more information, even if it ultimately went nowhere. “Do you not like it, or is there something else?”

“It’s nothing.” Again, the expression on his face was almost unreadable, leaving Millennia with no clue as to how to proceed. “I guess it’s just too big of a change for me. I’m not used to looking different, you know? It’s nothing serious.”

Millennia didn’t get to say anything else because they reached the dining hall, but she could tell from the look on his face that it wasn’t something personal that made him want to ax his new hair. At least, not something that only he had control over.

Nearly all of their friends were gone by the time they arrived at the dining hall, but there were still a few stragglers remaining—namely Magnus, Mortimus, and Theta, who was chomping away at his meal so slowly you’d think he was using it as an excuse to not get on to more productive activities.

“Hello mates,” said Mortimus, waving to his friends as they sat down. “Did you have an enjoyable time in that lecture of yours? Learn a lot of equations? Be more productive than Theta?”

Theta sneered while Drax rolled his eyes. “Yeah right,” he answered. “If napping is productive then yes, I had a remarkably productive forty-five minutes but don’t expect anything remarkable to come out of my grades next week.”

“Nobody has ever expected that from you ever,” Magnus cut in, not looking up from his phone.

“Yeah, thanks for the boost of confidence, you big dick.”

“I aim to please.”

Though they’d known each other for several decades at that point, Millennia was still uncertain of when she should cut in on their conversation. Sometimes they were only going at each other with simple banter, but others they were getting into a passive-aggressive fight and despite her efforts, Millennia struggled to figure out what was happening before it was too late to stop it.

“I thought your life’s mission was to do the opposite of that,” said Mortimus, raising an eyebrow. “I mean, I could be wrong, but I was under the impression that your entire life revolves around making people miserable.”

“No, I’m not trying to make people miserable,” Magnus argued. “I just think it’s fun to push a few of their buttons every now and then.”

“You’re like a real-life troll, you know that?”

“You know it’s pronounced ‘troll’ and not ‘trool’ right?”

“Dickhead.”

“Dumbass.”

That was the banter Millennia came to know well. It clearly had no deeper substance and was not going to go anywhere, so she stayed out of it. At least for the time being. She wasn’t in the mood to interject unless she needed to, so she turned to look at Drax, opening her mouth to start a more pleasant conversation, but stopped when she saw him.

He wasn’t eating his dinner or even playing with his fork; just staring down in silence as if he was deep in thought about something. Millennia tapped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t move an inch, as if he hadn’t even registered that she was there.

“Drax?”

Nothing. Not a look, not a word, not a hint of movement. Millennia looked over to Magnus and Mortimus for help, and it was Mortimus who first realized that something weird was happening. He scooted closer to them and leaned onto the table.

“Drax, you all right, mate?”

It wasn’t until Mortimus reached over and stole Theta’s pencil to throw at his face that Drax finally came back to attention, blinking rapidly as if he’d just woken up. He furrowed his brow, looking around to his friends in a slightly confused manner, then stopped when he lifted the pencil off his lap.

“Did you just throw this pencil at my face?” he asked, lifting it up to show Mortimus.

He shrugged. “You were deep into a daydream. I thought a pencil would be better than doing nothing and letting Magnus clock you back to attention.”

“Well yeah, I appreciate there being no bruise but the tip of this could’ve hit me in the eye!”

Drax and Mortimus glared at each other for several seconds before Millennia decided to interrupt, knowing that this particular exchange was one that would likely send Drax into retaliation mode. She slid closer to them, tapping Drax on the shoulder again to get his attention.

“What were you thinking about?” she asked. “Must’ve been some daydream.”

“It was nothing. I don’t— I think I just dozed off for a second.”

“With your eyes open?” Magnus deadpanned.

Millennia sighed as they got back into their typical bantering. She didn’t know why Drax didn’t want to share what happened, but it wasn’t something she thought they should be pressing into or making fun of. Nevertheless, the boys—including Theta, who joined in the arguing just for the hell of it—kept going at it until Ushas appeared at the table a few minutes later.

She walked around and grabbed Theta by the shoulder, yanking him to his feet. He let out a yelp when she did so, pulling away and rubbing his shoulder.

“Ow!” he cried, obviously overreacting as to how much it hurt. “What was that for?”

“You’ve been eating dinner for nearly two hours,” she answered. “I know you’re using it as an excuse to not be productive so please, for the love of god, just stop it. You are driving me up the wall.”

“How? It’s not even any of your business as far as I’m concerned, considering—”

“Stop trying to start and argument and come on. You’re wasting your time.”

Theta groaned but grabbed his bag off the floor and followed her out of the dining hall, hoping that he could finally be productive for once without it boring him out of his brain.

//

The results of Koschei’s census (thus far) were exactly as he expected.

Every time he asked one of the questions on his sheet, Jelpax spent multiple minutes going on about the different perspectives to each side of the question before explaining which one was his view, despite the fact that Koschei only asked him to answer “A” or “B”.

And Rallon—sweet, innocent Rallon—spent so long considering his answers on the stupid questions that it made Koschei want to bash his head into the wall. And he did once, though it was his own head, and he didn’t bash it so much as repeatedly bang it into the hard surface. Each time, Rallon assured him that he meant well and that he would answer faster the next time, but he didn’t.

They were on question six out of ten, Rallon pondering his answer, when Jelpax suddenly pointed his phone at him, tapping at the home screen button despite not being able to see the screen at the angle he was holding it. Koschei gave him a look, but it was Rallon who ultimately asked the question.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to find out if this functions as a fast-forward button,” Jelpax answered, his tone filled with boredom. “Or perhaps a rewind so I can stop myself from agreeing to help with this in the first place.”

Koschei couldn’t help but snort, which caused Rallon to sigh sadly. “Sorry,” he said awkwardly. “I’m not trying to make this difficult, I swear. I just want to make sure that I’m giving you the most accurate answers that I can.”

“Okay, well, over-thinking it probably isn’t doing us any favors,” Koschei told him, “and honestly, accuracy isn’t my biggest concern. You see, I was supposed to get three people for this, and I’ve decided to be my own third, so. For all I care, you can say all the bullshit in the world and it probably wouldn’t matter.”

“Then why did you want people to help you anyway?”

“Uh.” Koschei hesitated, suddenly uncertain as to his answer. “Maybe I’m getting a conscience? I don’t know. It just seemed like a good idea; you know?”

“Doing what you were told?” Jelpax nodded, his lips forming a tight line. “Yeah, that’s generally a good idea.”

“Goddammit, why can’t you two just—”

He stopped talking when the disaster happened. As he moved his hands in a dramatic motion, his left hand whacked into the glass he’d set beside his knee, causing his fizzy drink to spill all over the paper and staining the carpet below it.

Koschei stared at the soaked paper in silence, his face expressing a look which didn’t quite say “shit”, but more of “guess I’ll die”. Either way, Jelpax was obviously not amused; gritting his teeth as he tried to come to terms with the fact that the last forty-five minutes of their work were long gone.

Rallon looked back and forth between his friends nervously, chewing lamely on his thumbnail as he watched them in silence, knowing that things were about to explode. Thankfully, it didn’t happen right away, as when Koschei spoke he said only two sheepishly quiet words.

“Uh, oops?”

//

“I am absolutely certain I am going to regret asking this, but what the hell are you doing?”

Theta turned to Vansell dramatically, narrowing his gaze as he met the eyes of his foe. He took a long, deep breath, as if he were incredibly bothered to be interrupted for even the shortest second. He took out his earbuds slowly, staring at Vansell for several seconds before he eventually answered, his tone somewhat pretentious as if he were somehow more important than his friend.

“I am doing my homework,” he answered, leaning forward in the cushy library chair. “You know, like a good, responsible, productive person.”

“Yeah, whatever you say, Mr. Productivity.” Vansell snorted, shaking his head slowly as he leaned forward to be closer to Theta. “It’s just that… you weren’t reading, you were playing a game on your phone and if you were trying to hide it, you were doing an awful job.”

“Shut up, Nosebung,” Theta snapped. “I was not playing a game on my phone; I was just looking for something. You know, like research.”

“You’re in a library, reading a textbook,” he said slowly, “and you’re looking something up on the internet? Right, yeah, that’s believable. Do you think I’m thick?”

“No, I know you’re thick. I just didn’t realize that you were watching me. Or that you were even in here. When did you get here?”

“I was here before you. I’ve been sitting here for like two hours. Are you blind or just stupid?”

“I’m just stupid,” Theta told him quickly, as if that was somehow a fine response despite the fact he’d insulted himself. “And anyway, what does it matter if I noticed you or not? Maybe I just didn’t see you because I was so enthralled in my homework.”

“Enthralled by your homework.” If Vansell noticed Theta rolling his eyes, he didn’t say anything. “And when have you ever been interested in your homework? It’s like, once in a decade you’ll find a class you can’t stop reading about and the others aren’t even on your radar.”

“That is not true. I have even found one class this decade that I care about yet. Wait, that’s probably not the best argument to be using right now, is it? No, yeah, scrap that. I’ve already found like twenty-seven classes I care about this decade.”

“Theta, you can’t just pretend that you didn’t already tell me you hate all your classes.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ve already said it and unless you’ve learned how to erase memories, I’m not going to forget it that quickly. I’m not thick, as we’ve already gone over once before.”

“We’ve gone over it many times, actually,” Theta argued, his tone somehow positive. “It was only one time during this conversation, but countless times overall, I have to admit. I hate to say it since you’re one of my good friends, but honesty, I don’t think people like you very much.”

“Are you trying to change the subject so you can procrastinate again?” asked Vansell, crossing his arms as he leaned back in his seat.

Theta hesitated. “No?”

He may have said no, but the tone of his voice was enough of a ‘yes’ for Vansell to grab his things and head out of the library, not wanting to waste any more of his time on arguing with Theta for no sensible reason.

//

It was during Gallifreyan class the following morning when Millennia finally hit her limit.

Professor Bappal was nice, thankfully, and allowed them to have a break in the middle of their three-hour lecture. However, Magnus was not so nice, and during said break, decided to turn to his neighboring peer (AKA Drax) for entertainment. He started by throwing paper balls at Drax to get his attention, which failed the first few times. When he finally called his name, however, Drax snapped to attention; a slightly dazed look on his face when he turned.

“What?” he asked, before looking down to the paper balls that littered his lap and the floor. “Oh, what the hell? Why does everyone keep throwing things at me?”

“Because you’re going deaf, mate,” said Magnus. “Maybe the hair dye leeched it out. Or it could just be what happens when you become gayer than your body can physically handle.”

“Magnus—”

Before Drax could even finish his thought, Millennia piped up from behind them, her tone more than a tad aggressive. She’d had enough of him the last few days, mocking their friends just because he thought it was funny. She knew that he meant no real harm, but it was too late to repair the damage and she needed him to stop before he crushed his friendship with Drax forever.

“You need to stop,” she snapped. “I know you think this is funny for some reason but it’s very obvious that Drax doesn’t feel the same way and it’s just mean to keep targeting him like it’s some sort of game. Yeah, maybe he’s not your favorite person in the world, but he’s still your friend and it’s not okay to keep bullying him like this.”

Magnus didn’t respond right away, and it was during his silence when Jelpax came back into the room. He walked over to them slowly, stopping in front of Drax and Magnus’s desks rather than going back to his own on the opposite side of Drax. He glanced back and forth between them and then to Millennia as if he were looking for some sort of explanation but didn’t ask aloud.

“Yeah, all right, thanks for… that.” Magnus moved his hands around awkwardly, gesturing to Millennia as a whole. “I really don’t think I’m about to change my ways, but I won’t shout at you since you’re always such a sweetheart.”

“I don’t know, I think she’s kind of a badass,” said Drax, glancing over at her. “Not all the time, but—”

“Obviously. I just meant that she’s always being nice to me versus you who does nothing but annoy me ‘til I want to blow my fucking brains out.”

“Well you know, you could just stop talking to me. It’s not like we ever have much to speak about anyway.”

“Are you sure?” asked Magnus, crossing his arms. “I mean, I’m still rather curious as to what the hell possessed you to do that to your hair. It’s not contagious, is it? Not that I’m worried, just that I wouldn’t look particularly good with—”

“Yeah, you would,” Jelpax cut in, the expression on his face unreadable. He glanced toward Drax, but turned right back to Magnus, his stance challenging. “I don’t know about you lot but I for one think you would look fucking fabulous with purple hair. Or even pink or green for that matter. But something nice and bright to bring out those shining eyes of yours.”

“You want me to think of a gay nickname for you too or is this a cry for ‘dickhead’?”

“Neither. I’m just wondering if you might be a tad uncomfortable with your own masculinity and that’s why you don’t like it when men do things that are more stereotypically effeminate. Remind me how many times Mortimus has told you to cut your hair?”

“That’s different,” Magnus snapped, rolling his eyes. “And you know that doesn’t mean anything because Mortimus quite literally has hung a neon rainbow poster on his wall which says ‘fuck gender roles’. You can visit our room right after class if you don’t believe me, it looks awful in there. Can’t miss it.”

“Okay, but how does it make you feel when he starts making fun of you for that?” asked Millennia, inspiration suddenly striking her. She tried to ignore the few students who watched them argue, reminding herself that they probably wouldn’t even care an hour later. “Doesn’t make you feel very good about yourself, does it? That’s how it feels when you do it to everyone else. I can’t even imagine being Mortimus, taking your crap every day.”

“Mortimus asks for it. He’s a fucking weirdo. You won’t believe me because you want to think the best of everyone but when I don’t make fun of him, he gets all up in my face and starts begging to know why. It’s just something that we do now. Now stop trying to get in our business ‘cause frankly, you don’t know jack shit about what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you know what? Let’s just forget this whole thing.” Drax—who swung his legs around his desk to face them, though it was awkward sitting sideways in the chair—was speaking way too casually considering he was defending the person who borderline bullied him on a daily basis. “I told you it’s not about Magnus, Mil, so let’s just let this go, yeah? It really doesn’t bother me as much as you think. I’m used to it.”

“But you shouldn’t be!” Millennia snapped. She pulled back, shaking herself off as she tried to calm her tone. “Nobody should ever be used to hearing someone say awful things about them, Drax.”

Drax opened his mouth to speak but stopped. He stared at her for several seconds, glancing back and forth between his friends, then shook his head slowly, biting down on his lip. When he finally did respond, he didn’t look at Millennia, but instead over at Jelpax to his left.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” he said quietly.

Jelpax took the hint. “Okay, let’s just leave this alone for right now,” he interrupted, before Millennia or Magnus could say another word. “People are looking at us and this really isn’t something we have time to address before Professor Bappal comes back in—” he glanced down at his watch “—two minutes, so let’s call it, yeah? If you’re so desperate, maybe you can get back to this in a more appropriate setting.”

“All right.” Millennia nodded. “Sorry if we made anyone uncomfortable. I didn’t mean to shout.”

“I’m not really sorry but I do want to say, calling your boyfriend for help?” Magnus made the okay symbol with his hand. “Nice. Real classy.”

Before Drax had the chance to retaliate, Jelpax strode past them, flipping off Magnus on the way. He went back to his own seat and sat down at the desk beside Drax, who looked over to him right as Professor Bappal walked back into the room.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice low so their peers couldn’t hear.

“That’s what I’m here for, darling.”

And with that, they all went back to taking notes; watching their professor lecture in boredom-induced silence.

//

“Thank you for coming back tonight, guys,” said Koschei. “I barely got myself an extension, but I did, obviously, eventually manage to do so. So, you two and Theta are going to be my participants, and—”

“What?” Rallon made a face. “I thought you were going to be one of the people.”

“Well, yeah, but then I realized that I can’t just write my own name down, so I decided to do this from Theta’s perspective instead. Ingenious, isn’t it?”

Despite the failures of the previous evening, Rallon, Jelpax, and Koschei had gathered again after dinner, hoping to recreate what they’d done. Koschei already rewrote most of what they did—to the best of his memory, at least, so there was no guarantee that it was remarkably accurate. He was fairly certain it was, though, so he didn’t worry about it too much. Not like Rallon was likely to say the same things anyway.

“So, we’ve just got a couple of questions left then, yeah?” asked Jelpax. They’d been in there for a whopping three minutes so far, and already he was glancing down at his watch as if they were wasting his time. “Not to rush you or anything, but—”

“The more you talk, the longer this is going to take,” Koschei told him bluntly. “All right, next question. What do you think about…”

The second try went almost the same as the first, leaving ridiculously long silences in place of Rallon’s answers. He went back and forth several times before choosing his stance, while Jelpax chose his almost immediately each time before backing it up with a whole lot of shit that Koschei didn’t bother writing down. He didn’t even have enough space for it anyway.

It was around an hour after they started when Jelpax dropped his face into a pillow and screamed. Not because he was dying of boredom, or because the question was just too stupid, but because Rallon had spent nearly twenty minutes choosing his answer for the next question and it was unbearable to watch.

Once he’d had a good enough scream, Jelpax lifted his head back up, propping his elbows onto the pillow as he looked to Rallon with a highly unamused expression on his face. He sighed dramatically, obviously to get his friends’ attention, and spoke when both Rallon and Koschei were looking at him.

“Please, for the love of god,” he began, looking over to Rallon, “just choose something. Nobody cares what it is. Nobody cares if you’re telling the truth or if you’re a hundred percent accurate or whatever. Remember that Koschei was going to fudge this, all right? All you have to do is pick an answer. So just please—”

“You know what?” said Koschei, a thoughtful look on his face. “I think I’ll just choose what Rallon would do. Commit genocide to save Gallifrey? Yes.”

“That wasn’t the question,” Rallon told him awkwardly. “I mean, that—it wasn’t the question.”

“It is now.”

Whether it was his evil tone or the look in his eyes Rallon did not know, but something induced panic in him that would not fade until they finally parted ways. And as per his luck (and horribly indecisive brain), it was not until nearly three hours later when that finally happened.

//

“You absolute idiot.”

Of course, no Deca meeting was complete without Ushas shouting and someone being an idiot. Generally, the idiot in question was Drax or Mortimus, but that morning, it was actually Koschei. And in fact, it was not even Ushas shouting at all, but Theta, who was going on about something regarding an assignment that almost nobody else in the room understood.

“I can’t believe you said that I would do that!” he gaped, for what must have been the seventy-third time in the past ten minutes. “I mean, of all things you could have said—!”

“How was I supposed to know that you wouldn’t commit genocide?” asked Koschei, as if it was somehow a sensible question. “Based on the way it was worded, I thought it seemed like something anybody would’ve done!”

“Oh, my god! Do you even know me at all?!”

The revelation that Koschei had impersonated Theta came early in the meeting, and somehow, they didn’t seem to mind that their shouting was preventing anyone else from speaking. Not that it would’ve been a better meeting if they weren’t—as mentioned before, they mostly consisted of Ushas shouting about this or that, and nobody truly wanted to listen to that.

“At least he didn’t tell everyone that you were ‘likely to cheat’,” said Rallon. His arms were crossed firmly against his chest, an unhappy look on his face. Millennia rubbed his shoulder reassuringly, but it didn’t seem to relax him at all.

“Hey, that one was valid,” Koschei argued, whipping around to look at him. “I couldn’t remember what you said and you’re so bloody indecisive that I thought for certain you would be likely to get confused again.”

“I’m not going to get confused about a person, Koschei.”

“You never know.”

“Oh, for the love of god.” Ushas stepped away from her usual place against Borusa’s desk, her brow tightly knit in annoyance. “Nobody wants to hear about your whining. Can we get to another topic of conversation now? Something more positive, perhaps? Or I could go on about Drax’s hair. I mean seriously, what a stupid way to deal with a situation. To dye your hair because of colorful hats? What’s next? Getting a nose job because you’ve got a bad haircut?”

“I thought we were finished with this,” Drax groaned. He dropped his head into his hands, running them over his face before he looked back up to her. “We did decide to stop making fun of my hair, yeah? I didn’t just make that up.”

“I’m not mocking your hair, though. I’m mocking the thought process that led to you deciding to dye your hair which, quite frankly, is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard of. No offense to you or anyone else who believed they were stupider.”

“Stop looking at me,” said Mortimus, an odd look twisting around on his face when everyone turned to him. “I am not stupider than him.”

“Nobody said you were.” Magnus crossed his arms, the expression in his eyes showing that he knew very well what he was doing.

“Yeah, yeah, well, I’m not going to be instigated like this.” He hesitated. “That’s the right word, right?”

“Yes, Mortimus, that is the word,” Millennia confirmed. Her tone was far more serious than her friends before her, and as she looked around, everyone stopped to watch as if they knew she was about to go off about something. “After the last few days, I’ve been thinking, and I really believe we need to be nicer to each other. There’s a lot of teasing in the Deca and that’s fine but some of it goes rather far and I think we need to be careful of how far we’re going.”

“I agree.” Theta pounded his fist against his desk, turning to look at Ushas. “Like, if someone is trying hard to be more productive, you shouldn’t mock them just because they’re not doing very well to start out with.”

“To start out with?” Vansell interjected. “Theta Sigma, you have not done one productive thing since you declared you were going to do better.”

“Yeah, so? It’s only been a few days. Just relax, yeah?”

“Okay, anyway,” Jelpax started, clearing his throat to get everyone’s attention. “I believe Millennia’s right. Harmless banter is all right but some of us can go a bit far with it and we don’t want to cross a line and fuck things up, you know? One bad rift and we might never talk to each other again.”

“Sure, whatever.” Magnus waved a hand around dismissively, as if nothing Jelpax said meant anything to him. “Why did you look at me when you said, ‘some of us’?”

“What?”

“When you said that ‘some of us go a bit far with it’, you looked at me. Why did you do that?”

Jelpax glanced over at Drax, who only shrugged. There was no getting away with it at that point. “Well, you’re somewhat of a dick, to put it simply.”

“Well, yeah, no shit.” Magnus rolled his eyes as he crossed his arms, propping his legs up on the empty desk in front of him. “Is that it? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure everyone who’s talked to me for three seconds knows that.”

“And everyone who’s talked to me for three seconds knows I’m perfectly capable of being productive,” said Theta.

They spent the remainder of the meeting debating one of those two statements and it was not the one that was impossible to disagree with.

Chapter Text

“Koschei! Koschei!”

The urgency in Theta’s tone was enough to make anyone fall out of their chair. However, Koschei was sitting on his bed, and luckily only rolled the one foot onto the floor. The book which flew out of his hands and whacked him in the back of the head was rather painful, though.

“What?” he asked, groaning and rubbing the side of his head as he sat up. “I didn’t do it.”

“Do what?” Theta made a face, stopping in the doorway for just a second before stepping the rest of the way into the room. “No, no, Kos, I don’t think anyone did anything. Except that the Academy decided to do this!”

Theta held out a flier in front of him, revealing that the Gallifrey Academy was creating their own band, and that anyone who’s interested should arrive to the tryouts the following afternoon. Koschei’s jaw dropped to the floor when he saw it, and he rushed to his feet to see the advertisement closer.

“Holy shit!” he exclaimed. “We have to do this. Do you know how to play any instruments?”

“No, do you?”

“No, but I can probably play the drums. You know, since…”

Theta didn’t know what to say when Koschei’s voice trailed off. He did know what he was talking about, of course, but it wasn’t a topic that came up often. Especially not during conversations which were intended to be lighthearted. Thankfully, Koschei seemed to realize he’d made things awkward and quickly tried to correct his mistake.

“Anyway, I’m sure there’s something you can play,” he went on. “I mean, there are things out there that are kind of easy, right? Like… uh… the recorder?”

“Recorders are for—wait, wait, I got it!” A thoughtful look appeared on Theta’s face, his eyes widening as if he’d had one of the greatest ideas of all time. “I’m can play the perigosto stick.”

“The… what? Theta, that’s not an instrument.”

“Says who?”

“Says the inventor of the perigosto stick.” Koschei rolled his eyes, the look on his face more confused than anything else. “It’s a children’s toy, like for juggling and stuff. It’s not a musical instrument at all.”

“Then why does it make such great sounds, huh?” Theta argued, crossing his arms and somewhat crushing the flier in the process. “Can’t explain that one, can you?”

“Actually, I can.” He took a step closer to his desk and knocked on the top of it. “Nice sound, yeah? But that doesn’t mean it’s a drum set.”

“It could be a drum set.”

Koschei narrowed his eyes first but it wasn’t seconds later that Theta glared right back at him; his arms crossed tightly against his thin chest. They’d begun one of their many silent arguments—one which hardly could’ve predicted the disasters that were to follow.

//

“Hey, Pax, look what I got!”

“What— oh, Jesus Christ!”

Jelpax practically dove out of sight when he saw the lens of the camera staring at him, his reaction so out of proportion one would’ve thought he’d been dodging a literal bullet. However, it was just his best friend, Drax, looking at him with an odd expression as he flipped the screen of the video camera down and let his arm fall to his side.

“Well, jeez, sorry,” he said, his tone equally as confused as the look on his face. “I didn’t realize you were so afraid of small recording devices.”

“I’m not afraid of it,” Jelpax told him, glancing up cautiously before sitting back upright. “I just wasn’t expecting you to be filming me while I’m trying to do my homework. I’m not particularly fond of being on camera, you know.”

“I do now. But look—” Drax flipped the screen open again but didn’t start filming “—you need this. Maybe it doesn’t matter for most people, but you have a godsend on your head, and I’ll be damned if we don’t have footage to look back on that beautiful hair once it’s gone.”

He pushed a hand through Jelpax’s hair as he spoke, causing his friend to swat Drax’s hand away before he attempted to push his ginger curls back into place. He glared at Drax, his brown eyes narrowing so deeply that they nearly closed as he reached over to snatch the camera away.

Drax leapt back just in time, holding his camera close to his body to keep it away from the hands that most definitely wanted to destroy it. Jelpax didn’t follow him, but spun around in his chair, crossing his arms as he waited for Drax to inevitably speak again.

“That was a compliment, you know,” he said, his tone jokingly bitter.

Jelpax nodded. “I am aware of that, yes. I just don’t really care. There’s seriously no reason to take photographs of my hair, let alone videos. I mean, goddamn, if you want to remember my hair there’s no reason to memorialize my awful accent along with it.”

“Hey, I love your accent!” Drax exclaimed, an almost disappointed look on his face. “At least it’s understandable, unlike mine.”

“Sorry, what did you say? I couldn’t understand that last bit.”

In response, Drax walked over and slapped Jelpax over the head. He winced almost jokingly and spun back to face his desk, reaching down to grab his pen. Right before he could get back to his work, Drax slid his arms over Jelpax’s shoulders and clasped his hands around his chest.

“I thought I just pissed you off,” said Jelpax, looking over his shoulder to his best friend.

“You could never piss me off.”

“I’ve done it literally thousands of times.”

“And I’ve done it to you millions,” Drax countered. He smirked and pulled away, sighing loudly as he flopped backward onto Jelpax’s bed. He reached over and picked up his video camera, holding it over his own head. “It is rather neat, though. I reckon I’ll be able to annoy a lot of people with this thing.”

“Well, you’ve already done it to one.” Jelpax didn’t look to him when he spoke, instead occupying himself with the homework that lay below his hands. “I’m sure you’ll be able to get that count up soon.”

“Or I could just work on getting better footage of the one. This is rather fun to film with, after all…”

Jelpax groaned, hoping beyond anything that Drax would stick to his original plan.

//

“Well, we almost had a decent group.”

Vansell sighed deeply, his arms crossed as he read the list of assigned groups on the wall. Beside him, Magnus nodded solemnly, as if he’d just gotten some awful news. Which he had, of course, though it was only that Mortimus would be helping with he and Vansell’s group history project.

Before Magnus had a chance to say anything aloud, Mortimus walked up behind them, an annoyingly happy expression on his face. He pushed up close to them to see the list through the crowd of students, smiling when he saw that he was paired up with two of his friends.

“Looks like we’re together then, yeah?” he said, throwing his arms around his mates. “Lucky for you, I’m particularly good at history. Not as good as Jelpax ‘cos I don’t have that much passion for it, but I do have a natural knack that I’m sure will come in handy.”

“Really?” Magnus made a face. “You think that you’re actually good at something?”

“Did somebody hurt you?” The question came out of absolutely nowhere and for a moment, Magnus thought he was setting up a retort, but the expression in Mortimus’s dark eyes was far too serious for that. “You’re always so pissed off and I’ve let it go because I figure talking about it will only make it worse, but I think I want to know what’s caused this hatred of life.”

“I don’t have a ‘hatred of life’,” he sneered, “I have a hatred of you.”

“Nope, that’s not true either. If you really hated me, you wouldn’t stick around and quite honestly, I wouldn’t either. You don’t hate me, you just like me in an annoying sibling kind of way and you think it’s fun to pick on me, but it never hurts because you never intend it to. You’re nice but you’re bitter, and the only thing I can’t understand is why.”

Magnus didn’t respond. He only glared at his roommate, this time in a way that was serious rather than the joking banter he nearly always engaged in. Speaking about his private life was not something that Magnus enjoyed nor, in fact, had any interest in doing at all.

“Is it your dad?” Mortimus went on. It was clear he knew what he was doing and didn’t care whether Magnus wanted him to stop. “You’re always writing those letters to him and refusing to tell me what they say. Did he do something to you that made you like this?”

“Okay, stop, you’ve made your point.” Magnus glared at him, glancing over at Vansell to see how much he’d managed to dissect from the information Mortimus so generously spilled. Luckily, he didn’t appear to be in the loop, though he did seem remarkably uncomfortable. “I’ll stop being a dickhead, at least while we work on this project. Happy?”

“Happy? No. Satisfied? Yes. Now let’s get out of here before Vansell dies from awkwardness, yeah?”

Mortimus didn’t wait for either of them to respond before he strode out of the room, the previously gleeful expression not once returning to his face. Once he was gone, Magnus turned to look at Vansell and grimaced.

“So, this is going to be strange, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Vansell nodded quickly, his cheeks still slightly red from the tense situation. “Yes, I rather think it will be.”

//

“I just know that something is going to go wrong. I know it.”

Ushas sighed deeply. “Nothing is going to go wrong, Rallon. You and Millennia are absolutely perfect together. Just keep being yourself and everything will work out.”

“This is the worst advice I’ve ever gotten in my entire life,” Rallon groaned. He dropped his head onto the dining table, covering it with his arms as he shook his head slowly; not seeming to mind that his forehead rubbed against the cold tabletop. “If I act like myself, something is going to go wrong. That’s just who I am.”

“Hey, you’re not stupid, you just—”

“Stupid? I never said that I’m stupid. I’m not. I’m just a magnet for bad luck. I don’t know what it is. It’s actually really weird and I think I might have been this way since the second I’ve been alive. Maybe I’m cursed.”

“Curses aren’t real, you idiot,” said Ushas, dragging a hand through her dark brown hair.

“I thought you just said I wasn’t stupid!” Rallon gaped. “How am I supposed to have any sort of self-confidence when you’re calling me an idiot?”

“Rallon, just chill out, all right?” Koschei interjected. He and Theta were peering over a notebook, obviously disinterested in both their dinner and the other conversations happening around them. “You’re going to do fine. Just because it’s your first official date or whatever doesn’t mean it’s going to be any different from spending time with Millennia now. It’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, until I fall off a cliff or something.”

“So, just don’t stand by any cliffs.” He shrugged and turned back to look at Theta, who was still peering over the notebook and attempting to write something despite the odd angle he was at. “Okay, what are we going to do about this? You obviously can’t play any instruments, so—”

“I already told you that I’m going to play the perigosto stick,” Theta argued.

Ushas made a face. “Wait what? How thick are you, Theta Sigma? The perigosto stick is not an instrument.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that? It is absolutely an instrument. It makes good sounds which means it can be an instrument. That’s how this works. Do you not know what an instrument is?”

“An instrument is many different things, but a musical instrument is something that was specifically designed to produce music. By your definition, I could do this—” she tapped out a quick beat on the table “—and say that it’s an instrument because it makes music-like sounds.”

“No, I could not,” Theta snapped. “And that’s the same thing that Kos said! God.”

“Okay, but then how is that different?” asked Jelpax. He was sitting on the other side of the table—Drax’s legs draped over his lap as he lay on the bench, scrolling through his phone and generally ignoring his friends—and had, up until that point, seemed to not be paying attention. “A perigosto stick isn’t supposed to be a musical instrument either. In fact, I believe it’s intended to be a time tot’s toy.”

“It definitely is intended to be a time tot’s toy,” Mortimus chimed in through his mouthful of food. “I remember chewing on mine a lot when I was in primary school. I don’t know what my problem was, but Mai used to get fucking pissed at me for it. Especially when I chewed on hers.”

“Who the hell is Mai?” Ushas questioned, an odd look appearing on her face as she raised an eyebrow.

“What do you mean, ‘who the hell is Mai?’ You know who Mai is.” He scoffed, pointing his fork at her. “Nice try, though.”

Ushas only sighed and shook her head, not in the mood to bother with Mortimus’s strange shenanigans. She went back to her meal, trying to tune it out when the rest of the group got back to debating the intended function of a perigosto stick.

“Anyway,” said Theta, “I think it’s pretty obvious that a perigosto stick is a musical instrument and even if it’s not, how is it your problem? I’m the one who’s going to be playing it in the band and as long as it makes good sounds, you’ll never complain.”

“No, I won’t complain about you playing it, but I will—” Jelpax cut himself off, suddenly turning to his right to look at his best friend rather than Theta. “Drax, darling, would it kill you to move your feet?”

“Yes,” Drax mumbled, not looking up from his phone.

“Goddamn it.” He sighed and turned back to Theta, a slightly annoyed twinge to his tone. “Anyway, I was going to say that you playing it like an instrument won’t annoy me. You bitching about not getting in because you have no musical talent will.”

“Wow, rude,” Theta gaped. “Just because I’m playing perigosto stick doesn’t mean I don’t—”

“Did you just say you’re playing with a perigosto stick?” The deep sneering voice came out of nowhere behind them, and Theta swallowed hard before he turned around to look at Torvic, his hands curling into fists before the bully even finished his thought. “That’s a children’s toy, you pathetic little bitch.”

Koschei launched into action first. “You better watch your tongue if you want to fucking keep it.”

“Yeah, right.” His laugh was a horrible sound; taunting and malicious yet filled with a disgustingly pleasurable joy. “Everyone here knows I’ve beat you a hell of a lot more times than you’ve laid a hand on me.”

“Sure, whatever. You know what’s funny, though?” Koschei smirked, his eyes glancing behind Torvic as he reached to point to the person who’d shown up at just the right time. “I’m pretty sure he’s beat you more times than you’ve beat me.”

Torvic turned around, stopping in his tracks when he saw Magnus standing in front of him; his muscular arms crossed against his chest and a challenging glare in his eyes. For a split second, it seemed like a fight was going to break out, but Torvic only snorted and turned back around.

“Can’t count on your bodyguard forever,” he sneered.

As he walked away, Torvic smacked Theta upside the head, causing Koschei to leap out of his seat and run at the bully. Magnus stopped him, grabbing onto Koschei to hold him back before he could start a full-blown fist fight, and refusing to let go despite his thrashing protests.

“Why did you do that?” he snapped, yanking away once Torvic was well and gone. “He deserved a punch in the fucking face, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I do, but you don’t need to be getting us all in trouble for it,” said Magnus. He sat down on the other side of Ushas, his glare never drifting from Koschei’s face. “If he touches either of you again, I’ll kick his ass. But until then, just let it go, all right? He’s not worth your time. Hey, Jelpax?”

“What?” asked Jelpax, ignoring the pissed off expression on Koschei’s face and the white color of his knuckles as he clutched them tightly.

“Is Drax sleeping?”

Jelpax didn’t look over until he spoke, but froze where he sat, his face twisting when he saw that Drax had, in fact, fallen asleep in his seat with his phone and hand dropped onto his face.

“Oh, fuck me,” Jelpax groaned, glancing down at Drax’s long legs which were still stretched out over his lap. “I’m going to be here all night.”

//

After classes the following afternoon, Theta and Koschei went straight to the band tryouts.

There were students there from all the academies, turning the corridor outside the gym into a long snake of colorful robes. Koschei held his nose as they passed by a group of Scendeles, gesturing for Theta to cut in line with him so they could stand by the much cleaner Ceruleans.

“Do you think we’ll make it in there before we graduate?” asked Theta, staring up and down at the long line they stood in.

Koschei shrugged. “Good question, but no. I reckon we’ll either make it in there just fine or they’ll end the auditions before we manage it.”

“What auditions?” asked an Arcalian, who stood in line a few feet behind them.

“The band auditions,” Theta answered awkwardly. He glanced over at Koschei with a goofy expression on his face, as if to silently make fun of the other student.

“Band auditions? This is the line for free pretzel day.”

“Wait, you mean this isn’t for the auditions to play in the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five?”

“No, those are in the auditorium,” he said slowly, rolling his eyes. “Aren’t you Prydonians supposed to be smart?”

“Aren’t you Arcalians supposed to be vampires?” Koschei shot back.

They glared at each other, both crossing their arms in a state of defense as Theta tried to make it a three-way. Unfortunately, it wasn’t so easy to have a staring contest with three participants, so he ended up backing away. He grabbed onto Koschei’s upper arm with one hand and started to pull him away, nearly knocking him off his feet as he dragged him backward.

“What are you doing?” he snapped.

“We don’t have time to stand around here and wait,” said Theta. “If the line is like this for some stupid pretzels, god knows we’re going to be the last ones at the band auditions! Now hurry the hell up!”

They practically ran down to the auditorium, Theta letting go of Koschei once his friend realized the seriousness of the situation. They made it to the correct room with minutes to spare and were shocked to see that there was no line outside the room. Maybe they were earlier than they thought?

Uncertain of what to do but not wanting to risk missing it for real, they headed into the auditorium and froze right in the doorway. Because the auditions were happening, it was just that only three other people had actually shown up. Three other people who were not Prydonians and were not the least bit smart in appearance.

“Hello!” called out the adult at the front of the room. He had messy gray hair, his long beard scraggly and the length going down to his pink plaid shirt. “Are you here to try out for the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five?”

“Uh, yeah,” said Koschei awkwardly, as he and Theta moved closer.

“Brilliant. What do you play?”

“I’m on drums and he’s on, uh, perigosto stick.”

“Wonderful! You’re in. Head on stage so we can get started.”

Theta looked over at Koschei as they did as they were told, checking to be sure that his friend was just as confused as he. And, yep, sure enough, neither of them knew what the hell was happening, but they silently decided to roll with it anyway.

After all, what was the worst that could happen?

//

“All right, well, if we’re going to do this, I think we should probably pick a topic.”

“Choose a topic? For our project?” Magnus snorted and rolled his eyes. “What a novel fucking concept.”

Vansell took a deep breath to keep himself from flipping his shit. They’d been sitting in Magnus and Mortimus’ room for nearly an hour at that point, and they’d hardly stopped arguing for more than two minutes. For once, Vansell was starting to wish he’d been put in a group with idiots. At least that would be better than his friends who couldn’t shut up.

“Both of you need to stop,” he groaned, running his hands over his face. “We’ve been here for ages and we haven’t done anything yet. I know you get on each other’s nerves, but you don’t have to bitch the entire time we’re working. I mean, you live together, for god’s sake. You can’t possibly hate each other that much.”

“We don’t hate each other,” Mortimus assured him, ignoring his dark hair as it fell in front of his face. “Honestly, I should be to blame for this entire situation. I probably shouldn’t have pissed him off earlier, but you hit a limit with the comments, you know?”

“Are you talking about my comments or yours?” asked Magnus, despite already knowing what the answer was. “‘Cause if you’re talking about yours, I agree that your idiocy really gets tiring after a while.”

“Magnus, stop,” said Vansell.

“I mean, I’m not trying to be rude. I know a lot of people like you, but personally, I think you’re the biggest idiot I’ve ever met. But that’s just me.”

“Okay, seriously, personal vendettas aside.” It was obvious from the look on Mortimus’s face that the words were getting to him, but he said nothing as Vansell tried desperately to change the subject. “We need to choose a topic for this project. So, which part of the war do you find most fascinating?”

“Well, I actually think the fallout is the most interesting part to me,” said Mortimus, his tone changing as they moved the discussion to a more impersonal topic. “See, after the battles stopped, they had to deal with the aftermath of a lot of the illnesses and it turned out that the fever going around was causing psychological damage, which—”

“Yeah, I think we’re supposed to do something during the war, not after it.” Magnus’s tone was flat, and Vansell was unsure of whether he was trying to piss them off or get his way.

“It’s just supposed to be in the time frame. This is in the time frame.”

“Please, for the love of god, do not start arguing again.” Vansell preemptively rubbed his temples, as if his head were throbbing from the mere idea of another dispute.

Unfortunately, his pleads were not enough to keep Magnus’s mouth shut and within seconds, they were at it again.

//

“Wow.”

Not a single other word came to Rallon’s mind when he saw Millennia step out of her dorm room; her dark blue hair pulled back into a bun and her robes switched out for a bright yellow sun dress. He glanced down at his own button-up and black pants, suddenly wondering whether he’d dressed decent enough or if he’d remembered to comb his hair. If he hadn’t, Millennia didn’t mention it.

“Wow yourself,” she said sweetly, a smile sneaking up her beautiful pale face. “I didn’t even know you owned shoes like that.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Rallon told her, before he could stop himself from making the stupid comment. “These are Vansell’s, I just borrowed them so I wouldn’t have to wear my formal boots or torn trainers. Not that there’s anything wrong with those, of course, they just… don’t really match my shirt.”

Millennia giggled, quickly covering her mouth with her hand as if she realized she’d made some kind of mistake. Rallon frowned, furrowing his brow as he tried to figure out why she was giving him such a silly look.

“What did I say?” he asked, rubbing his neck awkwardly thanks to his sudden self-consciousness.

“Nothing, nothing.” She waved a hand around dismissively, trying to shrug off the comment as if it truly hadn’t been said at all. “It’s just… I’ve seen you wear that shirt with your torn trainers before. A lot of times. It’s one of your most regular outfits.”

“Oh. I, uh, I guess I don’t really pay attention to what I’m wearing on a daily basis.” Rallon laughed, but it was somewhat forced, and he had to push himself to act more natural. He’d been out with Millennia a thousand times, why should this be any different just because it was an ‘official’ date? “Anyway, uh, we should get going now, yeah? Don’t want to spend all our time talking about my torn trainers.”

“No, of course not.”

Somehow, Millennia continued to smile, biting down on her lip slightly as she blushed and walked with Rallon down the corridor. It was hard to explain exactly how spending time with her made him feel, but Rallon knew that there was something about Millennia that made him feel safe. Loved. Accepted.

And no matter how awkward he was, he would do his best to make sure she felt the same way.

//

“Smile!”

Jelpax did not. This time, he did not duck away when Drax pointed the camera at him, but he did spin around in his chair to glare; his lips forming a tight line as he crossed his arms bitterly. Drax didn’t care, however, and continued filming him despite that.

He did, however, turn the camera around so that they were both in frame as he walked closer to Jelpax. In response, Jelpax groaned and pushed his hands through his hair, hoping that if he messed it up badly enough, Drax wouldn’t keep trying to film him. Unfortunately, it did not work, and Drax only leaned in closer to him to get them both within the frame.

“Hello, person from the future who may or may not be myself,” he said, a smile on his freckled cheeks as he wrapped an arm around Jelpax’s shoulders. “It is I, Drax, and…”

He gestured for Jelpax to speak, and he did so with a bitter inflection in his tone.

“His former best friend, Jelpax, who unfortunately stopped speaking to him after he refused to quit filming every aspect of my life.”

“Yeah, whatever. I know you love me.”

Drax leaned down and planted a somewhat ironic quick kiss on the top of Jelpax’s head, pulling away and taking a step back as soon as he did so. Jelpax was hardly entertaining the camera, so there was no real reason to keep it on him; especially not if he wanted to look back on this video and laugh at himself someday.

“Anyway, I’ve just gotten this camera two days ago,” Drax went on, “so this is probably just the beginning of my video blogs. I don’t have a lot of ideas yet, but I’m thinking a day in the life of the Deca might be fun once. Maybe a whole series about each member? Though, Magnus might not be on board with that. What do you think, Pax?”

His face fell when he turned to look back at Jelpax, who was staring straight ahead rather than going back to his work. Drax furrowed his brow, closing the screen on his camera and dropping it to his side as he walked back over to his best friend, his lips frowning in concern.

“Pax, are you all right?”

“What?” Jelpax spun to look at him, blinking quickly as if he were coming out of a daydream and pushing his hands through his bright ginger curls. “Oh, yeah, sorry. I’m fine. I was just thinking about… something. It’s not important.”

“Are you sure?” asked Drax, his tone filled with concern. “If you want to talk, I—”

“No! No, it’s fine. I definitely do not want to talk about it. Just go back to filming, all right? I have to finish this essay.”

Drax opened and closed his mouth, but ultimately decided not to push it. He went back to filming as he was told, hoping beyond anything that Jelpax wasn’t keeping something important from him.

//

“Is it just me or is this really sort of weird?”

“What?” Theta called, placing a hand up to his ear. “I can’t hear you over the sound of how right I was.”

Since the moment the band director had let them in despite Theta’s bizarre choice of musical instrument, Theta hadn’t stopped bragging about how he was right. Even as they tried playing music, even as they introduced themselves to the other members (a Patrex, Cerulean, and Scendel whose names Koschei hadn’t bothered to remember), and even as they took their break; despite Koschei praying to every god he knew that he would get even one moment of silence.

“For the love of god, Theta,” Koschei snapped, “get it together. I know that you want to keep bragging but some weird fucking shit is going on here and we need to figure out what it is before we’re committed to this band until the end of our days.”

“What?” Theta made a face. “I like the band. I think it’s kind of quirky, and it’s definitely far more interesting than I was expecting. I think this could really be fun.”

“You don’t think it’s the least bit strange or unorganized?”

“Unorganized? Yes. Strange, no, not really. Not stranger than anything we’ve done in the past, that is. I mean, say whatever you want, but we’ve done some weird shit in the past, you know what I’m saying? Like, I don’t think most people make their friends bury themselves alive.”

“Wait, what?” Koschei gaped. He blinked several times, replaying Theta’s words over several times in his head, certain he’d heard him wrong. “What did you just say?”

“Were you not there for that?” He frowned until a knowing look appeared on his face. “Oh! Oh, right, yeah, that was with Ushas. No, yeah, we got Mortimus to like, dig his own grave and everything. It was fucking mad. Absolutely hilarious though, ‘til he got stuck in there and we had to yank him out, at least. That wasn’t so fun.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say. But don’t you find the band director kind of odd?”

“Well, yeah, but I mean he’s an Arcalian so what do you expect, right? They’re all kind of strange in my opinion.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about, Thete.” Koschei glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no one else was listening before he went on. “He let you play the perigosto stick, and it’s not even an instrument. No offense to you, but what the hell is up with that?”

“Okay, well, one: I take full offense to that,” said Theta, glaring at him. “And two: he obviously let me play the perigosto stick because I’m ridiculously creative and he just couldn’t even entertain the thought of sending me away.”

“Oh, yeah! That’s it, you’re right!” He nodded, pointing at his friend with a knowing expression on his face. “He let you do it because basically nobody showed up to this thing and he was desperate for members. Turning you away would be a bad choice just ‘cause at this point, he’s got to take what he gets.”

“Hey, are you implying that if more people showed up, he wouldn’t have let me in?”

“No, I’m outright saying that if more people showed up, he wouldn’t have let you in.”

Theta glared at him.

Koschei glared back.

It was going to be a long night.

//

Because they weren’t quite old enough to go far off yet, Rallon and Millennia’s big date took place on the grounds outside of the Academy. They were armed with a picnic basket containing some sandwiches and several of Millennia’s delicious homemade muffins, which Rallon hoped would come in handy should he suddenly run out of things to say. Not that he’d ever stuffed his face to avoid talking to people before, of course.

They held hands the entire way to their picnic spot and that alone was enough to make Rallon happy for the rest of his life. But he didn’t tell Millennia that. Not yet. Not while they still had so much more to do and talk about, even if the simple things were the things that he loved the most. The things like the way she smiled, the sound of her laugh, and the way the suns reflected off her gorgeous bright blue hair.

Rallon didn’t notice those things after they started dating but that was something, he didn’t feel ready to admit yet. That, ever since he’d first met her when they were little more than time tots, he’d wanted to be her friend. He thought she was beautiful from the second he saw her and there was nothing and nobody he’d ever seen who was a more beautiful person to look at or spend time with. Nobody as special as the woman he’d fallen in love with.

“Did you do all this?”

Somehow, Rallon was so distracted by her beauty that he had to blink several times to get himself back to reality. She smiled, clearly noticing his moment of stupidity, but she didn’t say anything. That was one of the things that Rallon loved about her too—she never felt the need to call him out on the things that other people would have mentioned.

Anyway, the “all this” that Millennia was referring to was nothing more than a nice blue blanket and several unlit candles spread around in a clearing in the woods. While he was setting it up Rallon thought it looked nice, but suddenly, he felt like he was staring into the scene of a ritual sacrifice. He shook the thought from his head, praying that Millennia didn’t see it the same way.

“It’s lovely,” she went on, leading him to breathe out a sigh of relief. “I had no idea you were going to do something like this.”

“It was nothing,” Rallon said quickly. Though he did have somewhat of an addiction to humility, this time he was telling the truth. He’d just stopped by on his way back to the dorms after classes finished and set out a few things to make the area look nicer. It hadn’t taken him five minutes. “But thank you. I just wanted to make sure everything was special. Sorry we couldn’t go somewhere more special.”

“This is more special than anywhere else we could’ve gone,” Millennia assured him, her face going soft. She reached out to take his hand as they sat down on the blanket, Rallon dropping the picnic basket down beside them. “Anywhere is special as long as you’re here.”

Rallon was surprised that he managed to sustain his solid form for long enough to kiss her when all he wanted to do was melt into pile of happy mush. Not that he would until he was alone, of course; he refused to collapse before he’d had his fill of the most amazing woman alive.

And thankfully, she wanted the same thing too.

//

“Do you even understand what we’re talking about?”

“Yes,” Mortimus insisted. He took a deep breath before he went on, his face turning red with rage. “I’m not an idiot, Magnus. I’m just looking at it from a different perspective from you. I know that you think it’s weird when I go for the mental side rather than the physical, but—”

“It’s not weird, it’s wrong,” said Magnus. He leaned back against the edge of his bed, crossing his arms bitterly despite the blank expression on his face. “We’re not talking about what these people were thinking, we’re talking about what these people did.”

“Okay, fine. I’ll just shut up. Obviously, I’m full of shit so I’m just—I’ll be back in a minute.”

Vansell watched as Mortimus headed out of the dorm room, sliding the door shut behind him. Neither him nor Magnus said a word to fill the sudden silence, instead taking the opportunity to write down whatever they wanted before he came back and opposed them yet again.

Even though they were meant to be friends, neither Magnus nor Vansell had ever gotten on well with Mortimus. He wasn’t necessarily unintelligent—though he did appear that way sometimes—but he was annoying and insistent and impossible to shut up, which made it difficult to tolerate him for long despite his good intentions.

It wasn’t until almost fifteen minutes passed with no sign of Mortimus when Magnus reluctantly decided to go after him. Mostly because Vansell was bitching about how long he was taking and he just wanted to get away from it, but also because they couldn’t really finish the assignment without the entire group and Magnus was not about to drag this out longer than he needed to.

Having known Mortimus for several decades at that point, Magnus assumed he’d have gotten distracted flirting with someone or having sneaked off to find a snack from the kitchens. However, what he was truly doing was the last thing Magnus would’ve expected, and it made him stop in his tracks the moment he slid the door open.

Mortimus had not sneaked off to the kitchens, nor was he speaking to anyone outside the room. Instead, he was sitting just outside the doorway, his knees pulled up to his chest and his head dropped into his hands. He looked up when he heard Magnus walk out of the room, not saying a word before turning his bloodshot gaze back to his knees.

“I’ll come back in,” Mortimus mumbled, blinking slowly. “I just need a minute.”

“You’ve had fifteen.” Despite what he said, Magnus did not use an aggressive tone. He sighed and slid the door shut, then stepped around Mortimus and took a seat beside him. “Is this about the project?”

He kept his gaze pointed straight ahead. “No.”

“Is it about me?”

“Not the way you think.”

Magnus groaned. Mind games may have been Mortimus’s specialty, but it was not something Magnus himself had any interest in dealing with, especially when he had to decipher what was happening as if he could read minds. Luckily for him, Mortimus seemed to take the hint and went on.

“I don’t care if you make fun of me,” he mumbled, sniffing before he finished his thought. “Everyone does that, and they have good reason. But I’m not stupid and I just—I just don’t understand why nobody likes me. I know I’m a pain in the ass to deal with sometimes but I’m not that awful, am I?”

“Mortimus—”

“Don’t tell me you like me, or that other people do either. It doesn’t make a difference.” Magnus hated how accurate Mortimus always was in predicting what people would say next. “Can you just give me a few minutes? I won’t ditch you lot. I just need to be alone for a bit.”

A good friend probably wouldn’t have listened to the request, but Magnus was not what most would call a good friend and so he did as he was told. If Mortimus said he needed space, he would respect that; regardless of what he might have been trying to imply.

//

Despite the rocky start, the Hot Five’s first meeting ended up going down a fantastic route.

Once Koschei stopped bitching about the unprofessional setting and the fact that they let Theta in with a “fake instrument”, the whole mood lightened up and they started playing some real jams. Okay, so they started off with covers of traditional Gallifreyan songs, but still. Everyone had to start somewhere, and they were getting along great.

Koschei was, as predicted, great on the drums, and somehow, Theta’s perigosto stick didn’t make unbearable sounds. The others were pretty good too, even though one of them was playing a banjo and the Cerulean girl on vocals had way too high a pitch to hit the low notes.

The director was good too, even though he quit halfway through (citing little interest in extracurriculars, or some other half-assed excuse Theta hadn’t quite heard) and left the rest of the band there to figure everything out on their own. It ended up being better that way anyway, though, as the students found it far easier to connect and interact when they didn’t have a stuffy, unprofessional professor breathing down their neck.

As they learned once he was gone (or finally bothered to remember, more like), the Cerulean student was named Pendreashurlemoa—Pendrea for short—and she had absolutely no musical experience aside from singing in the shower. Which, she bragged, she did twice a day, much to the dismay of her roommate.

The Patrex of the group, called Lapuldovigiasrungo or Lapuld for short, was the guitar player and was actually rather good. Much better than the Scendel, Mukrafozostrud (Mukra), who had no talents aside from playing the guitar worse than someone with no experience could have done.

They were a fun group of students, though, and regardless of how “hot” they actually were, Theta had a fun time at their first rehearsal. Koschei’s mood went up and down throughout it, but despite his intermittent bitching, Theta knew that he was secretly enjoying himself too, even if it wasn’t quite what he was expecting when they decided to audition for the band.

“Okay, so,” Koschei started, a notepad in his hand. He’d taken over the job of band director once the music professor left, and quickly turned things around to work his way. “We’ve practiced a few easy songs so we know we can play, yeah? Now, we have to decide what genre we’re going to play in.”

“This is an Academy sanctioned group,” Mukra piped up, scratching a hand through his messy blond hair. “We’re only allowed to play traditional music.”

“Yeah? Well, our ‘Academy sanctioned’ professor is long gone so I think it’s time we take matters into our own hands, yeah? All right. So, what kind of music do you lot like to listen to? Personally, I prefer rock and metal.”

“I like pop,” said Pendrea, her blue eyes shining. “Not bubblegum pop, but upbeat kind.”

“Country is my jam,” Lapuld answered, head bobbing as if he heard the tune in his head right at that moment.

“I exclusively listen to classical,” Mukra told them. “Lyrics scare me.”

“I like… anything.” Theta shrugged awkwardly, glancing around at the stone faces of his new friends. Each of them were clearly standing firm with their opinions, meaning it would be no easy feat to choose which genre their rendition of the Gallifrey Academy Hot Five would choose to pursue. “I’m fine with whatever, though, so…

“Okay, well, then I think we’ll go with metal,” Koschei declared.

There was an instant roar of protest.

“Yelling scares me!”

“I can’t sing screamo!”

“No way I’m playing those riffs!”

Koschei sighed dramatically, as if he’d been expecting a different response even though they’d already told him they weren’t fans of the genre (at least, that was what Theta gathered from their drastically differing tastes in music). He shook his head, his brow furrowing as he tried to think up a solution. Theta beat him to the punch.

“How about we just do a mix?” he suggested, his tone remarkably positive considering the idea would almost inevitably backfire. “We could try different songs in different genres, so everyone gets to play what they want. It would keep things fresh and fun and Mukra, it might help you get over your fear of screaming.”

“I’m afraid of yelling, not screaming,” Mukra grumbled, crossing his arms.

“There’s really not a difference,” said Lapuld, as if he were somehow smarter than Mukra. (He likely was, of course, though he was still only a Patrex and therefore not nearly as smart as Prydonians Theta and Koschei, who hadn’t bothered to comment on the ignorant remark.)

“Okay, anyway,” Koschei interrupted, an odd expression on his face, “let’s just get to the point, yeah? I think Theta had a good idea there. How about we just try something different every week? Or however often we get together? It would be a nice way to experiment with our sound too, since we could test things out without worrying about committing to a genre, you know?”

“Twist it however you want,” Theta started, “we’re not going to become an exclusively screamo band.”

“You never know what we’ll be best at.”

While Koschei did have somewhat of a point, he was missing the other, more important fact which debunked his claim. That being, of course, that Theta did know that screamo would not be their genre. Especially if it scared their banjo player right out of the room.

//

“Hey, Jelpax, do you have that—oh, what the hell?”

Ushas stopped halfway through opening the door, her face twisting into an annoyed grimace when she saw Drax lying back on Jelpax’s bed, a video camera in one hand. She glared at him; her irritated expression turning into one of anger when she realized that he was presently filming.

“Hi, Ushas,” he said gleefully, “welcome to my movie set. How would you like to be a star?”

“Don’t say yes,” Jelpax warned her, pointing a pencil in her direction but not turning around. “He’s got a bucket of gold glitter in the closet and I’m fairly certain he’ll dump it on you if you agree.”

“Hey!” Drax whipped around to look at him, narrowing his eyes as he momentarily lowered his camera. “It’s no fun if you tell her what’s coming.”

“Yeah? Well, it’s no fun having to clean up ten pounds of glitter off our carpet either. Unless you’d like to volunteer to lick up every speck that gets ground into our floor?”

He hesitated. “I mean, it would liven this place up a bit. It’s a tad drag as it is.”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.” Jelpax shook his head, finally dropping his pencil onto the notebook on the desk in front of him before he turned around to face Ushas. “Anyway, you needed something?”

Though she’d clearly come in with a mission, Ushas didn’t answer immediately. She stared at them oddly, glancing back and forth between them as if she were absolutely bewildered by the situation in front of her despite how mundane it was compared to situations, they’d found themselves in in the past.

Eventually, she blinked herself back to reality and answered the question. “Yeah, I was just wondering if you’d finished those notes? For the project we were working on.”

“Oh, shit, no.” Jelpax sighed and shook his head. His expression was disappointed, likely in himself, and he ran a hand through his hair before he spoke again. “Sorry, I totally forgot. I was going to do it last night, but Drax had an exam this morning and he had like no fucking idea what he was doing, so—”

“So?” Ushas prompted, despite being the one who interrupted him. “That’s not your problem, Jelpax. If Drax is going to be an idiot and waste all his studying time, that’s none of your business. It’s not like you’re going to fail along with him.”

“No, I know, but I didn’t want him to—”

“It’s not your problem,” she reiterated. “You babying him is the reason he fails in the first place. He thinks he can waste all the time he wants because you’re always there to save his ass at the last minute.”

“That’s not true,” said Jelpax. He glanced over at Drax for just a second, his expression far from pleased with what Ushas was saying. “He’s not as stupid as you think, Ushas, he—”

This time it was Drax who cut him off with a complete change of subject. He stepped in between them with his camera in hand again, looking back and forth between them as if he were waiting for something to happen before he started narrating.

“Here we’ve got some kind of soap opera drama going on,” he said, as if he were speaking to an audience. “They seem to be quarreling over me, which is kind of ironic because it’s normally me fighting for my own ass when Borusa catches me in the midst of chaos. Not that I’ve ever gotten into trouble before, of course I—oh, who am I kidding? I’ve never been good for a week straight. Even two days is pushing it, really. I’m—”

“For the love of god.” Ushas stomped right over to him and slammed the screen shut on his camera. “We don’t need you getting this on tape, you idiot. If you want to remember anything it should not be an argument. And Jelpax? You better have those notes ready by breakfast or I swear to god, I’m switching partners.”

She said nothing else before she stormed out of the room, her dark brown ponytail flipping around her shoulders as she slammed the door shut. Neither Drax nor Jelpax spoke for several seconds, staring in shock silence at the odd encounter they’d just had. When Jelpax finally did say something, he opted to comment on the more humorous side of the conversation; knowing that Drax likely had little interest in the part discussing his dodgy grades.

“I think that’s the most times I’ve ever been interrupted in one conversation.”

“Really?” Drax made a thoughtful face, glancing down to count on his fingers before he nodded approvingly. “Yeah, you’re right. Even I haven’t cut you off that many times before.”

Jelpax just snorted. He did have a point, even if it was a somewhat ridiculous one.

//

Jelpax was the first one to clap his hands over his head but that was only because Ushas’s brain had already melted out her ears. She’d thought initially that granting Theta’s request for he and Koschei to play some music at the beginning of the meeting would give them some fuel for laughter, but it was more like lying on a metal bed waiting for that bright red laser to slice your body in half.

To say that Theta and Koschei were horrendous wouldn’t be accurate. In fact, Koschei was actually decent at playing the drums, surprisingly enough. But Theta was not playing a real instrument at all, and the sounds it made were something that only should have come out of a children’s toy. Which, she supposed, it technically was.

The worst part of it, however, was the fact that they were clearly only playing two-fifths of a song. The beat was all over the place on the rare occasion there was one at all, and there were several drawn out pauses where a guitar—or, dare she say it, banjo—solo should have gone. It made the song sound ridiculously sporadic, and it was difficult to stomach.

“Okay, stop. Please.” Vansell rubbed his temples slowly, his eyes closed tightly as if he were nursing a headache. “If you two keep making that noise, I’m going to blow my brains out, I swear to god.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” said Mortimus, “but I have a gun if you need to borrow it.”

That got Theta to stop.

“What?!” he cried, dropping his perigosto stick clean onto the ground. It clattered beside his feet, but he didn’t even glance in its direction. “Where the hell did you get a gun?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged casually, as if the idea of him owning a dangerous weapon was no big deal. “You find things.”

“You don’t just find guns sitting around. Are you insane?”

“Yeah, a little bit.” Mortimus glanced around after he spoke, confused as everyone looked at him. “What? I thought I had superpowers once, guys. You can’t seriously think I’m all there.”

He tapped his head with his knuckles, rolling his eyes before he turned his attention back to Ushas and the boys at the front of the room. Somehow, Ushas did not appear too fazed by the revelation that Mortimus possessed a gun—likely because she immediately assumed it to be one which shoots exclusively water or bubbles—but rather spent her energy glaring at Theta and Koschei.

“What?” asked Koschei, narrowing his eyes back at her. “We’re not even playing anymore. And before you start bitching at us, you’re the one who gave us permission to play at the beginning of the meeting, so…”

“Please,” Ushas scoffed, rolling her eyes. She crossed her arms firmly against her chest, adjusting her stance. “I only said yes because if I didn’t, you two would have done it anyway and I would’ve come out looking like the fool.”

“No, because you look far more intelligent having allowed us idiots to curse your ears with that garbage.”

“Well, at least I don’t look stupid for not being able to stop you.”

“How would that make you look stupid?” asked Rallon. His tone was not accusatory like the one his roommate usually used, but rather confused, as if he truly failed to understand. “You can never stop them. Yeah, you try a lot, but you’ve never actually succeeded. At least, not to my knowledge.”

“Shut up, Rallon,” she snapped, her high ponytail whacking her in the face as she whipped around to look at him. “This is none of your business.”

“If it’s none of my business, why do we bother having these meetings? I thought this whole thing was supposed to be about us sharing all of our stuff so we could put in input or whatever.”

“Yes, but not today, and not for you. Since when do you even speak at these meetings anyway? Now shut up at let us talk.”

“I don’t really want to talk anymore,” said Koschei, crossing his arms with his drumsticks still gripped tightly in his fists. “If you’re going to be so rude about our hard work then I don’t think I nor Theta have any interest in pursuing this awful conversation. Come on, Thete.”

They stormed back over to their seats; a triumphant expression shared between them. Ushas only glared, not taking her eyes off the two until someone spoke to her from the other side of the room; his tone far too casual for the stupid words which came out of his mouth.

“Wow,” Magnus mused, “first you surrender to those two idiots, and then you let them have the final word? I think it may be time for you to step down as unofficial, unwanted, nobody-asked-for-you leader.”

Ushas clapped a hand over her chest, feigning offense. “I can’t believe you would act like you don’t want me running the meeting. If I weren’t here, what would you do? Sit around, talk with no direction?”

“Yeah, that’s a good idea, actually.” Drax nodded approvingly, reaching into his bag, from which he pulled out a video camera. Jelpax sighed deeply, Ushas almost fuming at the mere sight of the recording device. “Act natural, everyone. I want to get some footage of the meeting for fluff.”

“Fluff?”

“Yeah, for my documentary.”

Jelpax was the first one to whip around to look at him, his eyes widened as if he too had yet to hear of this strange plan. It was odd, considering he was normally the first to know of Drax’s schemes (assuming it wasn’t something Jelpax would likely turn him into the headmaster for), but not odd enough for Ushas to ask questions. She was more interested in the fact that Drax was apparently planning to film their lives.

“I thought it would be a good idea,” he said casually, glancing around with a bewildered expression on his face. “I mean, we’re basically the most iconic students who have ever attended the Academy. If they’re going to do a doco about us anyway, we might as well do it ourselves so that it’s accurate.”

“Why?” asked Mortimus. “I think I’d like to see who they would cast as me in the unofficial recreation of our events. I mean, they might choose someone really weird, but it could be someone really hot too. Like, way hotter than me. That would be pretty cool, you know what I mean?”

“Are you saying you would rather have someone play you than play you yourself?” Magnus made a face that was almost disgusted as much as confused. “How the hell do you think some random actor off the streets would be better at being you than you?”

“I don’t know. I’m kind of all over the place as a person so getting someone with a head that’s actually screwed on his shoulders would probably work a lot better, you know what I mean?”

“If you’re so desperate to have someone with coherent thoughts, why don’t you just get a teleprompter for yourself or something?” Vansell suggested, one brow raised. “Then you would still look like you, act like you, and hell, actually be you, but you wouldn’t have to worry about knowing what to say.”

“Wait, so you’re saying—” He cut himself off halfway through his thought, clocking his head to the side as he glanced around quickly. “Having a teleprompter is like having someone else decide what to say for you? So, you don’t have to worry about being creepy or anything? Well, that’s just bloody genius. I should get one of those for my regular, day-to-day life, not just this hypothetical documentary thing. Can you imagine how many more dates I would get if I stopped being creepy?”

“I don’t know how many more you would get,” said Magnus, “but I think you would likely make it to more of them. Not that you have a record of scaring people off half an hour before the actual date. Or on the way there. Or in the initial conversation when you’re asking them out.”

“Hey! I know I told you not to be nice to me, but this is just pushing a line. I make it to plenty of dates, thank you very much, and you know it’s true because nobody would keep going out with me if I did not.”

“It’s almost funny that you have a point since it’s so obviously false.”

“Oh, for the love of god. You—”

“Speaking of dates,” said Ushas, cutting him off before he could go on any further, “how was your big one, Millennia and Rallon? First official date as a couple, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Millennia blushed lightly, glancing over at Rallon who quickly turned away, as if hiding the fact that he’d been watching her. “I don’t want to say much, but it was special. It was really, really perfect.”

“And you? Anything to add to that, Rallon?”

Rallon opened his mouth to speak but stopped and shook his head. There was nothing more he could say. Millennia had summed up his thoughts about it in one word and no matter how hard he thought about it, there was nothing he could add to better express his thoughts on their date.

So instead, he just sighed and looked around to his friends before landing his eyes back on Millennia.

“It was perfect,” he said.

And that it was.

Chapter Text

“No. Nope. Absolutely not. No way. You have had a lot of stupid ideas in the past but this one? God, this one really takes the cake.”

“Come on, Pax,” Drax begged. He tugged lightly on Jelpax’s arm, urging him to get out of the chair, but he didn’t. He only shook his head again, his dark stare cold. “It’s going to be fun! Seriously. I know that you think this is a really stupid idea, but—”

“Stupid? No, I don’t think it’s stupid.” Jelpax’s mouth formed a flat line, his tone almost pissed as he spoke. “I think this is downright dangerous. You’ve gotten away with a lot of bullshit before but there’s no way you’re actually going to make it out of this one, you know that? None. And you’re going to get hurt in the process and if I can’t stop you then I’m not going to come with you and watch you make this shit happen.”

“I’m not going to get hurt. Why do you think it’s such a big deal anyone? Millions of people drink every day and nothing bad ever happens to them.”

“So much bad stuff happens to them. Are you disregarding every intoxicated accident which has ever occurred in this galaxy?”

“No, I’m disregarding every intoxicated accident which has ever occurred in this universe.”

Drax and Jelpax had been going at it for nearly twenty minutes at that point. Though Jelpax wasn’t quite certain at what point Drax decided to sneak out to a bar, he did know that he was completely convinced that Jelpax needed to come with him; something that he was not too keen on doing.

As such, they’d argued the entire way back to their dorm room, and the entire time Jelpax tried to do his homework, despite having Drax staring over his shoulder and giving him a thousand reasons why he should put his academia and future potential on the line just to go drink some disgusting alcoholic beverages; something that he did not even approve of in the first place.

“Please?” Drax asked again, dragging out the word. “We won’t do anything crazy and we’ll be back before anyone notices we’re gone. And I’ve already got Theta and Koschei on board so we can pin the blame on them if we have to. Say they like, forced us to come or whatever.”

“Borusa will literally never believe that.” Jelpax rolled his eyes, pretending to scrawl something on his paper just to get his friend to go away. “Now, please, stop begging me. It’s not just the risk factor of this, all right? I don’t like drinking. I’m not comfortable with it.”

“Why not? Just being a party pooper or…?” His tone had been joking, but he suddenly went serious when he realized that Jelpax was refusing to meet his eyes. “Are you not telling me something?”

Jelpax hesitated for far too long before he finally spoke, his words coming out slowly and reluctantly as if he were only saying them to get himself out of a tight spot.

“Just go with Theta and Koschei,” he said. “I won’t stop you, but I won’t come with you either and when I tell you that I told you so tomorrow evening you damn well better be ready for a speech.”

“Okay.” Drax nodded, a small smile on his face thanks to the last part of what Jelpax said. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

//

“I mean, you’re like, kinda cute, I guess.”

Mortimus’s jaw dropped. He’d never heard someone say that he was only kinda cute. They either thought he was drop dead gorgeous or they claimed he was so they could get with him for a night. Nobody told him that he was only kinda cute. That was simply unheard of.

“‘Kinda cute’?” he repeated, his tone almost more bewildered than his expression. “What do you mean I’m only ‘kinda cute’?”

“It’s nothing bad,” Givve assured him, pushing a lock of strawberry blond hair behind her ear. “I mean, there are plenty of people who look odder than you. It’s just… you have a strange sort of quality? I’m not sure how to explain it, but it makes you significantly less attractive. At least, in my opinion.”

“Wow, okay. That’s, uh, not exactly what you want to hear when you ask someone out.”

“Sorry! I’d still love to have dinner with you sometime.” As if he’d still go out with her after that. “If you still want to go out with me, that is.”

“Platonically, maybe,” Mortimus snorted, as if it were a joke. “I’m not particularly interesting in going out with someone who doesn’t even find me attractive. Plus, I, uh, have a girlfriend!”

The words came out of his mouth unexpectedly, the thought suddenly coming into his mind when he saw Millennia passing by them in the corridor. Mortimus grabbed the sleeve of her robe immediately, pulling her over into a hug despite the bewildered expression on her face.

“What?” Givve gaped. Her blue eyes shot back and forth between Mortimus and Millennia as she tried to process the information. “Then why the hell did you ask me out?”

“I, uh, I don’t know.” Mortimus shrugged awkwardly, glancing over to Millennia as if he hoped she’d provide a suggestion. All she gave him was another bewildered look. “I was, er, planning to dump her for you if you said yes. But you think I’m strange looking, so…”

Givve opened her mouth, planning to say something to him again, but stopped and only sighed deeply before she turned back around, heading down the hallway; far away from Mortimus and his apparent girlfriend.

“Thanks for that,” said Mortimus, once she was gone. “I have no idea what just happened there, but I did not like it. You just saved me from a world of hell. Kind of. I mean, she was really pretty, you know? And nice. And it was kind of superficial for me to dump her before we even went out.”

“So, why did you do it then?” Millennia asked him, trying to get past the part about Mortimus claiming they were going out.

“I don’t know.” He took a long, drawn out breath before moving onto his next thought. “Do you think that I’m kinda weird looking?”

“What?”

“You know, like that quality that makes someone look sort of strange and significantly less attractive. Do you think I have that quality and if so, what exactly is it?”

“Is that why you dumped her?” Millennia frowned, crossing her arms as she glanced down the hall, almost wanting to shout at Givve for what she’d done to her friend. “She said that you were kind of weird looking?”

“Uh, not exactly.” He shifted his weight around uncomfortably. “It was mostly because she said that I was only ‘kinda cute’, which I thought was pretty odd. It’s fine, though. I’m probably just over-thinking this. Thanks again for the help, Mil. I really appreciate it.”

Millennia watched him head down the hall silently, hoping that Mortimus wouldn’t try to pursue the toxic situation any further.

//

Theta couldn’t believe how casual Koschei and Drax were acting about the situation.

They’d done a lot of stupid things in their years. Pulled so many stupid pranks and masterminded so many schemes that not even a genius would be able to recount them all. And yet, never before had Theta felt as uncomfortable as he did at that moment. Likely because they’d never actually sneaked out of the Academy before, but also because they were intending to engage in something not only illegal, but addicting and dangerous.

Despite his fears, Theta said nothing to his friends. He’d promised he would come along, and he had no interest in backing down for fear of coming off as a coward. That said, he also had no problems with subtly questioning his friends’ judgment and decided to make sure they weren’t going absolutely insane.

“Are you absolutely certain that this is a good idea?”

Koschei rolled his eyes as he hoisted his backpack over the fence. “Yes, Theta, I am absolutely certain that this is going to be a hell of a time. Are you getting cold feet?”

“I’ve stowed some toasty packs in case you are,” Drax added, swinging his long legs onto the thick fence and dragging himself to the other side. A quiet thump echoed around them when he dropped onto the ground. “Now come on, you pussies. We have like forty seconds until the guards pass by again.”

Though his hearts were pounding in his chest, threatening to leap right out should he frighten himself any more than he already had, Theta did as he was told and crawled over the fence to meet Drax; Koschei following close behind them. Theta did only have two choices at that point anyway, and as much as he hated it, he was less likely to get caught should he move ahead than try to outrun the guard back to the dorms.

Once they were successfully behind the wall (only ducked behind it as they didn’t want to stand up before the guard was again out of sight), the next part of the plan was in motion. The part of the plan which terrified Theta the most because, as much as he loved Drax, he didn’t quite trust his ability to take them to the bar when they’d never gone before and all he had to base it off was a poorly drawn map. Why? Because Drax insisted they couldn’t take their phones out of fear of being tracked. It did make sense, Theta had to admit, but that didn’t mean that he had to like it.

“Okay, we just have to make it through the woods,” Drax started, his voice low, “and then it’s only a short walk past the citadel. We’ll be there in like, twenty minutes. Tops. Try not to bitch too much when you inevitably trip over your own two feet, Thete. Don’t need to be dealing with that all night.”

He didn’t give Theta a chance to respond before he hopped up to his feet and headed off towards the woods; not looking back once to check that his friends were actually following him.

//

“Vansell.”

It was not upon hearing his name but upon feeling a touch on his shoulder when Vansell whipped around to see who was there. He looked up straight into the light green eyes of Magnus, who for once did not look angry or bored. Instead, he appeared to be somewhat determined, as if he’d come with a mission and he did not intend to leave without completing it.

“I’m kind of in the middle of something here,” said Vansell.

The lie was flimsy, as anyone could have told by the emptiness of his dinner plate and the fullness of his homework sheet, but Vansell hoped he could get away with it anyway. He did not.

“Yeah, well, so am I and mine is time sensitive, so…” If Magnus noticed how shitty his fib really was, he didn’t comment on it. “Anyway, I need your help with something. And don’t you dare try to refuse me because you still owe me a favor from you-know-what and I’m not about to forget about that.”

“Does this constitute as blackmail?”

“It does not, because you agreed that you owed me something after the shit I pulled for you.” He glanced over at Rallon, who was watching them on the other side of the table and quickly look away when he caught Magnus’s eye. “Anyway, you might have noticed that Koschei has sneaked out of the Academy. I don’t know where he’s gone, I don’t care where he’s gone, but I know that he stole something from me last semester, he’s acting like he didn’t, and now is the time for me to get it the hell back.”

“And why do you need my help with this?” asked Vansell. A small part of him hoped that Magnus would let it go if he realized that there wasn’t much Vansell could do about it, but he knew it was fruitless. “It can’t possibly be that difficult to find one thing, can it?”

“No.” Magnus shook his head thoughtfully. “Not on Theta’s side of the room. But I reckon we’ve got about a decade left until Koschei reaches full Mortimus status which means I need some help if I’m going to find it before he gets back.”

“You want me to help?” Rallon offered, his mouth half full of dessert cookie. “I’m not doing anything and if this is really time sensitive, I don’t mind. I’ll take any excuse to get out of law homework for a few hours.”

“God, you bitch about that a lot,” sighed Vansell. “Have you ever thought about changing your major?”

“No. It’ll be worth it in the end. Hopefully.” He made a face. “Anyway, you want my help? Yes or no? ‘Cause if you don’t, I’d be all right sitting around eating cookies too, I just need to know which one I should commit to.”

Magnus stared at him for several seconds before he finally sighed and gave in. “All right, you can help too. Both of you need to be at Theta and Koschei’s room in twenty minutes. We won’t have more than two hours to search if they’re planning to be back any time before curfew.”

The only flaw with Magnus’s plan was, of course, that they were not.

//

Millennia hadn’t been intending to snoop on Mortimus, but she couldn’t help but notice that his door was ajar when she walked by.

She only barely peeked her head in at first, not wanting to interrupt if he was doing something important but stopped when she saw that he was doing the exact opposite of that. Rather than working on homework or anything else at least marginally productive, Mortimus was sitting on his bed with a small mirror in his hand; running his hands through his hair over and over as if it would somehow make a big difference.

“What are you doing?” asked Millennia quietly, hoping she wouldn’t alarm Mortimus too much as she slid the door open.

Unfortunately, Mortimus was far jumpier than she’d expected, and he leapt out of his seat, sending the mirror crashing onto the floor. It didn’t shatter but got a nasty crack in it, which caused Mortimus to stand there staring at it for several seconds in silence, an unreadable expression on his face. When he finally voiced his thoughts, he did not say anything along the lines of what Millennia might have predicted.

“That’s seven years bad luck.”

The line threw her for such a loop that she momentarily forgot what she was in there for. It wasn’t until Mortimus suddenly shrugged and hopped back onto his bed—leaving the cracked mirror in the pile of junk directly beside it—a totally casual expression on his face.

“Anyway,” he began, “did you need something? ‘Cause I was in the middle of something but now I don’t think that’s really relevant anymore. Not unless I want to see a weird, distorted version of my face.”

“I’m so sorry about that,” said Millennia. “I really didn’t mean to scare you; I just saw that the door was open, and I was wondering what you were doing. It looked like you were pretty intently staring at your reflection there.”

“Oh, yeah.” Mortimus sighed, glancing down at the broken mirror before turning back to her. “I was just trying to figure out what that strange quality was. I still don’t really understand it. Not that I’m concerned about it or anything, I’d just like to know if it’s something I can fix. Or if it’s something that maybe other people have been noticing on me for a while now and maybe that’s why I lose so many potential datemates.”

“Mortimus, honey, you don’t lose datemates because of your looks. You lose them because of your personality.” Millennia realized her mistake before the look on his face dropped and she immediately backtracked. “Oh, god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean it like that. You’re a really good person, you just get a little… nosey sometimes. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do. But my personality has no bearing on whether I’m attractive so please just tell me what it is that makes me look strange. I’ll never be able to sleep without knowing.”

Millennia sighed deeply. “There’s nothing strange about you, Mortimus. It’s just one person’s opinion. You don’t have to get so hung up on it, okay? Just because she thinks that there’s something odd about you doesn’t mean there actually is. I promise you look fine.”

“All right, I’ll chill out about it.”

…said no Mortimus ever.

//

“We must be getting close.”

By that point, they had been walking for nearly half an hour—which was not twenty minutes, thank you very much—and Theta’s legs felt like they were about to fall off. Not because he’d tripped over his own two feet of course, but because he’d stumbled over a log and scraped his knee. Which was not what Drax predicted and therefore, he was still technically incorrect.

“How can you tell?” asked Theta, his voice hoarse. A drink suddenly didn’t sound so bad anymore.

“Because I can hear the shouting of drunk shobogans,” Drax told him. He rolled his eyes, as if the answer were the most obvious thing in the world. Which, honestly, was not entirely inaccurate.

The cries and cheers of the shobogans could be heard from miles away, not to mention the bright lights which poured out of the tavern building like an actual nightclub. The music was ridiculously loud too, but Koschei seemed to be interested in going in so Theta decided not to comment on it. The inside of the little wooden building couldn’t be that scary, could it?

Wrong.

Though it wasn’t necessarily scary, it was so loud and busy that Theta felt instantly intimidated. His hearts pounded as he checked his fake I.D. with the man at the front, looking around to the drunken adults that littered the area. Somehow, Drax and Koschei didn’t appear to be too put off by the scenery at all and prodded on with little care.

Theta was hoping that they would at least settle in and get used to things before they got to the actual drinking part, but apparently that was the settling in, because Drax pushed them straight over to the bar. They each sat upon a stool, Drax ordering some alcoholic beverage for them all which Koschei seemed somewhat excited about to Theta’s disappointment. He’d never been too keen on drinking, and he hoped they wouldn’t go too far with it. Especially since they still had to walk home after they finished, and that would be no easy feat whilst drunk.

“Cheers, lads,” said Drax, holding out his bottle to clank it together with Theta and Koschei’s. “We’re officially men now. Not that we weren’t men before, but this drink here will be a tangible step into our impending freedom, and—all right, that seriously got away from me, so speech is over now. Drink up.”

Unsurprisingly, they all had different reactions to their first sip of alcohol.

Theta practically gagged on it, finding the burning sensation as it slid down his throat to be one of the most unpleasant feelings he’d ever experienced. The taste itself wasn’t the most awful thing in the world, but the texture and associations that came with it were just awful.

Koschei found it to be a somewhat bittersweet sensation. It certainly went straight to his head, putting him in a kind of ditzy feeling almost instantaneously, but it wasn’t all around terrible. He did, however, find the feeling of disassociation to be somewhat disorienting, and it was rather unnerving, to say the least.

And then there was Drax. He didn’t find the burning, taste, or odd sense of freedom to be the least bit uncomfortable. No, somehow, he felt like the sudden muffling of his senses was incredibly nice; all his fears, worries, and uncontrollable anxieties slipping away within mere moments of downing the alcohol. People really meant what they said with the phrase ‘takes the edge off’, as he learned that evening.

“Well, this is fucking bizarre,” Koschei said eventually, placing a hand up to his head as if it would stop the room from spinning.

“Yeah, you’re telling me?” Theta blinked several times. He placed his bottle onto the bar counter, not intending to take another sip. “This is way too weird.”

“I like it,” Drax confessed, his gaze locked on the bottle. “I just feel like, really chill for some reason. This must be what people are always talking about when they say a drink will relax you. Before you get stupid wasted, at least, which is probably what we’re going to do next.”

Koschei took another swig when Drax began to down the rest of his bottle, but Theta only placed his drink up to his mouth before he put it back onto the bar counter. It was pretty obvious already that his friends were planning to get absolutely drunk, and someone had to be able to find their way home. Assuming they didn’t want to be kicked out of the Academy, at least.

//

“And… it’s locked. Brilliant.”

Rallon sighed and took a step back from the door. Magnus and Vansell were on either side of him, wearing the same expression on their faces that Rallon couldn’t quite identify. Until Magnus explained it, that is, and suddenly he felt like the biggest dunce in the world.

“A door that’s locked?” he gaped sarcastically. “I never would have guessed. And here I was, thinking that everyone else in the world left their doors unlocked all day, and not just Mortimus. Speaking of, I might just go pop it open now. I do rather feel like being robbed this evening.”

“Okay, that’s enough.” Vansell pushed past Magnus to get closer to the door, giving Rallon a playful nudge on the head when he spoke next. “Rallon here isn’t as used to it as your own roommate, so you have to cut him a little slack. He’s real sensitive, you know. Cries himself to sleep five nights a week.”

“I do not!” Rallon exclaimed. He truly didn’t; Vansell was just pushing at the buttons which were way too easy to reach.

“All right, all right, you don’t. But you do mumble about Millennia quite a lot when you’re sleeping.” Vansell got down on his knees, jamming a paper clip into the keyhole. “I wasn’t going to mention it because I thought it was rather embarrassing, but I’m sure Magnus won’t tell, will he?”

“Nope.” Magnus shook his head, crossing his arms. “This sounds like something I should save for a rainy day. Though, it is romantic enough that people will probably let it slide rather than mocking you for it. I’ll keep that in mind when I’m choosing which method of revenge to hit you with in the future.”

“What?” Rallon stumbled slightly, looking around as if the answer would physically appear to him somehow. “I haven’t done anything to you!”

“Not yet, but I have to keep my options open just in case. You never know when someone might fuck you over.”

Just then, the lock clicked and Vansell stood up; reaching out to slide the door open as he did so. Magnus went straight into the room behind Vansell, forcing Rallon to trail behind them somewhat pitifully.

Theta and Koschei’s room was somewhat like Magnus’s own, but it was extreme in the opposite way. Rather than the left side of the room being a hellhole and the right side looking okay, the left side was ungodly clean, and the right side looked like Mortimus left a quarter of his stuff in there for storage.

Rallon sighed as he looked around Koschei’s side of the room, unable to keep the grimace off his face. Volunteering to help with the search was a stupid idea.

“I’m having flashbacks to that time you lost your phone,” he mumbled.

Vansell nodded as he began to search. “You’re not alone, my friend. You’re really not alone.”

//

“Do you think a haircut might help?”

Rather than the cracked mirror, Mortimus was staring into the back of a spoon, which he somehow found to be more effective. He had resumed pushing his hair around, trying to see if he could somehow make himself look better with a simple comb, but ultimately decided he would need to take a more drastic approach.

“No, I don’t.” Millennia sighed deeply. She was sitting at Magnus’s desk chair—because it was far cleaner than Mortimus’s, even if she was further away from him—and had been for around ten minutes at that point. “I don’t think you need to change anything. This one person’s opinion shouldn’t make you feel bad about yourself.”

“I don’t feel bad about myself, Mil. I just want to make sure that I’m the best Mortimus I can be, and the best Mortimus is not strange looking. Now, tell me honestly, what do you think of my clothing?”

Millennia scanned him up and down, checking out his light pink t-shirt and gray sweatpants, then stopped and shook her head. “I don’t see why it matters. You only ever speak with people when you’re wearing your robes, anyway, so why does it matter what you’re wearing on a normal day?”

“Dunno, just thought it might spice things up a bit.” Even though they were talking about his supposed flaws, the tone in Mortimus’s voice was surprisingly chipper. “Well, if that’s not the issue, what else might I try? I don’t really think makeup is for me, but I suppose I could try it if you think I need a bit of contouring or something…”

“No! I don’t think you need contouring; I think you need to stop basing your opinion of yourself on what other people think. This isn’t okay. You’re a psych major, you should recognize that this isn’t healthy.”

“Should I?” Mortimus made a face as if he were thinking, then shook his head. “Nah. I recognize these things on other people, but I really have no patience to analyze anything when it comes to myself. Now help me figure this out so I can get Givve to go on another date with me.”

“I thought you never made it to the first one?”

“Yeah, same thing.”

It was not, but Millennia didn’t bother saying anything. That was the least of her problems at the moment—especially since Mortimus made it clear that he had no intention of changing his mind in a timely manner.

Even knowing that it was a potentially fruitless task, Millennia silently vowed to do her best to stop Mortimus from pursuing his crazy makeover. She couldn’t stand to watch one of her friends suffer for a girl; especially not someone as friendly as Mortimus.

//

“Koschei, please, for the love of god, do not do this.”

“It’ll be fine, I swear.” Koschei pushed up the sleeves of his long-sleeved black shirt, cracking his knuckles as he approached the long wooden table. “I might look like a stupid kid, but I am way stronger than you think.”

“I don’t care how strong you are,” Theta cried, reaching out to grab his shoulders, “you can’t beat that bloke! Have you seen the size of him? He won’t just bend your arm, he’ll fucking crush it!”

The situation that Theta was referring to was the awful challenge Koschei had taken up to compete with an enormous, drunken shobogan at an arm wrestle. The man’s arm alone made up several of Koschei’s making it clear that he was not going to succeed, but Koschei was too far wasted to properly think through the repercussions and refused to listen to any sense.

“No, he won’t,” Koschei insisted, rolling his eyes. “I’m going to be fine, Thete. I bet I’ll even win.”

“You’re not going to win, you’re going to break your arm and we’re going to have to explain this to the nurse, the Headmaster, Borusa, Runcible, and anyone else who catches us out of the dorms after hours. You don’t have a chance in hell at winning this and the only reason you think you do is because you’re fucking wasted.”

“I am not wasted. Am I wasted, Drax?”

Drax, who was blinking repeatedly as if he were unable to properly see, shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. You haven’t had as much to drink as I have and I’m totally fine. I’m—”

He nearly stumbled over his own two feet, but Theta caught him before he did. Once he was back on his own feet, likely not going to fall over again, Theta took a step away from him and reached out to take his drink, placing it onto the counter beside them. They were finished with the alcohol, and that was it. Theta wouldn’t let them have another sip if he could help it.

Determined to get his friends out of there as soon as he could, Theta turned back around to grab Koschei—and found that he was already grasping the drunken shobogan’s thick hand, his fingers barely wrapping around the man’s palm.

Theta swallowed hard, knowing already that no matter what happened during the arm wrestle, it was not going to end well. He leapt forward as fast as he could, hoping he could drag Koschei out of there before it was too late. But before he could make it over there, the man at the head of the counter called for them to go and they started the match.

Koschei lasted a whopping three and a half seconds before he folded under the pressure; an awful cracking sound echoing around them as his arm slammed into the surface of the wooden table. Theta silently hoped that it was the wood that had cracked and not Koschei’s arm, but there was no way for him to know for certain until he got his friend out of there and back into the safety of the shitty wooden bar stools.

Him and Drax had to practically drag Koschei up into the stool, which was remarkably difficult considering Drax was still drunk off his ass himself. He wasn’t saying or doing anything too stupid yet, but he was stumbling around and almost dropped Koschei before they got him slumped over the counter, mumbling something about losing.

“Okay, I’ve had enough of this shit,” Theta snapped, hopping into the stool beside him. He waited until Drax had dragged himself into a seat as well before he went on. “You are both having a coffee and then we’re going home. And if we get in trouble, I’m turning both of you in.”

“All right, Mum,” Drax sneered.

Koschei said nothing at first, rubbing his right arm gently. “Think I got a hell of a bruise,” he whimpered.

“Yeah, well, what did I tell you?” Theta rolled his eyes, unashamed to be mocking someone who’d so obviously failed to heed his warnings. He wasn’t going to take any pity on Koschei if he didn’t have to. “You’re a fucking idiot when you’re drunk, you know that Koschei Oakdown?”

“Don’t use my surname, that just makes you sound more like a mum.”

“That how your mum shouts at you?” Drax mumbled, taking another sip of his drink before Theta could even try to stop him. “Must be nice. My mum just calls me a piece of shit.”

Theta wanted to shout at him for drinking more but suddenly felt frozen by the unprecedented comment. When sober, Drax never mentioned his parents, or anything about his family at all. He was secretive to the point that Theta was even certain Jelpax knew next to nothing about his life away from the Academy.

But there he was, drunk off his ass, making off-hand comments about his mum being a jerk and Theta couldn’t figure out whether he was being serious or if it was some kind of insensitive joke. It was impossible to tell from the look on his face, and Theta didn’t know if he should assume it to be true or not.

“You all right, Drax?” he asked. He was still uncertain of his choice of what to say, but he didn’t want to push any specifics, especially when Drax might not even remember the conversation the following day.

Drax nodded but didn’t turn to look at his friends. He stared at the bottle in his hands, which now rested on the counter, his eyes barely even blinking. His fingers, however, were shaking a surprising amount, and suddenly Theta couldn’t help but wonder whether something was wrong or if he’d just had too much to drink.

“You kids need some coffee?”

The deep voice came from behind the counter, out of the mouth of a heavyset bartender with a handlebar mustache. Despite his intimidating appearance, the man seemed quite nice, and was already turning around to grab a few glasses before Theta could even accept his offer.

They didn’t technically serve coffee there but the bartender kept some in the back for his breaks and he didn’t mind sharing it with the youngsters who sneaked out from the Academy (because no, they were not the first students to show up there before). Theta was deeply grateful and once they had their drinks, he handed one each to Drax and Koschei and gestured for them to head outside. The coffee wouldn’t do anything if they were still breathing in all the booze and smoke that filled the walls of the small building.

When they sat down, they only sat down on the steps at the back of the tavern, but it was enough of a start for Theta. They wouldn’t be able to leave while his friends couldn’t walk anyway, and he would rather wait outside in the fresh air than back in the building where the shobogans were so loud he couldn’t even hear himself think.

As he looked back and forth to his friends on either side of him, Theta found only one thought running through his head over and over. If only he’d been able to talk them out of this scheme in the first place.

//

“Well, I’ll be damned if we haven’t searched every inch of this place already.”

Vansell gaped and whipped around to look at Rallon, one hand clapped over his mouth dramatically. “I’m sorry,” he started, “but did you just say a bad word?”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Rallon answered, suddenly overly conscious about his choice of words. “And anyway, it’s not like I’m that—”

“Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of hell freezing over.”

Unlike the two doorknobs behind him, Magnus was not interested in narrating their misadventure. He was too busy searching through every drawer that Koschei had, looking for the item that he’d lost. Or rather, the item that Koschei had so ruthlessly stolen from him.

Unfortunately, the world had other plans for him, and he was interrupted by someone who was not intended to enter the picture at all. She knocked on the door once before she walked in; freezing in the doorway and performing a double-take when she realized that she was not looking at the actual occupants of the room at all, but rather the three blokes who had broken into it.

“What the hell are you doing in here?” asked Ushas, her tone far more confused than accusatory. She did a quick glance around the room, her expression becoming even more bewildered when she realized that neither Theta nor Koschei were even in there at all. “Where’s Koschei?”

“He’s at the tavern, I think,” said Magnus casually. “That’s what Mortimus overheard, at least. Not really any of my business. What do you want?”

“Well, I wanted to see Koschei to lend him some notes—” she held up a notebook to prove her point “—but obviously he’s not here so I guess I’ll just put these on his bed and leave you lot to it. Whatever ‘it’ is.”

She walked over to Koschei’s bed, still looking around the room as she tried to get her task over with without engaging in too much conversation with the boys. However, despite her disinterest in saying anything else to them, her natural curiosity got the better of her and she stopped herself right before she left the room, spinning back around in the doorway.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, crossing her arms.

“I…” Magnus hesitated, glancing over at Rallon and Vansell before he answered. “That’s a question you probably don’t want answered.”

And, because she didn’t care enough to pry further, Ushas only shrugged and strode down the hallway; not one fuck spared for the poor souls still searching the dorm behind her.

//

“That’s it, I’ve got it.”

Mortimus and Millennia had been sitting quietly for around twenty minutes, flipping through magazines and relaxing in a way that Millennia hoped would help Mortimus to change his mind on the whole situation. Unfortunately, it didn’t quite turn out that way, and Mortimus took away the wrong sort of inspiration from the event.

“I’m going to become goth,” he declared, slapping down a large spread on one of the magazines which depicted a wide range of emos, goths, and otherwise evil looking individuals. “It’ll be a whole new Mortimus. Nobody can say that I look strange when I look nothing like I did before.”

“You wouldn’t look any less strange though,” Millennia told him, uncertain as to how she should deal with his new idea. “I mean yeah, you would look a lot less like yourself, but you would only look stranger, you know what I mean? Most people don’t think that goths look normal, so I doubt you’d get an increase in dates.”

“Wait, you think I would actually like, lose dates if I did this?” A perplexed expression made its way onto Mortimus’s face, as if he could hardly understand the concept. “But I would look really good. Don’t you think this is a cool look with the mohawk and the crazy makeup and everything?”

Millennia opened her mouth to answer the question but couldn’t find the words to say. Because no, it was obviously not a good look or a cool look or anything of the sort. She would have thought that to be obvious, especially on a person who possessed a kind heart.

“Do not change your look for a girl, Mortimus, please,” she said eventually. “If she can’t accept you for who you are now then you deserve way better than her. Don’t settle for this, please. Just wait for the right person to come along.”

“But—” Mortimus cut himself off halfway through his thought, his face twisting. “What if I just did it for myself though? Because I really do think that this is a cool look. I’ve never really looked at magazines before but there’s all kinds of cool styles in here. I might try a bunch of them. Like, did you see that preppy one? It’s like Jelpax but better.”

Millennia sighed deeply, rubbing one hand against the side of her head. She might have saved Mortimus from a bad relationship, but she’d created a monster in the process which could end up being worse than a short-lived heartbreak.

//

“So, this may have been a bad idea.”

They were still sitting on the steps outside the bar, Drax holding his head in his hands and refusing to look up as he spoke. Theta wasn’t sure whether the headache had kicked in already or if he was simply regretting what he’d said with his loose tongue, but he didn’t ask. He wouldn’t be a good friend if he tried to press for information under the circumstances, and besides, that was Jelpax’s job, not his.

“Yeah, you think?” Theta mumbled. He didn’t really want to say ‘I told you so’ when his friends were so obviously miserable, but he was already planning how he would spring it on them several times if they managed to make it back to the Academy that evening. “This was an awful idea.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” said Koschei. He was still nursing his injured arm, which thankfully did not appear to be broken, but was definitely developing a deep bruise, which they could likely get away with. “I mean, I had some fun in there. Mostly when we were like dancing around and joking about the shobogans, not when I was getting my arm fractured, but still.”

“I actually thought it was pretty fun, I just—” Drax cut himself off, moving his hands away from his face but still staring down at the ground beneath him. “I already have a very small filter with what I say, and I think I probably said some really stupid shit in there. Plus, I thought that it was—”

He broke off his speech and neither Koschei nor Theta bothered to ask him to go on. It was clear that he had no interest in doing that, and honestly, Theta was already feeling like it was time to forget everything they’d done that night already.

“What time is it?” asked Koschei.

Theta glanced at the watch face on the inside of his wrist. “Hour ‘til curfew.”

“We need to get back, unless you want to be facing the wrath of Borusa and/or Runcible. And I think there’s a good chance they’ll be able to tell if we’re absolutely wasted.”

“I am not absolutely wasted.” Despite what he said, Drax barely made it to his feet thanks to his inability to quit stumbling. Theta leapt up to grab his shoulder, steadying him to help him find his footing. “Thanks, mate. I’m still not absolutely wasted but I might be a little bit tipsy.”

“A little tipsy?” Koschei rolled his eyes as he stood up beside them, placing his empty coffee cup onto the steps behind him. “At least I can still walk properly. You look like you’re about to fall over. I mean, Jesus Christ, even your hands are shaking.”

Drax pulled his hands into himself, almost hiding them under his arms. “I’m just cold,” he insisted. “Now, let’s just go. We seriously need to get back soon or we’re going to have detention for the next decade. And that’s probably an understatement.”

Theta followed him, glancing over at Koschei as they headed back into the woods. Sure, it was going to be a long, shitty walk while they were all tipsy, but Drax was right. A decade of detention was an understatement.

//

Vansell was pretty sure the search would have been easier if Magnus would just tell them what they were looking for, but every time he asked he got the same response which was nothing more than a vague, “You’ll know when you see it.”

Though it may have possibly been true, Vansell had, so far, not known when he saw it. Which meant he either hadn’t come across it yet, or he had, and he just completely overlooked it because he had no idea what he was looking for, thanks to Magnus’s awful instructions.

Rallon was having the same problem. He was scanning Theta’s side of the room at that point, making sure that Koschei hadn’t stashed whatever it was over there, but there was no sign that he had. Everything was in ship shape and he couldn’t find anything that looked like it might belong to Koschei.

“Are you absolutely certain you don’t want to tell us what we’re looking for?” asked Rallon exasperatedly. “I’m not saying you really, truly have to, but it’s a tad hard to search for something when I have no freaking idea what it is that I’m searching for, and I’m fairly certain Vansell feels the same way.”

In response, Vansell nodded, slamming yet another drawer shut as he did so. He had small temper and he was getting pissed at the whole thing, especially since he couldn’t just leave without owing Magnus yet another favor. Note to self: never let Magnus help him ever again.

“I’m not just saying that,” said Magnus, rolling his eyes. “You’re going to know when you see it, I promise. I’m not just blowing steam out my ass.”

“Still, it would be easier if you just told us what it was,” Rallon groaned. He slid down into Theta’s desk chair, sighing deeply before he dropped his head into his hands. He had no idea how long they’d been searching for at that point, but it felt like forever. “I could have been staring it in the face—whatever it is—and none of us would have any idea.”

“You will, believe me.”

Rallon did not believe him. Magnus was probably one of the most untrustworthy people he knew, second only to Vansell who was undoubtedly one of the shadiest people he’d ever met. But he’d already committed to the search and he didn’t want to get shouted at by either of his temperamental friends, so he rose from the chair after only a minute of rest and continued searching through all the places he hadn’t checked yet.

Under the bed? Nope. In Theta’s desk drawers? Nope. Behind the curtains? Nope. All the obvious places had been checked already, which left only one place left for him to check. The restroom. (Well, that and the closet, but Vansell got there first and Rallon was not in the mood to fight with him over it.)

He went straight for the cabinet, sliding back the door to see what they kept inside. There were a few medicine bottles, as to be predicted, and numerous random restroom utilities such as shavers, combs, soap, and other completely mundane things.

Right before he could close the cabinet, fairly certain that there was nothing to find inside, he stopped. He couldn’t say what it was that compelled him to look behind the bubble wash at the back of the closet, but if he were Mortimus, he might have assumed himself to have some sort of superpower; specifically, one of detection.

There was nothing simply placed behind the large bottle, but there was an odd-looking line on the wall behind it. Rallon shifted the bottles to the side quietly and stood on his tiptoes to reach to the very back, carefully peeling the panel off the wall. Hidden behind it was a rolled-up thing of paper, which Rallon pulled out.

It didn’t take him two seconds to realize it was the thing they were looking for when he unfolded it, sighing deeply as he read the name on the top of the essay. For it was not Koschei’s essay that was hidden in the back of the cabinet, but Magnus’s… with Koschei’s name scribbled over it.

He sighed and headed back into the main room. “Found out,” he said.

And Magnus wasted no time in saying, “I told you so.”

//

“Okay, all things considered, I thought that was a hell of a night.”

Drax’s mood had gone from somewhat bummed to absolutely chipper in a heartbeat, and he and Koschei had practically skipped all the way home. Theta was not drunk enough to join in with them, but instead dragged behind reluctantly, not wanting to deal with their intoxicated idiocy more than he had to.

“Yeah, that’s one way to put it,” Theta mumbled, his arms crossed against his chest. He let out a large sigh of relief when he saw the light from the Academy appear in front of them; overjoyed that the night was finally over with. Perhaps they could head back to the bar someday, but it wouldn’t be soon if he could help it.

They managed to sneak past the guards back into the dorm rooms, where they trudged back into their rooms. Drax flipped Runcible the finger when he tried to call them out because despite what he would have liked to happen, they were not in fact, breaking curfew, and therefore he had nothing to say to them.

Drax broke off from Theta and Koschei when they reached he and Jelpax’s room, bidding them goodnight and thanking them quickly for coming with them even though it was likely one of the stupidest things he had ever suggested. He then walked into his room, praying that Jelpax would be asleep when he got back so he wouldn’t have to deal with his inevitable lectures.

Unfortunately, Jelpax was way too protective for that and was still sitting up reading when he walked in. He lowered his book slowly when he heard Drax open the door, placing it on his stretched-out legs and crossing his arms against his chest as he raised his eyebrow. It didn’t take words for Drax to understand what he meant, and he only sighed before he flopped down onto his own bed; his hair falling into his face when he landed on his stomach.

“You have fun?” asked Jelpax. It was passive-aggressive, clearly, but Drax wasn’t in the mood to call him out on it. “Still think you might make this a regular occurrence?”

“Regular, maybe not.” Drax ran his hands over his face, groaning as he rolled onto his back. “But will it happen again? Probably. It was actually pretty fun if you take out the part where Koschei nearly broke his arm and I lost the tiny bit of a filter I had left in my fat ass mouth.”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what I was expecting.” He snorted, a small smirk on his lips. He stopped rather suddenly, his brow furrowing as he looked up and down Drax’s figure. “Did something happen to your arm?”

“What?” He glanced down to the arm in question—his right one, which was indeed bandaged—but shook his head. “No, that’s from something else. Koschei is the only one who walked out of the bars with any injuries. He’s a hell of a lightweight. And ironically, I think that Theta could tolerate more than either of us, else he was only pretending to drink his ale which I’d honestly find rather easy to believe. He’s always been kind of a rule follower when it comes to this shit.”

“He’s not a rule follower, he just likes to play mum.”

The comment was supposed to be a humorous correction, but Drax didn’t seem to take it that way. He simply nodded, taking a deep breath before he turned his gaze to stare up at the lightly colored ceiling above their heads. It was clear something was bothering him, but it was also clear that he was still somewhat intoxicated and Jelpax was unsure of whether he should push the issue. Eventually, however, he did what he always did and try to gently nudge Drax in the direction of the truth.

“Are you okay?” he asked softly.

The one issue that Jelpax failed to consider with his plan was that Drax had known him for just as long and was well accustomed to his tricks. He sighed and nodded again, already formulating the exact way that he would go about dodging the question that he had no interest in answering.

“I have a headache,” Drax admitted. “And my legs are fucking killing me from walking all that way. I should build something to get around faster. Do you think someone’s got blueprints for a skimmer?”

“Please, for the love of god, do not try to build a skimmer.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t say I’d do it right now. It was just an idea, maybe for some time in the future.”

“No. It’s an idea for no time in the future.” Jelpax didn’t like abandoning the other subject so quickly, but he figured he could grill his best friend for more information tomorrow—assuming he still remembered any of it. “Do you have any idea how much trouble we would get in if you built a skimmer?”

“‘We’? So, you’d want to ride it with me, then? And also, you’re assuming I would get caught, which I obviously would not.”

“No, because that’s never happened before. Just like you’ve never tried to change the subject to get out of talking to me before. Not that that’s what you’re doing right now since you so clearly answered my question, despite completely ignoring the purpose of it. Actually, I—”

Jelpax cut himself off when he realized that Drax was no longer listening. His breathing had gone quiet and steady, his eyes closed in a peaceful sleep. Jelpax sighed and relaxed back into his own pillows. Even if he did want to know what happened, he wasn’t going to wake up a hungover Drax to figure it out.

//

“I don’t understand why you don’t like it!”

Mortimus had been arguing with Ushas since the minute he walked into the room. She did not approve of his new, half punk, half goth look, and was not against voicing her opinions on it. Millennia kept her mouth shut to avoid being rude, but she thought the same. The mohawk was just strange looking on Mortimus; especially since he hadn’t actually cut it but instead used an ungodly amount of gel to spike it into place.

“Because you look awful,” Ushas told him, not bothering to hold back with her opinions. “You can’t possibly tell me that you actually think you look good right now. I mean, Jesus Christ, it looks like Anzor’s soul threw up all over you.”

“Sorry,” Rallon interjected, “but I don’t believe that souls have the ability to throw up.”

The daggers that came out of Ushas’s eyes were enough to shut him up, giving her the space to resume shouting at Mortimus. Millennia continued to stay out of it, feeling confident that she’d played her part well enough the night before and that anything else that happened now was out of her control. She’d helped get him away from a toxic relationship, and honestly, whatever he did with himself beyond that had nothing to do with her.

Eventually, Magnus cut off their argument and sent Mortimus to sit on the other side of the room so his spiked mohawk wouldn’t block his roommate’s entire view in front of him. Magnus then reached into his bag and pulled out a few pieces of paper, held together with a single staple.

“Anyone want to read Koschei’s essay?” he asked. “Or should I say my essay that he decided to steal from me because he thought he would rather spend a night at the tavern than study.”

Ushas whipped around to look at Koschei before he even had a chance to defend himself. “You were at the tavern?!” she shrieked. “Do you have any idea how many rules you’ve broken? And not just Academy rules, planet rules. Society rules. You have no fucking idea how many—”

“Yes, we do,” Drax groaned. His head was resting on the desk in front of him, his arms covering it almost entirely. “We always read the rules before we break them or else it’s not as fun. Now please, for the love of god, stop shouting. I feel like my head is about to explode.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have had all those drinks last night,” Theta grumbled. “I told you to stop after two but no, you had to see how many you could down without passing out.”

“Which was not how many he had last night,” said Jelpax, his arms crossed bitterly. “Because he did pass out last night, basically right after he sat down. So, yeah, he made it home, but he didn’t really last any longer than that.”

“Do you always have to sell me out to the entire Academy?” Drax snapped.

“To be fair, it was only the entire Deca. Not the entire Academy. And I would never sell you out to all of them because then I would have to tell them about the fact that you sneaked out to a bar in the first place and I don’t think that’s my information to share.”

“It is not.”

“Okay, anyway,” said Magnus, clearly not happy about having been interrupted, “you’ve all completely overlooked the point. Koschei tried to steal my essay so that he could go have a night out and still have something to turn in tomorrow.”

“Yeah, how did you get that back anyway?” asked Koschei, his tone bitter. Suddenly, his eyes went wide, and he looked around the room frantically. “Not that I actually did it, of course, but if I had.”

“You did do it, and I went into your room to find it, you asshole.”

“What the hell? You broke into my room and then snooped around in our medicine cabinet? No matter what way you twist it, that is fucked up my friend. You don’t just look around in other people’s stuff like that. You have no idea what kind of personal things we have in there.”

“You mean painkillers and paroxetine?” Magnus rolled his eyes. “Not like it’s anything we didn’t already know. And besides, I wasn’t even the one who was looking around the cabinet anyway. I had a lackey do that for me.”

“I am not a lackey!” Rallon snapped. He clapped a hand over his mouth almost immediately, realizing that he’d made an awful mistake in outing himself as Magnus’s accomplice. Hoping that he could somehow take a bit of the pressure off himself, he whipped around to point at Vansell. “He helped too! It wasn’t just me; I swear!”

“Again, what the hell?!” Koschei gaped. “Why were you helping him? It’s not okay to steal stuff from other people! How did you even know that he was telling the truth, you jerks?!”

“One, ‘jerks’?” Vansell made a face. “I’ve heard you come up with far better insults than that. And two, we did it because I owed him something and I had no moral qualms with it because we didn’t even know what the hell we were looking for until Rallon actually found it. Dickhead here wouldn’t let us know.”

“Yeah, because of exactly what you just said,” Magnus told them. “If I’d told you about it right away then those stupid ‘moral qualms’ would have kicked in and that would be a waste of my time.”

“Speaking of, that’s exactly what this is for me,” Mortimus interjected, a bored expression on his heavily makeup-covered face. “If you don’t think that the punk goth is a good look, then what should I try instead? Grunge? E-boy? Stuck up prick?”

“Are those even actual styles?” asked Ushas, making an odd face. “You can’t just make things up out of thin air and expect us to go with it, you know.”

“Yeah, I can. That’s literally what I do all the time. And anyway, I’m thinking I might go for a new look. ‘Mortimus Chic’, I believe I shall call it. It will consist of mainly pastel colors, smiley faces, and clothing that is remarkably androgynous.”

“And what’s new about this look?” Magnus raised his eyebrows, his tone not harsh but matter of fact. “You can’t just give your old style a name and then claim that it’s some revolutionary new look.”

“No, but it is though. ‘Cause I used to do a whole lot of lazy looks but now I’m going to try really hard to stick to one style, you know? This is going to be great; I promise. You’re going to know a whole new Mortimus by the end of this week.”

“You really don’t need to change what you’re like,” said Millennia, sighing softly. “I know that I was joking around a lot with all the style stuff last night, but I’m really serious. You’re absolutely perfect the way you are, Mortimus.”

“I know.” He nodded, a friendly smile on his face. “But I could be more perfect and the only way to achieve that is to dress even better.”

Millennia opened her mouth to argue but closed it when Rallon shook his head. He was right. There was no point in trying to change Mortimus’s mind. If she’d learned anything from knowing him for the past several decades, it was that you had to let him figure things out on his own.

Even if it was painful to watch his failures sometimes.

Chapter Text

“What is that?”

Mortimus looked up from his cluttered desk, turning to see Magnus when he walked into the dorm room. “What is what? Oh, is this one of your jokes about my side of the room again? Because I only have like, an hour until this is due, so I don’t really have time for this.”

“No, I’m talking about that smell,” Magnus specified. He dropped his backpack onto his desk chair, quickly switching out the books that were in it. “What is it?”

“Oh, that’s probably my latte.” He nodded towards an oddly shaped purple mug on his desk. “I’ve been up for ages and I had to skip breakfast for this, so I’m keeping my spirits up with sugary coffee.”

“Ah.” He nodded and nearly walked out the door but decided to stop and turned back around. “You know, it actually smells surprisingly decent.”

“I’ll bring extra to lunch if you want some.”

Magnus didn’t answer, but Mortimus knew what he meant by the lack of a rude comment when he slid out the door, disappearing to his first class of the day and leaving Mortimus to suffer in silence.

//

“This is bullshit,” Drax spat, crossing his arms against his chest. He wore a decent pout on his face, his deep green eyes narrowed so far, they were nearly shut tight. “This is absolute fucking bullshit.”

“You’ve said that about a thousand times since you woke up this morning.” Jelpax sighed deeply. He was no happier to be there than his friend was, but that didn’t mean he was going to spend the entire time bitching about it. What was the point?

“But it is! Theta will back me up. Won’t you, Thete?”

Theta, who was standing a few feet away and speaking to a few students that Drax did not know the name of, shrugged. He looked back and forth between Drax and Jelpax, clearly unsure of what he was agreeing to, but ultimately chose to side with the person he spent more time with.

“Yeah, sure,” he said awkwardly. “I’m with Drax on this one.”

With that, he turned around to look back to his other friends, not sparing one more glance to his fellow members of the Deca. If he had known what Drax was talking about, Theta would have undoubtedly agreed. In fact, Drax was fairly certain that there was not one single student there who would mind if the gym flooded and they all drowned right then.

Why, you ask?

Because they were stuck in the Academy’s bullshit gym class, which existed only for those who intended to be soldiers and those who desperately needed the credits. Oh, and Jelpax, who was in there because his teachers claimed he needed to get on his feet more because he was wasting away and had next to no endurance. (Which he had no problem calling bullshit himself which made him somewhat of a hypocrite in Drax’s mind, thank you very much.)

“Okay, I know that this is one of the worst things we’ve ever had to do,” said Jelpax reluctantly, “but you calling it bullshit over and over is just getting a bit repetitive.”

“All right, fine.” Drax took a deep breath, ticking away at his fingers as he counted something in his head. “This is degrading, it’s a waste of time, it’s pointless, it’s awful, it’s godforsaken, it’s insane, and it’s absolutely no place for a man of your stature or mine. I mean, have you seen us? We probably weigh two-hundred pounds combined.”

Jelpax rolled his eyes. “We’re not that skinny, Drax.”

“Speak for yourself, you budding fatso.”

Before Jelpax had a chance to respond, the coach suddenly called them to the front, shouting at them to go for a quick jog around the gym to get warmed up and then grab a partner for more exercises. They—Drax, Jelpax, and even Theta—suffered through the jog alone, and by the time they had to choose their partners, Drax was practically ready to collapse onto Jelpax. That was a bad idea, however, because Jelpax himself was about to fall over too and barely supported his weight long enough for them to make it to the floor for sit-ups.

Drax had to go first and quickly found that he had no upper body strength. He tried multiple times to grab onto Jelpax’s arms—which were holding his knees in place—to pull himself up, but his roommate was having none of that and swatted him away every time he tried.

He got his karma in the worst way, however, as he suffered the same way only a minute later when he had to do the sit-ups himself. They were only ten minutes into gym and every bone in his body ached; his muscles screaming at him to stop putting so much strain on them else they snap.

They managed to survive for another minute, at least, until Drax was doing push-ups and collapsed right after the third one, falling straight onto Jelpax’s hand which was intended to be there was a guide for how far down to go.

“Drax, you have to keep going,” Jelpax prodded, sliding his hand out and nudging him gently.

He shook his head, not removing his forehead from the floor. “I’m never moving again.”

That held true for about the next thirty seconds until the coach forced him back to his knees.

//

“Please let me have a good group,” Koschei mumbled, his fingers crossed at his sides. “Please, for the love of all that is holy let me have a good group.”

He closed his eyes as he approached the list of assigned partners on the wall, terrified of what he might find. Koschei had an awful track record of getting stuck in poor groups, and he worried he would end up in one again. Still, he tried to keep his hopes high as he pried his eyes open to see who he’d been paired with.

Koschei looked down to his shoes, took a deep breath, whipped his eyes up—

—and let out a huge sigh of disappointment when he saw that he was partnered up with two of the people he’d been praying to god he wouldn’t get. Those two people being, of course, Rallon (one of the most indecisive and boring people on the entire planet, though he was decent at this class), and Epsilon (probably the most annoying person he’d ever had the displeasure of working with in the past).

“Well, fuck me, I guess.”

Unfortunately for Koschei, Rallon walked up right as he was saying that. An odd look crossed his face as he looked at the list, clearly not understanding why Koschei was so disappointed to be in a group with him. Then he read Epsilon’s name beside Koschei’s and his own and his entire posture changed too.

“Okay, so we’re going to have a fun time with this project,” he mumbled, turning to Koschei with a grimace on his face.

“Indeed, we are!” Epsilon grinned as he threw his arms around Rallon and Koschei, an annoyingly cheerful tone in his voice. “Oh man, I normally get the super boring people as my partners and then these things are such a drag. Especially when you’re in a group for foreign cultures like this and then they all start going on about cultural appropriation and being politically correct and stuff. It’s all a bunch of bologna if you ask me.”

“You mean like what you’re saying right now?” Koschei kept his voice low enough that Epsilon couldn’t hear him over the chatter. Starting a fight right away was no way to get through however long it took them to get through the assignment.

“Okay, so I think we should meet in my room this afternoon. Wait, no, never mind.” Epsilon shook his head quickly, his brown hair flipping back and forth. “Ummins wouldn’t like that. We should do it at one of your places instead. How about Rallon’s? It’s probably cleaner, so I think that’ll be the best place to meet up. Okay, sounds good to me. See you guys then!”

Neither Koschei nor Rallon got a chance to say a word before he slid his arms back down to his sides and headed out of the room, leaving his frenemies alone to pick up the pieces of his inadequate plan.

//

Mortimus was not expecting Magnus to actually drink the coffee, but when he placed it down on the table his roommate took it eagerly. Somehow, the sugary disaster seemed to appeal to him for some reason, and while it made little sense to Mortimus himself, he wasn’t intending to say anything about it.

“This is surprisingly tolerable,” Magnus said, after a long sip of the drink. “I would have thought it would be somewhat awful, especially since people always say coffee tastes so much different than it smells, but the sugar is actually rather pleasant.”

“You’d probably like it better without,” suggested Mortimus. “If you think it’s good with sugar, I’m sure you’d fall over excited for it without. Just based on what I know of your palate, that is. I don’t want to make any assumptions, I’m just—”

“You don’t always have to make excuses, you know. Just because I’m a dick sometimes doesn’t mean I’m going to shout at you for every even slightly incorrect word you say. That would just be ridiculous.”

It wasn’t what Magnus said but the way that he said it which made Mortimus freeze in his place. Somehow, his tone sounded almost pleasant, as if he were actually trying to assure Mortimus that he was not a complete idiot. He wasn’t, of course, but Magnus was never the person to remind him of that.

“Don’t kill me when I ask this,” he started, “but are you on drugs?”

Magnus made a face, but one that was not as angry or pissed off as Mortimus was expecting. Instead, it was nothing more than a confused look, one which clearly didn’t understand why his roommate was asking him such a question.

“No.” Magnus shook his head, blinking innocently. “I feel a little floaty from the amount of sugar in this coffee but otherwise I’m fine. Why would you think I’m on drugs?”

“I—” Mortimus cut himself off, unable to think up an excuse good enough to suffice. “Never mind. I was thinking about something else.”

And while Mortimus sat there, definitely not thinking about something else, Drax, Jelpax, and Theta were on the other side of the lunch table, wallowing in their own self-pity. Though Theta hadn’t been bitching too much at the beginning of their first physical education class, he couldn’t have said more at the end of it.

“I feel like I’m going to die!” he moaned, dropping his head onto the table. Koschei slid his lunch out of the way before Theta landed in it, then reached over to rub his back gently. “That’s not going to help, Kos. No amount of a massage would ever be able to work out the pain.”

“Well, if you didn’t want to do this,” Koschei told him, “maybe you shouldn’t have skipped out on that maths exam.”

“You think that this is because I skipped out on a maths exam?!”

“No, I know that it’s because you skipped out on a maths exam. You skipped an exam, Drax failed his class, and Jelpax—actually, I don’t really know why Jelpax is in there.”

“He—” Drax started, but he was cut off quickly.

“Never mind, I don’t actually care,” said Koschei, waving a hand around dismissively. He took a long sip of his smoothie before turning his focus back on the conversation. “Anyway, my point is, you dug your own grave and now you have to lie in it. No matter what you think, you asked for this punishment and to act like you don’t deserve it is just stupid.”

“Are you just pretending you’ve never bitched about a punishment before?” asked Theta, crossing his arms bitterly as he lifted his head from the table. “Kos, you are the worst of all of us when it comes to dealing with punishments. I mean, Jesus Christ, you can’t even listen to Borusa shout at you without making a half a dozen remarks.”

“In my defense, Borusa deserved every single one of those remarks.”

“Yeah, and you deserved every single one of those shouts,” Jelpax added, rolling his eyes. “You two need to stop bickering over this because you’re both absolutely guilty of bitching about your punishments and there’s no reason to pretend that either of you are innocent. Now just shut up. My head is fucking pounding.”

Drax only waited about three minutes before he snapped. “That’s our lovely Jelpax here. Won’t bitch about punishments but has no squabbles bitching at us all day.”

“I’m glad you know me so well,” was the only thing Jelpax bothered to respond with. Even if he was unlikely to verbally bitch about the pain in his muscles, he had no interest in speaking any more than he needed to.

And, thankfully for him, no one else did either.

//

“Hey, I got something for you.”

Ushas looked up when she heard Millennia enter their dorm room, one eyebrow raised. Millennia had never brought her anything before (aside from on her birthday), and when other people did, it was because Ushas demanded it or because they were trying to trick her somehow.

However, when she saw what Millennia was holding, her entire posture changed. She didn’t know whether she should be happy or disappointed, as the only thing in Millennia’s arms (aside from the backpack around her shoulders) was a small bouquet of flowers; held together by a single strand of pink ribbons.

“They were trimming them in the gardens,” she explained. She walked over to her side of the room and grabbed an empty vase before heading into the restroom to fill it up in the sink. “The grounds keeper said it would be okay if I took a few, and I was thinking about how your side of the room really needs more plants, so I decided to take some. I hope that’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course.”

Ushas nodded quickly, her eyes focused on Millennia’s slender hands as she placed the flowers into the vase and walked back into the main room. Honestly, she’d never been a big fan of keeping plants all around the room, but she knew that it made Millennia happy and she didn’t want to be that jerk who tried to control what their roommate had on their own half of the room.

That said, this was a slightly different situation. Millennia was not putting the flowers on her own side of the room, but instead walked right over to where Ushas was sitting and placed them on the far-right corner of her desk. It did brighten the area up a bit, she had to admit, though it was just unusual enough to throw her off. Still, she neglected to say anything. It was such a nice gesture, and Millennia was such a nice person, that Ushas couldn’t bear to say anything that might hurt her feelings.

Plus, the fuzzy, warm feeling in her stomach was stopping her from proceeding with her usual sassy remarks. Not that she felt any sort of affection or compassion, of course, she just didn’t feel like being rude that day. At least, that was what she told herself to push down the feelings that she couldn’t bear to think about.

“All right, anyway, I’ve got to meet Rallon,” said Millennia. “He’s got some group work or something he’s very displeased with so I’m going to see if I can cheer him up. I’ll be back later.”

“Okay.” Ushas forced a smile onto her face. “See you at dinner.”

“Sounds good.”

She watched as Millennia headed back out the door, sliding the door shut behind her. Though Ushas sometimes got into quarrels with her friends, she couldn’t remember a time she’d ever truly been upset with Millennia, and a large part of her hoped that day would never come.

//

“Ah, I was beginning to think you weren’t going to show up.”

Rallon sighed deeply when Epsilon made the remark, not even remotely in the mood for his shenanigans. He’d spent around twenty minutes walking around the grounds with Millennia, and that helped a little bit, but based on the group chat they’d been running all day, this assignment was going to be a disaster. And based on the private chat that he had with Koschei; he wasn’t the only one who thought that.

“I wouldn’t bail on you,” Rallon grumbled. “Sorry I’m late, though. I got caught up with Millennia.”

“Really?” Epsilon snorted and shook his head. “Bros before hoes, my man. Bros before hoes.”

Rallon didn’t even bother telling Epsilon that he was not, in fact, one of his bros, as he decided it wasn’t worth the argument it would start. The sooner they got started on the project, the sooner they could finish it and they wouldn’t have to deal with each other any longer.

“So, anyway,” said Koschei, cutting in through their sudden staring contest, “we were just talking about what we should do the project on. I was thinking it would be fun to do it on raxacoricofallapatorians because we could make all kinds of jokes, but Epsilon said we should do it on vampires.”

“Can’t we just do something normal?” Rallon groaned. That was the one recurring problem with his group of friends—none of them seemed to know what ‘normal’ meant. “Just like, judoon or humans or something more mundane?”

“No.” Epsilon shook his head viciously. “If we do something boring, someone else will do it too, and it’s no fun to have a duplicate assignment. Especially if that other person is smarter than us and they do a better assignment and we get screwed because comparatively speaking, ours sucks.”

Rallon despised the fact that Epsilon’s logic actually made sense. And with the people he was working with, Rallon doubted that they were going to come up with any kind of a good assignment, which meant they should probably go with the odds and choose something that someone else was less likely to do.

“Okay, how about we just do like, the voord?” Rallon suggested. “They’re kind of interesting and not too strange, but like, weird enough that other people aren’t likely to choose them. Thoughts?”

“Yeah, all right.” Koschei nodded, immediately beginning to scribble ideas in his notebook. “I’ve always thought they were remarkably stupid looking, but I suppose I’ll keep my opinions to myself for a bit.”

“You can’t say you’re going to keep your opinions to yourself six seconds after you’ve already shared them with us.”

“Oh, really? Because I’m fairly certain that’s exactly what I just did and there don’t seem to be any squabbles from the universe on that.”

“Guys, guys.” Epsilon waved his hands between them, trying to break up the building tension. “Let’s not get ourselves into arguments this early into the assignment. We’ll never get anything done if we keep squabbling like stupid little schoolchildren.”

“We are schoolchildren,” Rallon pointed out. He regretted it immediately, wincing at the fact that he’d compared them to a word most associated with time tots, but didn’t correct himself. “Never mind, let’s just forget about that. Let’s think about what we know about the voord. Anyone?”

“Uh… they’re black? Or they wear black? Or something else to do with black?”

“And they remind me of frogs,” added Koschei. “With their wetsuits and flippers and all that shit.”

“Oh, and—”

Rallon took a deep breath as he started making his own notes on everything they were suggesting. They clearly didn’t know much about what they were saying, but it wasn’t the worst way they could’ve started the project. The only problem with knowing that, however, was knowing that it was inevitably going to get worse.

Much worse.

//

“Drax, I’m not kidding. You need to get out of bed.”

For the last several minutes, Jelpax had been shouting at Drax as he prepared for the day ahead of them, dressing, washing, and eventually just plopping down on the floor beside his roommate’s bed, refusing to abandon his best friend when he knew that leaving him there would result in an even worse punishment.

“No.” Drax’s voice was muffled by his pillow, his vaguely purple hair covering the majority of what still showed of his face. “I’m not going. I would rather die than go through another day of this hellish pain.”

“I know that you’re in a lot of pain,” Jelpax began, his tone far more reassuring that he thought he could manage, “but it’s just one week. We just have to make it through this short course and you’ll never have to do this again.”

“You promise?”

“Well, I would like to promise, but I can’t guarantee you won’t goof off and fail another class and force yourself to get another week of some stupid punishment. That said, I doubt you’ll ever get this one again, so while I can’t exactly promise that it’ll never happen again, I can tell you that I really don’t believe it’ll happen.”

“You are the worst pep talker in the world.” Drax groaned as he rolled over, flopping onto his back. His bare chest rose and fell slowly with his breath, half covered by his dark red duvet. “And since you are such a tremendous failure, I think I’m going to just stay in bed all day as per my plan. Thanks, Pax.”

He reached down and ruffled a hand through Jelpax’s curly red hair, patting him on the head twice before he sighed deeply and draped his arm over his eyes. Were anyone else trying to get Drax out of bed they may have thought he was joking, but Jelpax knew him all too well to believe that and knew that he was most definitely planning to stay in bed all day. Not like it would be the first time.

“Drax, please.” He spun around, hoping that he could change his friend’s mind with a different perspective. “If you don’t come, I’m going to have to do this on my own and I’ll probably end up stuck with someone disgusting and sweaty like Dourgonn or Lungin.”

“That is true,” Drax mumbled. “Dourgonn sweats like a pig.”

“Exactly. So please, please just do this for me? I promise it won’t be as bad as yesterday and I’ve got two different types of painkillers in the cupboard now so if you need them every two hours, you can take them every two hours.”

“Yeah… no. Sorry.”

“Then we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

Jelpax stood up and walked around to the other side of the bed, reaching out to grab Drax’s duvet gently enough that he wouldn’t notice whilst his eyes were still closed. Then, once he was holding on tight, Jelpax yanked it off the bed, sending Drax rolling onto the floor. He groaned as he hit the ground, rubbing the side of his head lightly.

“Ow, son of a bitch.” He slowly sat up, leaning back against the side of his bed. “And here I was thinking you were the best damn friend in the world. More like the worst friend.”

“Yeah, well you—” He cut himself off when he realized that a thin line of bright red liquid had appeared on Drax’s right arm, despite the fact he didn’t seem to notice it. “Shit, I’m sorry. What did you cut your arm on?”

“What?” Drax glanced down at his arm, the expression on his face almost surprised to see the injury. “Oh, uh, probably the bed frame. Not like there’s anything else to scrape myself on.”

“Okay, well, come here real quick and I’ll wrap it up for you. I probably shouldn’t have done that in the first place but you’re really fucking stubborn, you know that?”

“Yeah, I do. And you know what? You should just go on ahead. I don’t really need help with this. It’s not like it’s on my dominant hand. I’ll meet you at breakfast, yeah?”

“I don’t think so.” Jelpax shook his head, crossing his arms against his chest. He knew Drax far too well to fall for any of his tricks. “You just want me to leave so you can crawl right back into bed and skip out on gym class.”

“No, I won’t do that.” He slid up to his feet, his left hand reaching out to cradle his right arm. “I swear to god, I’ll meet you in the dining hall, just don’t help me. I don’t want help.”

Jelpax didn’t only know Drax too well to fall for his tricks but he knew him too well for him to get away with it when something was wrong. And clearly, even though he seemed to only sustain a simple scratch from his fall, there was something severely bothering him.

“Are you upset with me?” asked Jelpax. A part of him doubted that was the issue, but he couldn’t help but check regardless. “I really didn’t mean for you to get hurt.”

“No, it’s fine,” Drax insisted. “It’s not your fault. I just really don’t want help with this, okay? I can take care of it myself. Now just go to breakfast please.”

“Drax—”

He yanked away when Jelpax tried to move closer than him, moving his arm out of sight. “Go to breakfast. I won’t miss gym; I swear to god. I just need a few minutes to get ready.”

Jelpax opened his mouth to speak again but decided against it. Once Drax’s mind was made up there was little chance of changing it, especially when he hit his emotional breaking point. So, instead of beating the dead horse, Jelpax simply nodded and gathered his things. He was starving for breakfast anyway and didn’t bother to waste another glance on his friend before he walked out the door.

Which was why he didn’t see when Drax slid back down to the floor, running his shaking hands over his flushed face as he pulled his knees up into his pounding chest.

//

To say that Mortimus was shaken by Magnus’s reaction to coffee would be a complete understatement.

It started with the strange conversation at lunch but continued well into the day and eventually turned into them having a decent conversation in the evening. Somehow, Magnus had failed to say anything rude to his roommate at all, which after several decades of hearing it, was almost unnerving.

Even though it was nice to have a day where Magnus was being a nice person, Mortimus was not used to it at all and almost wanted the regular Magnus back. So, in the morning he didn’t brew any coffee (wondering if that may have been the entire cause) and did everything he could to avoid doing Magnus any favors at all. No more Mr. Nice Guy, right?

Right.

Magnus was back to his old, pissed off self in the morning and started going off at him for all the chores and tasks that he’d failed to do. For a while, Mortimus dealt with it perfectly fine, but after the fourteenth insult that morning, it started to get old and he decided that maybe, just maybe he could use one more day with nice Magnus.

So, instead of letting him go back to his old self, Mortimus brewed another thing of lattes and brought them to breakfast with him. Yes, he was unfairly slanting Magnus’s personality. Yes, he was kind of cheating for a little bit of Gallifreyan decency. Yes, it was probably messed up if you had any real compass for morals. But Mortimus did not have one of those and he did not care so he brewed enough lattes to keep Magnus happy for the rest of the day.

When he slid down into the seat across from Magnus, Mortimus was immediately glared at. They rarely sat close together at breakfast, as Magnus preferred to sit on the side while Mortimus liked to be in the middle of the action, but that day he decided to make a change. He had to, or else he wouldn’t have been able to slide his extra latte straight across the table to him.

“Another latte?” He made a face. “I didn’t even like the one you made yesterday. Remember I said it was only surprisingly tolerable?”

“Yeah, but then you drank the whole thing, so…” Mortimus shrugged and nodded for him to drink it. “I just thought I was making some anyway, so I decided to make some extra for you. It was intended to be a nice gesture but if you don’t want it, I could just drink it on my own.”

He reached out to take the extra cup back, but Magnus slid it away. “No, I don’t want you hopped up on sugar all day. I’ll drink this one, but this is the last one, you hear me? I’m not drinking any more of this sugary shit if I can help it.”

“Okay, I got you.”

Mortimus smiled to himself as he placed his own foamy drink up to his mouth. Perhaps Magnus thought that would be the last one, but Mortimus knew that it would be a ploy he’d save for many rainy days ahead.

//

“Where the hell have you been?”

Jelpax’s tone came out far harsher than he intended but he didn’t bother apologizing. He already knew that Drax wasn’t going to do that so he saw no good reason why he should either. Especially since he wasn’t the one who’d broken his promise and failed to arrive at breakfast, and then proceeded to ignore every one of his messages as if he didn’t even care at all.

“I was dealing with my arm,” Drax snapped, holding it up to show him the bandages. As soon as he did so, he pulled the sleeve of his sweatshirt down, covering his bandages. “Thank you for that, by the way. I just loved spending my morning taking care of that.”

“I told you I would do it for you and you told me to fuck off.”

“That’s not what I said, but I’m glad you know what I meant by it.”

“Whatever.” Jelpax rolled his eyes. Their professor was walking in the room right then, and he didn’t want them to be partway through an argument when he walked in. Instead, he turned to look at Drax, suddenly concerned all over again. “You’re going to get in trouble for wearing a sweatshirt again.”

“Okay.” Drax shrugged, clearly not the least bit bothered by the idea of being punished within his punishment. “It’s not like it’s any worse than my muscles fucking burning for the next hour. Which will be extra great with my arm bleeding out every time I press down on it.”

“Drax, I said I’m sorry. And if you wanted it to heal faster, you should have just gone to the nurse for a tonic. She’d have had it good as new in minutes. In fact, if you really wanted to get out of this, you could make an excuse to go see her right now.”

“No. I’m not going to see the nurse.”

His tone was so firm, so certain, that Jelpax didn’t know how he was supposed to argue with it. In fact, he didn’t know whether he should argue with it. He wanted to press for more information, but the look on Drax’s face alone said that he had no interest in talking about it and that, at least for the time being, Jelpax would be smart to leave it alone.

Luckily, he didn’t have to make the decision by himself as Theta walked up just then and stepped in between them, his shoulders already slumped even though they hadn’t even started class yet. His expression was glum, as if he’d somehow seen the future and was already dreading his inevitable doom.

“Hey, no fighting before class,” he said, glancing back and forth between them. “We have to save the bitching for afterward when we’re all ready to fucking die. Not that it’s that bad of course. What a fun class! I’m having a hell of a time. Can I kill myself now?”

The random change in his tone came from the fact that their professor decided to walk by just then, and Theta was not in the mood to be lectured for twenty minutes after class. His muscles were still aching from the day before and he couldn’t even imagine how much pain he would be in after the week was done.

“Shut up, Theta,” Jelpax snapped, turning back to look at Drax. “You need to go see the nurse. Get that taken care of and come back. It won’t take five minutes.”

“No. I’m not going.” Drax’s lip turned into a straight line, his expression going dark and his tone bitter. “Maybe you’re all right letting other people solve all your issues, but I can deal with this myself. I don’t need to use other people as a crutch.”

“You’re not using her as a crutch, you’re letting her do her job. What the hell is your problem today?”

“Can I ask what both of your problem is?” asked Theta awkwardly. “I don’t think that was good grammar but like… I’ve never really seen you two argue like this and it’s really rather uncomfortable, so can you just fold and do what he wants, Drax? That’s usually how these things end anyway.”

“No.” By then, Drax was practically fuming. He shook his head slowly. “I am not going to go to the nurse. There is nothing you can do to change my mind so please, for the love of god, just stop. Theta, you’re going to be my partner today. Have fun with Lungin, asshole.”

Drax threw up his middle finger for one last bit of spite as he latched onto Theta’s arm, dragging him away to join the rest of the students who’d already begun warming up. Jelpax groaned and looked to the other people around him, sighing deeply as he realized he was truly doomed to work with idiots.

//

“Okay, so I was thinking that we could do something about their planet too. How do you spell that?”

Rallon frowned as he walked into the room, listening to Koschei spell the name of a planet which most certainly did not belong to the voord. Sure, he was late to the meeting again, but he was not late enough for them to have made entirely new plans without him and even if they had, he still had good reason to be pissed about it.

“What are you talking about?” asked Rallon, a perplexed expression on his face. “I thought we decided to do our project on the voord.”

“Was it on the voord?” Epsilon laughed, as if it were some kind of joke. “I thought we decided on the veil. Oh well. Koschei and I have already done a bunch of notes on the veil already, so it’s all right if we change it now, isn’t it?”

“No.” He shook his head quickly, unwilling to let all his hard work go to waste just because they didn’t have his research on hand for the first two minutes of their meeting. “You can’t just change the subject on me like this. We spent hours on this yesterday.”

“It’s no big deal,” said Koschei. “Epsilon and I have talked about the veil a lot so it’s probably best that we just go with them. You can do the voord for another assignment. That research won’t go to waste, I’m sure.”

This was one of the moments when Rallon hated how much of a pushover he was sometimes. It wasn’t that he had a problem voicing his opinions, but that he didn’t like to step on other people’s work. Even though he knew that Epsilon and Koschei couldn’t have been working on their new project for that long, it was still two to one overruled and he knew it would be easier to let it go, rather than pushing them to change it back.

“Okay, whatever.” Rallon sighed and sat on the floor beside them, flipping his notebook to a new page which hadn’t yet been filled with information about the race they were no longer writing about. “So, what have you figured out about the veil so far?”

“Uh…” Epsilon flipped through his stuff, but ultimately came up with nothing. “Koschei?”

“They’re called the veil,” Koschei began awkwardly, reading through his own paper. “They can take over people’s bodies. They are kind of like reptilian-ish. They’re uggos. They remind us of the silurians.”

And that was enough to make Rallon change his mind on how he would approach the situation.

“That’s all you got?” he gaped. “Okay, nope, we’re going back to the voord. There is no way that we’re going to throw away hours of work in favor of talking about the fact that you believe the void to be uggos. That’s just a waste of time and a guaranteed zero percent.”

“Yeah, but at least they’re colorful,” said Epsilon. “The voord are just blobs. Blobs of black. Blah.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

“You’re the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Rallon didn’t even bother trying to think of a comeback. It was far too poor of a response on Epsilon’s part for him to come up with any decent remark, and far too early into the afternoon for him to start an argument over something that petty.

So, instead, he braced himself, took a deep breath, and tried again to convince them—despite how unwilling they were to listen.

//

Ushas spent more time staring at the flowers on her desk than she did working on her project that evening and that was an occurrence that did not happen often.

She was rarely distracted from her homework, let alone her personal projects, which were practically impossible to tear her away from. And yet there she sat, staring at the abundance of colors on the corner of her desk rather than the test tubes, notebooks, and pens which littered the rest of it.

Were someone to ask her why she was so fascinated by the flowers, Ushas was not certain that she would have an answer. Could it be because they were a gift from her best friend? Possibly. Maybe because they added a new vibe to her otherwise completely professional table? Likely. Or was it simply because she wasn’t used to receiving presents and the flowers were just pleasant to look at?

Yes. That was probably it. There was no other reason that she could be so interested by them. After all, she was not a botanist or ecologist, she was a neuroscientist and therefore had no interest in nature. At least, not professionally. It wasn’t something that ever interested her as much as her major and yet she suddenly found herself unnecessarily distracted by the pink, blue, and yellow flowers on her desk.

So, for the first time in ages, she decided to close the door on her current project, just for a little while, and study a bit about flowers instead. It couldn’t hurt to look into something that Millennia cared about so much, could it? Especially since she was not involved in the outdoor sciences either, and it was simply a hobby on her part.

It would be nice to have a hobby, Ushas thought. Just this once.

She instinctively glanced over her shoulder before switching out the book she was reading, searching for something that was more to do with nature than people themselves.

//

“I mean, I can see why he would like it so much,” said Vansell, taking a sip of his own drink. “Coffee, I mean. I don’t know why the hell anyone would drink those latte things you like. It’s far too much sugar in my opinion. I prefer it straight black, or with a tiny bit of sugar or peppermint if I’m in a mood. But all that foam on top is just ridiculous.”

Mortimus rolled his eyes. He hadn’t invited Vansell over just to have him bitch about their preferred drinks all evening. No, he wanted him there because he needed to tell someone about what he’d discovered about Magnus, and he knew that Vansell loved coffee more than life itself and would likely have some sort of explanation as to why this was happening.

“Okay, but anyway,” Mortimus interrupted, “don’t you think it’s fucking weird what it does to him? Like, Magnus is the world’s biggest dickhead and then he has some of my foam, sugar, and coffee and what do you know? He’s got kindness for miles. Well, not necessarily kindness, but he hates life a little less. Tad less rude, if you know what I mean.”

“Actually, I do. Which is strange because normally you’re just spewing random nonsense. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“But anyway, I just think this whole thing is a little bit strange,” Vansell went on. “Not just because Magnus is acting nice or whatever, but because he hasn’t actually been any nicer to me. Not that he’s ever been particularly horrible to me, since I’m kind of a dickhead too, but he’s pretty much the same around me. Are you really sure he’s acting nicer?”

“Yes!” Mortimus insisted. He couldn’t believe that Vansell was doubting his word. He’d only lied to him a few dozen times before. “We talked for like, an hour last night. And he didn’t even insult me one time. You don’t think that’s weird? At all? Because he normally insults me like ten times a minute and last night, he was just talking to me like we were actually friends or something.”

“I mean, you are friends, though. He’s rude but he’s your friend and you know that. He’s done some serious shit to protect you. Maybe he just wanted to have a normal conversation for once. It’s not that odd.”

“Yes, it is! You have no idea. Magnus cannot physically speak to me without an insult. It’s not in his code. It’s almost like the way our relationship is. I just tune it out at this point because I know it doesn’t mean anything, but he keeps doing it because that’s what we do. That’s what we’ve always done, and I don’t understand why the hell he’s acting different now.”

“He’s not,” said Vansell. He sighed deeply, taking an extended sip of his drink before he went on. “I promise you, there’s nothing weird going on right now. You’re just imagining it, Mort. Don’t worry about it.”

“I am not imagining it!” he snapped. “I’m not crazy. I don’t just dream stuff up. This is real and I’m going to prove it to you. You just wait.”

Vansell did not. He stood up as soon as Mortimus jabbed a finger in his direction; excusing himself from the room without commitment to speak with him again.

//

“Hey, guys. I just wanted to formally invite you to my funeral.”

“What?” Ushas made a face as she took the sheet of paper from Theta, glancing around the dining table to see if any of her other friends had a clue what was happening. However, they each looked equally confused as they took the small squares of notebook paper from his hands. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Third day of gym is today,” he explained, taking a seat beside Koschei once he’d passed out all his invitations. “I can barely walk thanks to the pain of the first few days and I’m expecting to be dead by the afternoon. Consider this my last farewell, and I hope you’ll all be able to attend my funeral tomorrow evening.”

“Theta—”

“Stop. Don’t you dare steal my thunder. I’m going to die, Ushas. Let me have one last moment of glory.”

“I wasn’t going to try to take away your glory, Theta,” she sneered, rolling her eyes. She reached across the table to flap the sheet of paper in front of his face. “I was just going to tell you that the date on this is for yesterday. You’ve invited people to an event in the past.”

“Oh.” Theta made a face. He stared at the paper for several seconds, then shook himself off and did his best to recover. “It’s fine, we’re Gallifreyans. You can figure out some way to get there, you just have to get creative. I’m sure someone will give you a lift.”

“No, I’m pretty sure nobody is going to give me a lift,” Koschei argued. “At least, nobody with a legal license. I’m not exactly anyone’s favorite student, if you know what I mean.”

“Literally everybody knows what you mean.” Ushas sighed deeply, taking a quick sip of her water before she went on another rant. “You’re quite obviously one of the worst Prydonians to ever walk the halls of this school, Koschei. I’m honestly shocked you didn’t have to join those morons in P.E. as it is.”

“I mean, I did, I just said I was sick to get out of it.”

A gasp went around the table, emitting loudest from those he’d forced to attend the awful gym class without him. Theta’s face fell completely, Jelpax’s going cold, and Drax’s fists clenching as his eyes narrowed in rage. He took a deep, shaking breath before he spoke, gritting his teeth through every word.

“You told them you’re sick?” Drax spat, slamming his hands onto the table as he spoke. “How the hell did you get them to believe you’re too sick for gym class but well enough to attend anything else?”

“Chronic illness, baby,” said Koschei, almost gloating in his tone. “Works like a charm.”

The look on Drax’s face got even more angry in a way that Jelpax even thought to be an overreaction. His chest rose and fell so heavily, his knuckles turning such a bright shade of white, that Jelpax couldn’t help but reach over to give his arm a squeeze, if only to help ground him. Drax acknowledged his touch, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath before he went on.

“You don’t lie about that shit, Kos,” he snapped, his tone only slightly calmer than it was before. “Especially not to get out of doing something with your friends. I mean, I know it sucks, but at least you could’ve saved poor Theta here from being partnered with those sweaty fatsos.”

“I mean, you were partnered with me yesterday,” said Theta, “and even if we told the truth and got Koschei to join us, I don’t think I’d want to partner with him anyway. I’d rather leave him with Lungin, if I’m being honest.”

“Wait, they finally let Lungin do P.E.?” asked Koschei, furrowing his brow. “I thought that he wasn’t allowed to participate anymore after that one health scare.”

“No, it turned out he was faking that so now they’re forcing him to take the course all over again. Not just for a week either, he has to do it for the entire semester. I guess that’s what happens when you lie. Do you want to test it out to see if it was just a him thing?”

“No! No, please, god no. No. No. Okay, okay, look. We can work out another punishment. I’m sure there’s something you can make me do that doesn’t involve hours of running around and touching sweaty uggos.”

Theta was sure there was something they could do too—he just didn’t know what it was yet.

//

Jelpax couldn’t honestly say he was surprised when Drax told him he’d been called in to see one of their professors before class, but he could say that he was perplexed when he discovered that it was their gym professor he was speaking about.

As per usual, Drax told him not to bother coming early and promised they would meet up later. But, also as per usual, Jelpax arrived early to class regardless and unintentionally overheard the latter half of the conversation Drax was most definitely not intending for him to know about.

“You need to follow my rules, Draxin,” said the professor, his tone intense. “If you break the dress code one more time, I’m going to speak with the Headmaster, and I guarantee you’ll come out of this with far worse a punishment than you came in with.”

“Well, then you might as well get to scheduling.” Drax’s tone was challenging in the same way it always was when he questioned authority, but something about the situation made Jelpax question whether his gait was genuine. “You’re not going to get me into one of those shirts if it’s the last fucking thing I do in this academy.”

“You better watch your tongue, child. You are walking on thin ice and if you carry on like this in the future then I guarantee one of these days you’ll find yourself on the streets.”

“Like I give a fuck. This place is a shithole and it’s not like I’m ever going to amount to anything anyway. To get out of here sooner would be a blessing, especially since all you tight-ass leaders think you’re above everyone else. Your shitty education isn’t everything, you know.”

The professor took a long, deep breath before he went on, taking a moment to decide how to approach the delinquent. “I am going to give you one more chance to follow dress code. If you can’t do that, then don’t bother joining the class and I will see you in my office during lunch hour. Understood?”

Drax did not say a word.

He stood there in silence, his arms still crossed against his chest, until the adult finally left. At that point, he casually flipped him off behind his back, and then dropped down onto the bench in the middle of the locker room, running his hands over his face.

Jelpax took that as the correct time to walk into the locker room completely, slipping in through the ajar door and closing it quietly behind him. He sat down on the bench beside Drax, whose expression was almost unreadable as he stared down at the floor in front of him, his fingers entwined, and his arms stretched out across his knees.

“You’re not seriously going to let this happen, are you?”

Drax hesitated for just long enough to make Jelpax become impatient. “I’m debating whether I have a choice.”

“You always have a choice,” Jelpax told him.

“Wouldn’t that be nice.” He sighed and pushed his hands through his hair, his gaze still facing straight ahead at the lockers in front of him. “I think I’m probably going to just suck it up and take whatever the hell punishment he wants to give me for this. I’m sure it won’t be worse than anything they’ve already given me. I mean, I’ve gotten in trouble a lot of times.”

“Or you could just suck it up and wear the t-shirt. It’s a little uncomfortable sure, but it’s far from the worst thing you could ever have to wear. I mean, it’s not like it’s any worse than our robes, right? It doesn’t have that ungodly itchy collar.”

“Okay, yeah, that’s true.” Drax groaned and looked at the shirt folded on the seat on the other side of him. “All right, but if I do this, you’re taking the fall for my arm, yeah? You knocked me off the bed. That’s on you.”

“All right, that’s on me. Now put on the t-shirt.”

Truthfully, Jelpax didn’t understand why he had to take the fall, nor why it was such a big deal at all. In fact, he didn’t believe that it was the issue at all, considering Drax broke the dress code on day one, before his arm was even injured at all.

But he didn’t ask because he never asked.

Not until he truly needed to.

//

“Hey guys, since I’m early today, I thought we could—”

“Early?” Epsilon made a face. “Rallon, you’re three hours late. We’ve already gone through everything without you.”

Rallon immediately checked the watch around his wrist, then glanced up at the clock on Koschei’s wall to confirm that what he was seeing was, in fact, true. He was not late at all—in fact, he was about twenty minutes early—but the clock on Koschei’s wall was running nearly two and a half hours ahead.

“No, I’m early,” Rallon corrected him, his hearts racing as he realized that anything could’ve happened while he was gone. “Your clock is just running fast.”

“It is not.” Koschei rolled his eyes. “Maybe yours is running slow.”

He shook his head. “No. My watch is not running three hours slow. Not unless the rest of my life is too, because I just got out of a lecture.”

“Maybe it was a really long lecture.”

“It wasn’t. It was just the regular class. I—” He cut himself off when he saw something strange on the poster board his partners were sitting near, his entire face twisting as he realized that they’d changed the plan on him again. “Why does that say venusians?”

“Because we’re doing our assignment on venusians? Duh.” Epsilon snorted, shaking his head slowly. “God, I know that you’re running on a poor timetable, but sometimes it feels like you’re just trying to sabotage our project.”

“Why would I be trying to sabotage our project? The grade matters as much to me as it does to either of you. And how am I the one who’s messing this up anyway? You two are the ones who keep changing the plan on me. This is the third time that you’ve changed the species we’re writing about and I refuse to believe you’re actually stupid enough to keep forgetting which one we’re doing.”

“Really?” Koschei looked almost surprised. “I mean, neither of us are remarkably smart. Well, I am, obviously, but he’s not. He’s the biggest dumbass that’s ever graced this planet’s surface.”

“That is Scendel erasure and I will not stand for it,” Epsilon snapped. He crossed his arms, glaring at Koschei intensely. “I know you don’t like me, but there’s no way I’m stupider than a Scendel.”

“Okay, but anyway,” said Rallon, not bothering to apologize for his interruption, “can we please just get this thing finished? We only have one more day to work on it, and—”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry about it. Everything is going to be okay.”

It wouldn’t be until three days later when Rallon began to wonder whether Epsilon was responsible for jinxing what could have been a decent assignment.

//

“On a scale of one to ten, how much do you hate me?”

Magnus considered his answer deeply, spinning around in his chair to look at the face of his roommate when he responded. He took a long, drawn out sip of his latte as he narrowed his eyes; one brow raising as his thoughts came to the surface and he considered everything he’d thought about his friend.

“Probably a four,” he answered eventually, his tone flat. “If I didn’t live with you, and if you weren’t part of the Deca, I probably wouldn’t like you at all. But as it stands, you’ve always been close to me—physically, not emotionally—and at a certain point, I have to admit that you’ve grown on me. So yeah, I think you’re awful but not as awful as some other people think you are. Does that make sense?”

“No.” Mortimus answered without even thinking about what Magnus said. He dropped his spoon into his empty ice cream container, then sat up on his bed, leaning back against his pillows. “Nothing about any of this makes sense. Why are you being nice to me? Is sugar making you nice? Is it the caffeine? What the hell is wrong with you this week?”

“Don’t know. I guess the sugar’s just put me in a better mood.”

“That’s not true. Vansell told me that you’ve still been acting exactly the same around him and if you’re still acting exactly the same around him then how are you in a better mood, hm? Explain that.”

“Well, that’s because I hate Vansell.” Magnus shrugged casually, taking another sip of his drink. “Creepy motherfucker deserves every bit of the shit I give him. You’re just ignorant. Nothing truly wrong with that.”

Mortimus’s jaw dropped. He didn’t know whether Magnus was lying or telling him that he truly felt that way but regardless, he didn’t care. Lies or not, Mortimus had heard what he said and could choose to believe whatever he wished. If he wanted to tell everyone that Magnus hated Vansell, he could. And even if they didn’t believe him, he would know he was telling the truth.

Not that he would ever tell anyone, of course. He was far too nice for that, especially since everyone believed Magnus to despite Mortimus more than anyone else and would likely not believe him.

But it was still one of the most fascinating pieces of gossip he knew, and he planned to cherish it for a while.

//

Unsurprisingly, Theta was still alive to see the Deca’s weekly meeting three days following his last P.E. class.

Drax and Jelpax had managed to survive too, though Drax did get quite a reaming from their professor upon (again) refusing to see the nurse for his wounded arm. He insisted that it was simply a scratch and there was no need to waste the nurse’s time, and it was a reasonable enough explanation, so he was surprisingly easy to convince.

Jelpax, however, was not entirely convinced and still wished he could understand the situation better. It wasn’t often that Drax put another person’s priority above his own (especially not an adult’s), and it was unlikely he’d be refusing for a reason so simple as wasting the poor nurse’s time.

They didn’t get to speak about any of this at the beginning of the meeting, however, as that time was occupied by Koschei (donning the homemade dunce cap Theta and Drax had prepared for him) and Rallon arguing back and forth about who exactly was responsible for the failure of their foreign cultures project. Koschei was fairly certain it was Epsilon, but Rallon insisted that Koschei was equally to blame.

Ushas had no clue what either of them were talking about, however, and quickly shut them up when she grew tired of their arguing. It wasn’t like they’d never seen a bad grade before. Especially Koschei, who had an awful habit of not applying himself and letting his grades slip without a care in the world. (It was a different story for Rallon, who generally lost points due to taking on too much work at one time and attempting to fill his brain with more information than it can handle.)

“Okay, all right, I want a moment to shout at Theta,” said Ushas, “because not only did he try to invite us to his own funeral, but he tried to attend his own funeral. In the past. Three days after it was supposedly meant to have occurred, to be exact.”

“What?” Theta snapped. He rolled his eyes, putting on an overly dramatic annoyed expression on his face as if he were a time tot angry that he’d been put in time out. “It’s not like I actually did anything. I just saw the test TARDIS sitting there—”

“For TARDIS flight students,” she interrupted.

“I saw the test TARDIS sitting there, and I thought it might be fun to go back and see if I ended up holding my funeral. You never know what I might think of in the future! I mean, it—it seemed like a good idea at the time!”

“It was not a good idea! How the hell would it be a good idea?!”

“I don’t know!”

The meeting continued for another forty-one minutes and they did not manage to figure that out.

Chapter Text

“Jelpax, I’m telling you, if you don’t want to come—”

“It’s fine, Van. Seriously.” Jelpax sighed dramatically, slightly annoyed by the fact that Vansell had reassured him nearly a dozen times that he did not need to be accompanied to the debate. “I need the extra credit this semester and I’ve always wanted to see one of these in person.”

“Okay, I know you think it sounds fun, but I’m not going to lie to you, Jel.” Vansell’s tone was deathly serious as he packed his backpack, preparing for their day away from the Academy. “These politicians are boring as hell. They don’t even entertain me and I’m planning to become one of them.”

He shrugged. “All the more reason to get interested in it, yeah? Need to make sure that you’re properly informed about what might possibly be your future life and career and whatever shit the guidance counselors say when they’re trying to make you feel better about your future being a practically guaranteed dead end.”

“That’s funny. All of the people I’ve spoken to say I’m a Lord President in the making.”

“Do you even want to be the Lord President?”

“Not particularly.” Vansell shook his head, zipping up his backpack as he rose to his feet. He quickly slung it over his shoulder, adjusting his robes before he went on. “That’s not really at all the area I’ve been thinking about pursuing but I wouldn’t be opposed to it. That amount of power is quite appealing, though I really have no clue what I would do in a position like that, since it’s really not my forte.”

“Right, well, should we get this show on the road then?” Jelpax nodded towards the door, gesturing for them to finally leave the room after Vansell spent nearly an hour picking out everything he needed to properly record the event. Or experience it. Or whatever weird word he’d used that Jelpax didn’t bother remembering. “Don’t want to be late.”

“Oh, right. Yep, let’s go.” He walked over to the door, then stopped a few feet back from Jelpax. “Ladies first.”

Jelpax didn’t bother snapping at him as he stepped out the door, hoping that the debate wouldn’t be as dull as Vansell had promised.

//

“You lot want to play a game?”

The words came out of the last mouth that any of them had expected and nobody quite knew what to do. Theta looked at his friend oddly; Koschei giving him a look as if he’d asked to kill a cat; Ushas’s eyes going wide as if she’d witnessed a murder; and Mortimus’s face lighting up, somehow excited by the strange offer.

“What game is it?” he asked gleefully, a smile sneaking up his lips. “Is it something fun or is it one of those ones where you’re just kind of mean to us and we have to sit through it? Because I’m cool with either, but I’d really prefer to play a real game right now, if you know what I mean.”

“I actually have no idea what you mean,” said Magnus, sliding into the plush library chair beside him, “but I really don’t care either so I think we should just move on. I’ve actually invented a brand-new card game and I think all of you should try it. It’s a betting game though, so if you don’t have any cash, I’m afraid you won’t be able to play.”

“Wait, I don’t know if I have cash.” Mortimus began to dig through his pockets, stopping only when he found a single coin. “Will this work? I’m pretty sure I left the rest in my robes. Or in my bag. Wait! I have an idea.”

He reached down into the cushion on the couch, running his hands around the crevices beneath it. After a minute of fumbling around, he let out a quiet, “Aha!” and held out a handful of change, offering it to Magnus to let him see what buried treasure he’d uncovered.

“Well? What do you think? Is this enough?”

Magnus stared at the coins in his hand for several seconds, counting each individual one as if he were following some strict set of guidelines as to how much money was required for one to join in the game. Ushas was immediately suspicious of the game, but she didn’t want to say anything, knowing full well that the secrets of the game would be revealed as soon as the playing began.

“Yes,” Magnus answered eventually, nodding his approval. “I do think that will be enough to fund your entry. Now place them onto the table there.”

He quickly swatted away the stuff that was on the coffee table between them, freeing up the space for them to play their game. Ushas sighed deeply, desperately wanting to shout at them for the stuff on the counter but not allowing herself to do so. Again, she wanted to know what was going to happen with Magnus’s odd game and she saw no reason to interrupt before it began aside from ending it before it started.

“Okay, who else is in? Theta? Koschei?” Magnus didn’t even bother looking to Ushas, knowing full well that she would not want to get in on the game. He was correct, of course, but it didn’t stop her from being somewhat annoyed that they were all getting in on the game while she sat there doing homework. “All right, money in the middle.”

Somehow, he’d managed to get them all on board with it. They each dropped their coins into the middle of the table, creating a small pit of them which Magnus then surrounded with a circle of spread out playing cards. Ushas couldn’t help but think that it looked like some kind of religious ceremony was happening, and she wanted more than anything to know the rules of the game. But it wasn’t time yet.

Not until everything was in place, Magnus told them. Not until absolutely everything was right where it needed to be.

//

Drax paced around outside of the classroom for far longer than he would care to admit.

He wasn’t doing anything important out there, just pacing back and forth as he dragged his hands through his hair, occasionally adjusting his jacket and running his hands over his sleeves. His hearts pounded in his chest and breathing was slightly difficult, but it wasn’t out of the ordinary. He was anxious in anticipation of his exam and there was nothing strange about that.

Well, except the part where he was taking an exam on a break day, but that wasn’t remarkably uncommon for those who missed or failed exams on the day they were actually intended to be taken. Drax, of course, had both missed and failed exams on numerous occasions before and therefore was not remarkably out of his element in this scenario.

But he was out of his element in the topic of the exam which was regarding one of the most difficult concepts he’d encountered in temporal theory so far.

Jelpax did his best to help him understand everything but it wasn’t enough. Nothing seemed to make sense to him no matter how hard he tried, and both of his attempts in the classroom the past week had failed. One more fail on the exam he was about to take, and he may have to redo the entire semester’s work—something he was not eager to do for more than obvious reasons.

So, instead of completely panicking and skipping out on the exam completely as he so desperately wanted to do, he took a deep breath, shook himself off, and headed into the classroom. He’d done so much studying, listened to so many lectures, that surely, he had to do well enough to get at least fifty percent, right?

He certainly hoped so.

//

If Jelpax thought the ride to the debate hall was boring, it was absolutely nothing compared to waiting in line to get into the hall itself.

During the ride there, he at least had the ability to occupy himself with a decent book. But now, with all those people around, hustling and bustling whilst chittering and chattering about gossip nobody in their right mind gave a shit about. Not to mention their repetitive political discussions about shit nobody could’ve possibly cared about.

When they finally made it to the front of the building, Jelpax was forced to surrender his last bit of entertainment. Apparently, they didn’t want any unofficial footage of the debate leaving the hall (Prydonian elections at their finest), so nobody was allowed to have any recording equipment turned on during the event, which unfortunately included Jelpax’s phone.

He turned it off ever so reluctantly, knowing that without his phone to scroll through, he would be left with nothing to do but engage in social interaction until the debate finally started and he had something else to pay attention to. It was then, as he dreaded his imminent future that he realized why exactly Vansell was trying so hard to change his mind about attending the event.

Vansell wasn’t trying to keep him away for personal reasons, nor because he genuinely thought that the debate would be dull. No, he was trying to keep Jelpax out of there because he knew all too well that they’d be interacting in social engagement and there was not a bone in his body that believed Jelpax would enjoy that part.

And all the bones in his body were right.

//

“God, I’m sorry, guys. I had no idea you’d all be so bad at this.”

They spent far too long playing Magnus’s made up card game considering nobody else had even been able to win yet. They’d all dumped in every coin they had—and all the coins they could find hidden in the cushions of the couch—but no matter how much they paid or how hard they played it wasn’t enough. Magnus continued to leave them all in the dust, somehow managing to achieve secret bonuses and shit that he conveniently forgot to tell them about.

Ushas realized something was fishy almost immediately, but she didn’t bother spoiling the fun. Magnus was clearly having a good time and quite honestly, it was hilarious to watch. It was like waiting for a train wreck to happen and dreading it but wanting so desperately to see the impact regardless.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best metaphor, though Ushas would be eager to see a train wreck should she happen to be around when one happened, and this was somewhat of a similar thing. It wasn’t just a long game of Magnus trolling his friends, but a ticking time bomb until one of them realized what was going on.

“Dammit!” Theta slammed his cards down onto the table when he lost again, dropping his head into his hands dramatically. “How do I lose every single time? I don’t understand this game. What am I doing so wrong that I can’t win this? What am I doing so wrong that Magnus wins every time?!”

“Sorry, guys,” said Magnus, his tone clearly full of mockery. “It’s probably just because I’ve had more experience playing than you. It’s not the hardest thing in the world, you know, but it does have a bit of a learning curve to it and I’m guessing that’s what’s slowing you down.”

“No way.” Koschei shook his head, his blue eyes narrowed deeply, and his arms crossed against his chest. “It’s because you keep conveniently forgetting to tell us rules! If you’d just like, write everything down so we know what we’re dealing with, then this would be a hell of a lot easier to deal with.”

“Why would I want to make this easy? Part of the fun is having no idea what’s going on.”

“Is that in the name of the game?” asked Mortimus suddenly. He was still pondering over his own hand of cards, strategically planning his next move so he wouldn’t lose so easily as Theta. When he realized that everyone was staring at him, he stopped and shrugged. “It’s just that you haven’t actually told us what this was called, so I didn’t know if there was like a title or a subtitle or anything that kind of represents what you’re saying. You know, like ‘Dalek Balls; you never know what you’ll find inside!’”

“I always hated that game,” said Theta, shaking his head. “Sometimes you found the nastiest stuff in those things. And my cousin would always make the nastiest jokes about the name of it.”

“Wait, what were his jokes?” Again, Mortimus looked around, confused as to why everyone was looking at him so oddly. “What? I just want to see if mine are better than his. You’re all welcome to share your own too. I’d love to know what everyone else has come up with.”

Unfortunately for him, nobody else was interested in comparing their inappropriate humor.

//

According to the Academy’s rules, you weren’t supposed to leave the classroom without finishing your exam and that was the only reason Drax stayed in his seat for as long as he did.

He spent more time with his pencil hovering over the page—his hands shaking far too much for him to even consider filling in any of the little bubbles—than he did doing actual work. He held his breath for far too long too, not wanting his professor to hear him on the verge of hyperventilation.

Drax took a deep breath disguised as a yawn, convincing himself to finally select one of the answers even though he wasn’t entirely confident in any of them. He nearly went through with it, his pencil hovering so closely above the page, but something stopped him. The pain in his chest and the pounding in his ears that was far too distracting for him to keep thinking and he needed time to think.

But he couldn’t think in the room and he couldn’t leave and it led to an endless cycle of his hearts pounding and his head hurting and him having no clue what to write down until it got to be so much he needed to stand up. His legs felt like jelly as he walked up to the desk, his hands shaking so badly he thought they might fly off.

“I’m sorry, I know I’m not supposed to take any breaks, but I—”

Drax didn’t know whether it was because the professor was a stand-in and was unfamiliar with his history or because he looked as sick as he felt, but something caused the woman to nod slowly, a look of compassion in her light brown eyes.

“It’s all right, just make sure you’re back in time to finish, all right?”

“Thank you.”

He trudged out of the room, his mind moving faster than his legs would take him. He wanted to run away, to not come back and just abandon the exam completely, but he knew that he couldn’t do that. There was no possible way he could get away with it. So instead, he slid down onto the floor outside the classroom, leaning back against the wall facing the door.

Drax pulled out his phone and quickly called Jelpax’s number, not intending to cheat but hoping to ask him for assistance in calming down, but the call rang until it went to voicemail. He tried messaging him, but that was a bust too. He called him two, three, four more times, but nothing. He must’ve been busy at the debate or whatever.

That thought made him text Vansell, hoping that he might be able to get Jelpax to check his phone. But despite two attempts at calling and four messages sent, there was no word from him either. Drax was completely alone, his mind devoid of the answers he needed to pass his exam and his heart filled with fears as to what might happen should he fail.

What a great way to start his break.

//

On their first day of break, Millennia was intending to do nothing but spend time with Rallon.

They spent plenty of time during regularly scheduled weeks, though they’d never quite gotten to spend an entire day together before. At least, not while they could share each other’s undivided attention. See, Rallon had somewhat of an issue in that he had far too much homework to do and far too little time to do it in, which was quite a distraction when it came to spending time with his girlfriend.

But on the first day of their three-day weekend, he was finally able to spend more time with her. They were able to snuggle on his bed; Millennia’s head resting on his shoulder as he lay upon his pillow without a care in the world for the first time in far too long. They weren’t even talking for the most part, just being together in silence and enjoying each other’s company.

And then Rallon’s phone buzzed.

He opted to ignore it, because it was just one message and he wasn’t particularly interested in talking to anyone else at the moment. But then it buzzed twice. Three times. Enough for him to finally pick up the phone. He sighed when he saw it was Drax, then set his phone to silent. No schemes were going to ruin his nice day.

But then Millennia got a call and it was clear their moment of silence was over.

“I’ll take care of it,” she said, sitting up slowly. “Give me like five minutes and we’ll be back on our own again. Hello?”

Millennia pressed the answer button on her phone, deciding to answer the incoming call rather than respond to any messages Drax may have sent. A few seconds passed between Millennia answering and Drax finally speaking, but when he did, his voice was urgent.

“Are you with Rallon?” She barely had the chance to tell him ‘yes’ before he went on. “Has he heard anything from Vansell?”

“No, you’re the only person who’s contacted either of us all day,” said Millennia. Drax’s tone was worrying her, and she had to admit that she was more concerned than she would’ve like to be on her day off. “Why? Is something wrong?”

“I—” He cut himself off, taking an audible breath before he went on. “No, I’m just trying to get through to Jelpax but he’s not answering and Vansell isn’t answering and I really, really need to talk to him.”

“Okay, one second.” She turned to Rallon; her brow furrowed. “Do you know if you can reach Vansell?”

“No.” Rallon shook his head. “He usually has to turn his phone off at those political things. You know how they get about regulating information.”

Millennia nodded and sighed before speaking back into the phone. “No, Rallon thinks their phones are probably turned off because of the debate laws. Is it really urgent?”

“No, it’s fine,” was what he said, but the shaking tone was enough for Millennia to know it was a lie. “I’m just really stressed, and I wanted to talk to him but it’s fine, I guess. I’m probably going to fail this exam regardless so I might as well make it quick, yeah?”

“Drax, are you okay?”

He hesitated for so long before he answered that Millennia thought he was going to hang up the phone. “Yes. Yeah. I’m fine. I guess. I would be better if I wasn’t so fucking stupid but it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve failed a class. Thanks for answering, Mil. I’ll talk to you later.”

“No, wait!” Millennia spoke before she could even think about what she was doing, her concern for her friend taking over her brain. His tone did not sound okay at all and if Jelpax wasn’t around to make sure he was okay, then she wanted to be. “You’re not stupid, honey. You try really hard, okay? And all you can do is your best. Just do your best, all right?”

“My best isn’t good enough,” he choked out. He cleared his throat immediately after speaking, obviously trying to regain his composure. “I’ve nearly failed this class so many times, Mil. You have no idea. Maybe I’m just not studying enough but I feel like I’ve tried so hard and I’m just too fucking stupid to deal with this. I can’t figure it out.”

“Do you know what you’re working on? I might be able to help.”

“No, because I’m taking an exam and that would be cheating. Plus, you’re a fucking genius at this shit and it would just make me feel dumber when you’re doing it so breezy and I can’t figure it out for shit. Not that I have anything against you, it’s just… I can’t do this. I can’t. I couldn’t even fill in a bubble. I panicked. I just—”

“Okay, calm down. Just take a deep breath for me, yeah?” Millennia breathed in and out exaggeratedly to prompt him to do the same. “You feel a little better?”

“No, I feel like I’m going to be sick.” Drax took another shaking breath before suddenly going on before Millennia could get in another thought. “I’m going to go now but I’ll see you later, yeah?”

“Wait, no, Drax—!”

The soft click followed by the sound of harsh, repetitive beeping on the other end of the phone was one of the worst sounds Millennia had ever heard in her life, and judging by the look on Rallon’s face, he already knew what she wanted to do.

Rallon’s silent nod was signal enough for her to leap out of the bed, running off to check on the wellbeing of her friend.

//

“Do you think Magnus is cheating?”

Ushas had to hide her smirk when Theta asked the question, not wanting to make it too obvious that she’d already known what was happening. Magnus stepped out for just a minute to take care of something, leaving Mortimus, Theta, and Koschei alone at last to ponder whether their friend had truly come up with a new game or was simply stealing their money in a particularly convoluted manner.

“I don’t want to accuse him of anything,” Mortimus started, twisting his fingers awkwardly, “but something about this does seem pretty fishy. Not that I don’t trust him! But I… don’t really trust him and honestly this whole thing is starting to weird me out. Do you think he’s ripping us off?”

“Ripping us off? No.” Koschei shook his head, his fingers resting on his chin in the typical thinking manner. “Stealing from us right under our noses? Yes. I think that’s a bit more likely considering what we’ve been doing for the last… however long we’ve been in here. Anyone wear a watch?”

“Yeah, but it’s stopped.” To make a point, Theta tapped at the watch face on the inside of his left wrist. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, it doesn’t matter,” said Mortimus, interrupting before his friends could get distracted going down the wrong path. “We’ve played at least four matches and Magnus has won every single one of them. That’s what I think is the most suspicious about this whole thing. Not to mention all these secret rules and shit that only appear when he starts to lose.”

“You’re right.” Koschei frowned, stroking his chin slowly. “Okay, if this does turn out to be some kind of trick, then we’re probably going to come off looking like the dumbest motherfuckers in the universe, so let’s agree to never tell anyone about this. Everyone in? Good. We can—”

“I’m not making any promises.”

He turned around when he heard Ushas speak, his eyes going wide in shock as if he’d somehow forgotten that she was in there with them. Then again, it had been quite a while since she’d said anything, and with the way they were sitting around the table, she was only in Magnus’s direct line of sight.

Suddenly, the look of shock on Koschei’s face faded, twisting into one of bitter anger crossed with the tiniest slice of fear. He dramatically spun around in his chair, moving his entire body to face her since the plush seat was far too large to move just for the theatrics.

“Ushas, if you tell anyone about this, I swear to god—”

Koschei didn’t stop talking because he was interrupted, but because he had nothing to follow up his threatening start with and no ideas as to any sort of threatening words. Part of him wished he had been interrupted, because at least he could have pretended that he had a true threat in mind, and wasn’t just speaking pathetic, empty words.

“You swear to god what?” Ushas prompted. The evil look in her eyes and the smirk tickling the edge of her lips told him all he needed to know about whether she understood why he cut himself off. “Come on, I don’t have all day to wait for you. I have other people I need to be threatened by too, you know.”

“You—” He opened and closed his mouth several times, uncertain as to whether he was meant to respond to her comment and still at a loss for what to do about the threat. “You’re—”

This time he was cut off by something happening, which was, of course, Magnus finally returning to the library. He glanced around at them all as he sat down, his brow furrowed in confusion. Mortimus could tell he was putting on an innocent face, but he didn’t say anything, not wanting to bring attention to their accusations before they had a chance to make them.

“Okay, what are we going to do about this?” asked Theta, glaring at Magnus with an intense look in his eyes. “Because I know you think we’re just having beginner’s bad luck—which I’m fairly certain isn’t real, by the way—but I think that you’re lying to us because you’re cheating and you don’t want to admit to it. Am I right? I mean, are we right? Because this isn’t just my theory so if you want to kick our asses please don’t just kick mine. This was a group effort.”

“For the love of god, Theta, just shut up.” Koschei slapped him over the head, sighing deeply as he rolled his eyes. He leaned back in his seat, crossing his arms as he turned his own glare to face Magnus. “You’ve been scamming us, mate. I don’t think you even did come up with a new game, you just came up with a plan and then you started babbling off rules as soon as we started playing. That’s just stupid and it’s quite frankly a type of advanced robbery.”

“Is it, though?” Magnus crossed his own arms, raising an eyebrow as his tone turned challenging. “Because I’m fairly certain that you all consented to playing the game which means I won the money fair and square and if I won the money fair and square then there’s no way that this is robbery.”

“It is robbery, though,” said Mortimus, his tone clearly confused. He glanced around at the others, hoping that he wasn’t the only one who was thrown off by the claim. “You’ve been taking our money under false pretenses. That’s robbery, whatever way you want to twist it.”

“I’m actually not so sure about that,” Koschei cut in. “I mean, I don’t know much about the law, but you could probably twist it some directions that would result in a different charge. Has anyone here taken a law class?”

There was silence for a few seconds before Magnus spoke. “Rallon has.”

“Then we’ll go see Rallon. Come along, mates. We’ve got a wager to settle.”

//

There was only one classroom where they did testing during break and that was how Millennia managed to find Drax so quickly.

The walls of the Academy were nearly empty at that hour, since there were few students who were not enjoying their time off, which was why Millennia could hear her friend’s breathing from so far away. He was visibly shaking; his knees pulled up to his chest and his arms tucked into him too.

Millennia sat down beside him before she spoke, keeping her distance at a few inches away so he wouldn’t feel as if she were crowding him. He clearly acknowledged her presence but didn’t say anything and the silence told Millennia that she would be smart to stay quiet herself. At least until he was ready to speak, which happened sooner than she expected.

“You didn’t have to come.”

“I just wanted to make sure that you were okay,” she said, her voice low. “I know you would’ve preferred Jelpax but since he’s not here, I thought it would be okay if I just checked up on you. You know he wouldn’t like it if he knew something was wrong and he couldn’t help.”

“Not really.” Drax shrugged, running his hands down his face before he looked up at her. “I have no idea why he does that. He has a strange sort of motherly nature to him, it’s just that most people don’t really bring it out.”

“Literally nobody does except for you. He really cares about you, Drax, and I don’t know why you’re always acting like he doesn’t. More specifically, why you’re always acting like nobody does.”

“Because it’s true. Jelpax does it because I’m like an annoying little brother to him most likely, and to everyone else I’m that stupid prankster who’s always cutting class and having mood swings and failing exams like this one. It’s—okay. Shit. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“What?” Millennia frowned. “It’s okay, honey, you can vent as much as you need to.”

“No, I can’t—” He stood up and started to pace back and forth, pushing his hands through his hair. “I can’t breathe. I shouldn’t have mentioned the test again. I just stopped thinking about it and now all I can think about is how I’m going to fail and then I’ll have to redo it and I’m going to get in so much fucking trouble, and I—”

“Okay, okay, stop.” She rose to meet him, not getting to close but catching his attention to make him turn around, chewing lamely on his thumbnail with a look of sheer terror in his bloodshot eyes. “I need you to just take some deep breaths, okay? This exam does not define you. If you fail this, it will not ruin you. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but everything is going to be okay.”

“No, it isn’t. You don’t understand, Mil. You’re good at this stuff and everyone supports you and I’m awful and there’s people at my throat all the time and it’s—” He cut himself off to take a long, shaking breath through his nose, during which he bit down on his lip so hard Millennia feared it might bleed. “It just sucks, okay? I suck and I can’t take the pressure expecting me to not suck. It’s too much.”

“You don’t suck, Drax, and anyone who says that is wrong. Including yourself. I know that it seems like people are being hard on you sometimes but it’s only because we all want you to do your best. Jelpax, your professors, even your mum and dad.”

Drax winced. “I know you’re trying to help and I’m sorry but you’re making a lot of assumptions right now and it’s really, really not helping so I think I’m just going to go throw up and then see if I can bullshit my way through this.”

Millennia didn’t have a chance to argue with him before he took off down the hall, disappearing into the restroom without one last glance in her direction.

//

Rallon was half asleep as he sat there waiting for Millennia to return which was why he fell straight off the bed when the door suddenly slammed open; five of his friends shoving in through the small opening.

He rubbed the side of his head awkwardly, looking around to Magnus, Mortimus, Ushas, Theta, and Koschei, wondering whether he was having some strange dream. Nobody ever wanted to talk to him on his own, and yet they’d all come there looking for him. How strange was that?

It was only then that he realized it was not strange at all because they were likely not actually looking for him. He reached up to the bedside table and dragged himself back to his feet, blinking several times and rubbing his eyes to clear the sleep from them.

“Hey, Millennia’s not here right now, but—”

“We’re not looking for Millennia,” said Theta quickly, derailing his train of thought. “We’ve come to speak with you.”

“Me?” Rallon couldn’t stop himself from smiling. “For real? Wow, I had no idea that you guys—”

“It’s about a question,” Koschei told him, again interrupting his poor thought train. “And that question is about something to do with the law. It’s, uh, you know. It was, uh—does anyone remember what it was?”

“Yeah, it was whether or not Magnus was robbing us blind!” Mortimus snapped, shoving in front of him and Theta. He marched right over to where Rallon was standing, nearly cornering him in between his table and the bed. “Look, we’ve been playing this game with Magnus for the last hour or so and we’re starting to suspect he made the whole thing up to steal our money.”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with me,” said Rallon awkwardly. He suddenly felt flushed, having no idea what he was supposed to be doing in that situation. He wasn’t great with social interaction at all, let alone when it was in such a strange interaction. “Can’t you just settle this yourselves?”

“No, because we have no idea how the law works,” Theta explained. “We need you to tell us how exactly he’s broken the law because we don’t get it. Like, we know that he did it—or we think that he did it—but we don’t know what charge he would be caught under, so we really just need to figure it out, thanks.”

“That was a hell of a lot of babbling to get to the point,” Magnus commented, raising an eyebrow. “Any chance you might be trying to cover up for the fact that you don’t believe a word you’re saying?”

“No, there is no chance that I am doing that. But thank you for the concern, it’s much appreciated. Now, Rallon, do you know the answer to this question?”

“No, I don’t, because I have no idea what’s going on.” Rallon didn’t want to be too harsh with his response, but it was true. He had absolutely no idea what was happening as they’d failed to explain all the important details. “I might know if you start from the beginning, though.”

That turned out to be one of the worst things he could have suggested, as everyone seemed to have a different idea of what exactly went down that afternoon. They all (aside from Magnus) appeared convinced that Magnus had, in fact, been scamming them somehow, but they couldn’t agree on how exactly it happened. That made it difficult for Rallon to pinpoint the answer they wanted.

Eventually, he got tired of the arguing and decided to put a stop to it with the most normal suggestion he could think of. One which would hopefully calm everything down for long enough for everyone, including him, to relax.

“How about you just play something different?” he suggested. “You all put the money back and you just do your best at the next game you choose. Then it’s all fair and fun and everyone gets what they’re supposed to have, yeah?”

“Yes!” Theta shouted. “Let’s play hide-and-seek.”

“No!” Ushas’s tone was so forceful that Theta nearly flew across the room. “Absolutely not. No. We are not doing that.”

“I didn’t say that you had to play. Though I understand why you wouldn’t want to, especially when I’m involved.”

“Don’t you dare say a word, Theta Sigma.”

“Say a word about what?” he asked innocently. The expression on his face dropped within seconds and he looked around to the others. “She’s angry because back in primary school, I beat her over nine-thousand times.”

Ushas gasped, a hand flying up to her chest as her eyes went wide with rage. “You did not,” she snapped. “There is absolutely no way you could have beaten me that many times. You’re lying right now.”

“No, I’m not. I kept a log. Would you like me to go fetch it?”

“No, because you’re not a fucking dog. Now sit back down. We are not doing this. Not now, not ever. And if you idiots decide that this is somehow a good idea, then you can be certain that I will have no part in it.”

“Salty, salty, salty.” Theta shook his head, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “Looks like you’re still chicken as ever, aren’t you, Miss Second Place?”

Ushas glared at him before glancing around at her other friends, hoping to gage their reactions without giving away the fact that she was basing her decision on what effect it may have on her reputation. In the end, she settled for the thing she wanted to say least, but which would likely stop her from utter embarrassment.

“Fine, I’ll play your stupid game,” she sneered. “But you better choose a decent place to play. I’m not going to compete in some novice playground.”

“Consider it done.” Theta slid his hands together menacingly. “I know just the place.”

Rallon would never admit to how wide his eyes went when he heard the tone in Theta’s voice as he revealed the location he had in mind and saw the scowl on Ushas’s face as she realized she had no choice but to go through with it.

//

“This cannot possibly end well.”

Koschei swallowed hard. “I actually think you might be right this time, Rallon.”

They were standing just outside the entrance to the Patrex Academy, which was renowned for its twisting and turning corridors. They weren’t technically allowed to be there, since they belonged to another chapter, but so long as they blended in (and they hoped they did, with their casual clothing on in place of robes), there would be no way to detect them, and no trouble to be had.

“Okay, we’re just going to go one round,” said Theta, his tone shockingly serious. “Mortimus is going to be the seeker, Rallon the lookout, and the rest of us will hide. Last person to be found wins and takes home the jackpot. Which is, of course, all the money that Magnus stole from us.”

“I won that money fair and square,” Magnus snapped, in response to the glare Theta was giving him. “Now just relax, yeah? Everything is going to be settled once I kick your asses at this.”

“Please.” Koschei scoffed dramatically, rolling his eyes as he crossed his arms against his chest. “You obviously don’t understand just how good Theta was back in primary school. He won the time tot hide and seek championships forty-two years in a row.”

“No way!” Mortimus gasped, one hand clapping over his mouth. “That was you?!”

“It was.” Theta smirked, obviously too pleased with the attention. “And don’t you ever forget it, like Ushas seems to pretend she has. Not that she could ever truly forget the way that I used to kick her ass. It drove her nuts, you know.”

“Yes, we know,” Magnus groaned. “You haven’t shut up about it the entire way here. Now can you all just stop talking so we can get to the game? I know you imbeciles don’t care, but I have no intentions of spending my entire break hiding in the Patrex Academy.”

“Okay, let’s go, then.”

Rallon took a deep breath, then whistled quietly to signal for them to go. Mortimus took his place counting to one hundred, whilst the others ran off to wherever they wanted to hide. It was an absolutely ridiculous game in Rallon’s opinion, and he’d never quite understood what the hype was, but everyone loved it when he was in primary school, so he didn’t want to be rude about it. Especially not to his best friends.

Everyone else was gone in seconds and by the time Mortimus opened his eyes, they were nowhere to be seen. He blinked several times to clear his vision, then spun around three times before choosing which direction to go in. He took off down the hall, vanishing around a corner and leaving Rallon alone to get busted by any passing professors.

//

Millennia didn’t want to leave until she knew Drax was okay, but it was hard when he was out of her sight.

He’d been hiding in the restroom for twenty minutes at that point and she was starting to think that he was doing it with the intention of avoiding her. She’d sat on the floor where he was before, staring at the wall and waiting for him to come back. But when she finally heard footsteps walking down the hall, it was not Drax who passed by, but his roommate.

“Jelpax, you’re back!”

She practically leapt up to her feet, which confused him more than he cared to admit. Jelpax glanced around awkwardly, clearly not expecting any kind of response when he returned from his short trip. He nodded slowly, wondering why the hell she was in the corridor during break.

“Yeah,” he responded, dragging the word out. “Right on schedule. I was just going to grab a few things from my locker, so if you don’t mind…”

He started to continue on his way, but stopped when Millennia leapt in front of him, a sense of urgency in her eyes. “No, actually, I really need your help. Or, Drax really needs your help. He was supposed to take an exam this afternoon, but he—”

“What the fuck?” Jelpax made a face which indicated that he had no idea what was happening. “He told me that he was going to do that tomorrow. Why the hell did he change it? Is he in there? Have you spoken to him?”

“I have no idea, no, and yes,” said Millennia slowly, trying to make sure she answered all the questions in the correct order. “He was sort of freaking out so I tried to talk to him but I think I just made it worse because he told me that I wasn’t helping so he was going to go throw up instead and I haven’t seen him since. Sorry for babbling.”

“Okay, thank you. I’m just— I have to go deal with this now, so…”

Jelpax didn’t say another word to her before he headed back off in the direction he came, taking a sharp left into the men’s restroom. His heart sank as soon as he walked in and heard Drax’s shaking breaths echoing around the room.

He was sitting on the floor in the handicap stall, leaning back against the wall with his hands over his face. Jelpax slid onto the floor beside him, giving his friend a second to get used to his presence before he finally said something, keeping his voice low.

“Did you take your exam yet?” In response, Drax only shook his head, not lifting it to look at him. Jelpax took that as a prompt to go on. “Okay, well you’re not going to take it today so you can relax a little bit now, yeah? I don’t know what the rules are but you’re not taking it like this. You can’t.”

“Okay. I just—” Drax cut himself off, as if he was having trouble speaking despite how quietly he was doing so. “Sorry, I can’t breathe. I mean, I can, it’s just that my throat—my throat is really, really tight. And my chest hurts. And I’m still really, really sick to my stomach.”

“You’re not going to fail.” Jelpax said the words in one of the firmest, surest tones that he had even though he couldn’t be certain of anything. “I’ll help you study more, okay? You still have two more days before it has to be done, so just try to relax. Please. You’re going to be okay.”

“I am okay. This is normal. You know that this is normal. It’s not like this is the first time this has happened and it’s not going to be the last either, so just stop making such a big deal out of it, okay? It doesn’t matter. This is the least of my concerns right now.”

“Then you need to prioritize better because this is not okay. It is not healthy for you to think that this is normal.”

“It is normal,” Drax insisted. “I know that you don’t like this, but I deal with this shit every single day and that, for me, is my reality. So yeah, maybe it’s not statistically average but this is normal in my life. And it’s actually rather healthy, I think, because I always feel better after I’ve freaked out for a bit.”

“That doesn’t make it healthy,” said Jelpax, the expression on his face nothing less than shocked. “You need to just relax. I’m not trying to accuse you of anything, okay? And I’m sorry if I just overstepped my boundaries right there. We can talk about that later, let’s just get you to calm down.”

“I don’t want to calm down. Why do you think everything is going to suddenly be better if I calm down? I’m still not going to know the answers and I’m still going to fail the class and I’m still going to get in a hell of a lot of trouble so what’s the difference of doing it with a level head?”

“I can’t watch you suffer. That’s the difference.”

Drax hesitated. “You’re sappy as shit, you know that?”

“And you’re kind of a dick, you know that?”

“Obviously.” He leaned his head onto Jelpax’s shoulder, sighing deeply before he spoke again. “If I didn’t, I’d never be able to stand talking to a dick like you.”

Jelpax didn’t know if he was overstepping his boundaries when he wrapped an arm around Drax’s shoulders, but it felt like the right thing to do so he just went with it; pulling his friend in close enough that he could almost hear his hearts beating.

Aside from the fact that they were sitting on the floor in a restroom and Drax was still shaking as if he were about to explode, it was actually rather nice.

Not that Jelpax would ever admit to it, of course.

//

Though he bragged about his skills behind the scenes, Mortimus hadn’t actually played hide-and-seek since he was in primary school and his “pro skills” were incredibly rusty. He paced around the corridor for what felt like ages before he finally found someone, and it wasn’t even one of his friends, but a random Patrex who was very confused as to what he was doing.

He continued on his search, looking for any sign of his friends. He tried to observe his surroundings, looking for the best spots that he might choose himself, and the ones that he expected his friends to hide out in. He banged on the doors to several lockers as well, hoping that one of the doors may reveal a friend to be behind it.

“Okay, I give up,” he said, as he walked down the eighty-ninth corridor. “You’re welcome to reveal yourselves now. If we stick around for too long you know that we’re going to get caught, so you might as well just come out now.”

They were too experienced to fall for his tricks. The “pretend to quit so they come out of their hiding spots” trick was one of the oldest in the book and he knew it was a long shot, but he was desperate to get some sort of new lead and he was getting nowhere with what was happening so far (AKA nothing).

Next, he tried asking other people around. He spoke to random students, questioning whether his friends were around, but none of them had seen them, nor were they interested in talking to him. Mortimus decided then that Patrexes were rather rude, though he wondered if that might be because he was giving off such strong Prydonian vibes. Not that he was entirely certain that was a thing, but it would make sense if it were.

Finally, he looped all the way back around to Rallon, who was still sitting on the steps leading up to the entrance, looking remarkably bored. Mortimus wandered over and sat down beside him, feeling around in his own pocket to ensure that he had the candy in case he needed to use it.

“Hey,” he said lamely, hoping to sound as pathetic as he could. “I’ve looked everywhere, but I truly think that they’ve done better than I’ll ever know. This is just a waste of time. We should call them back. You know which way they went, yeah? Since you were the ref.”

“I mean, yeah. If you really want to quit then I can go find them, but—wait.” Rallon stopped, his brow furrowing as a skeptical look appeared in his eyes. “I’m not going to help you cheat, Mortimus. You need to find these guys fair and square. If you don’t, then we’re just going to have another fight on our hands.”

“So? At least I’ll be on the winning side of that one.” Mortimus groaned deeply. “They’re too good at this. I was just a casual player and these guys were all pro league. It’s just not a fair game, you know? I don’t stand a chance in this stupid game. I’ll never make the money back.”

“You’re never going to make the money back anyway. The rules are set up so that the last person who gets found is the one who gets it. You’re the seeker and therefore there’s no possible way for you to be the last one found which means you can’t be the winner. It’s unfair from the start.”

“Wait, what?! Why didn’t you say anything?!”

Rallon shrugged. “I really didn’t want to get involved any more than I absolutely had to. I’m still not even sure what the hell compelled me to come here right now, to be completely honest. I’d really rather just go home. This wasn’t how I wanted to spend my break.”

“Well, sorry for trying to involve you in our lives more.” Mortimus rolled his eyes dramatically, followed by a scoff and a quick shake of his head. “You’re always talking about how you’re not really involved in our schemes and shit and so we let you in and this is how you repay us? Pathetic. Just pathetic.”

“I never asked to be part of your schemes. The only time I ever commented on it was when you were trying to get my opinion on things I didn’t even know happened. That’s it. Not once did I ever ask you to involve me. In fact, I think I’ve done a pretty damn good job of not getting involved.”

“Holy shit, did you just say a bad word?”

“Why does everyone keep commenting on that?” Rallon groaned, running his hands over his face. “It’s not even that bad. I wouldn’t bother censoring it on a children’s show.”

“Why are you talking about your swearing?” asked Mortimus, as if he hadn’t been the one to bring it up in the first place. “You’re getting all off topic now, Rallon. Get your head back in the game. I need your help finding these motherfuckers so I can call them out for pulling such bullshit with these rules. Now come on.”

Rallon took a deep breath before he stood to follow Mortimus back into the building. He was not the least bit interested in trying to help find his friends, but he knew that it would only make things worse for him if he didn’t, so he started to search everywhere for the idiots…

…and learned that he’s the world’s greatest seeker.

//

Vansell had no idea what he was walking into when he arrived late to the Deca’s morning meeting a few days later.

Most of his friends were engaged in some kind of heated argument about hide-and-seek, while Drax was sleeping at his desk with Jelpax looking somewhat annoyed in front of him. Vansell opted to sit beside him, having seen that Jelpax was clearly not involved in whatever happened and would likely be the sanest person to be near.

“Any idea what’s going on right now?” he asked, though it was hard to hear his voice over the loud arguing and the soft sound of Drax snoring behind them.

“Not a clue,” Jelpax answered, shaking his head. “I’m fairly certain they were playing hide-and-seek and it turned out very poorly but other than that I’m just as clueless as you are. Well, maybe not that much since I’ve been in here longer than you, but—oh, and they have a wager going. Apparently. And Magnus took it all, I suppose.”

Vansell didn’t get a chance to ask any other questions before Theta suddenly spoke up again, his tone loud enough to drown out everyone else with his almost pleading words.

“Rallon, please,” he begged, his hands clasped together. “If you join us, we will be unstoppable. We could quite literally be the greatest hide-and-seek league that has ever existed. Just consider it, all right? You don’t have to make any commitments just yet; you just have to say you’ll think about it.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll think about it.” For no more than three seconds, he thought, but Rallon wouldn’t add that part aloud for fear of letting the arguments get worse. “Let’s just stop and talk about something else. Please. Nobody cares about this right now.”

“Actually, most of us were involved in the games,” said Koschei, “so statistically, most of us care about this. Not that most of us care about you joining the team, but about what happened with the games and the money in general.”

“Yes, but for those of us who weren’t—” Jelpax gestured towards Drax as he spoke “—you’re putting us to sleep.”

“I’m not asleep,” Millennia argued, “though I am rather uncomfortable with this conversation continuing when Rallon is so obviously not interested in participating in it. Is there anything else we might be able to talk about?”

“Well, since you asked,” Vansell began, “I was thinking I’d like to talk to you all about the debate that Jelpax and I went to the other day. We weren’t allowed to film anything or talk to people during, as you know, because of the way that they restrict information getting out—”

Jelpax was all too familiar with those rules and the fact that Vansell brought them up was the reason his mind began to wander. It wasn’t until after Jelpax had already spoken to Drax that he checked his phone and found numerous missed calls and texts pleading him to answer because he needed someone to talk to.

Even though Drax was calm and fast asleep by the time he saw them, he’d never felt worse in his entire life. He couldn’t have done anything differently, of course—not without choosing not to go to the debate at all which was unlikely for him to do—and yet he still felt awful about it.

Drax was his best friend in the world and meant more to him than he could ever know, and he’d failed him. He needed him, and yeah, it was for stupid, unexpected reasons (because no, taking the test on his own was not impressive to Jelpax, especially when it ended in a panic), but he needed him. And Jelpax wasn’t there.

It wasn’t until Drax actually stirred that Jelpax broke out of his thoughts. His best friend was behind him, suddenly jerking awake when a pencil hit him in the side of the head. He blinked rapidly, rubbing his hands over his face to clear the sleep from his eyes.

“Sorry, what’s happening?” he asked, his voice thick with sleep.

“You’re sleeping through our meeting,” Ushas told him, rolling her eyes. “Do you not give one shit about what we’re talking about right now?”

“Actually, no. No, I do not.” Drax groaned deeply and dropped his head back onto his arms, which were resting on top of each other on the desk in front of him. He snuggled into his arms and closed his eyes again, exhaling before he went on. “Let me know when you start talking about something interesting.”

“Yeah, like the debate which you just absolutely interrupted my talk of,” said Vansell, his tone remarkably hostile as he whipped around to look at Vansell. “I can’t believe you pretend you’re so interested in this shit, and yet you don’t even care what I’m talking about. Do you even care about politics at all?”

“Enough to appreciate our place in society,” said Ushas calmly, “but not enough to care about every single detail about this event you went to. If I cared that much about what was happening with the debates, then I would have gone myself. Now please, for the love of god, stop talking about it. We have other things to go on about. Drax, how did you do on your exam? Did you fail again?”

“I didn’t fail the first time, I skipped it,” Drax mumbled, his quiet speech muffled further by his arms. “And I got fifty-seven percent, which is a passing grade, thank you for asking.”

“Passing? That’s a—”

She cut herself off when Jelpax gestured for her to shut the hell up, making frantic movements with his arms asking her not to provoke their half-asleep friend. Having already listened to a remarkably long argument about the stupid games of the other day (and the fact that Magnus had ended up with all the money again), Ushas did as she was told, not in the mood to start any more fights that morning.

“All right, all right,” she said, sighing, “does anyone have anything else to talk about? Preferably more light-hearted? Perhaps Mortimus has a new partner he wants to talk about?”

“I mean, yeah, I have a date,” Mortimus started, “but I’m not really interested in talking about this while I’m still so angry about you all snubbing me the other day. I mean, what the hell was that with making the rules so that it was impossible for me to win?”

“Okay, look, we’re sorry,” Koschei grumbled, “but we had to do what we could. The odds were stacked against us and we needed to eliminate all the competition that we could. It was nothing about you personally, it’s just that you happened to be the seeker, and—”

“Can we really call him the seeker when it was Rallon who found us all?” asked Theta. His arms were crossed, almost as if he were pouting about the stupid situation. “Not to be a dick, Mortimus, but you really didn’t do anything at all.”

“Well, sorry that I’m out of practice!” he snapped. “Some of us don’t play little time tot games every day when we’re grown-ass… not quite adults. Young adults? Please tell me if there’s a word for this. Does anyone have a dictionary? I’m really fucking confused.”

Of course, it was Ushas who actually went to get him a dictionary rather than just shrugging off his babbles as a typical Mortimus rant. Everyone else did, however, and gathered their things to leave the room. There was no point sticking around for the last ten minutes just to listen to Ushas and Mortimus argue about stupid shit.

Jelpax stopped at the desk behind him before he left, nudging Drax’s shoulder to wake him up. He didn’t want to leave Drax there on his own, even if he would likely sleep through whatever stupid arguments were about to take place.

(And, as he would learn as he walked out of the room at the same time Ushas came back in, they were among the stupidest arguments he’d ever heard.)

Chapter Text

“Kos, check this out.”

Koschei glanced up from his phone to see what Theta was doing, then stopped when he saw the sheet of paper in his hands. He frowned when he realized it was actually several sheets, which were held together by tight plastic wrap.

“What are those?” he asked, unable to get a good look at them from where he was sitting on his bed.

“Professor Azmael had a little contest earlier and I won,” Theta answered eagerly. “He let us choose whatever prize we wanted from his little bin and I got this kickass sheet of temporary tattoos!”

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Koschei threw his phone across the room, ignoring it as it crashed into the wall as he was too occupied running over to see what Theta had gotten. “And they’re shiny too? Mate, you just won the fucking lottery with this loot.”

“I know! It’s come with a whole little alphabet and everything. I could write whatever I want on myself and nobody could stop me because it takes fourteen to eighteen washes to remove it unless you use a highly toxic solution which is banned within the walls of the Academy.”

“Fantastic. Let’s write some profanities on my forehead, shall we?”

Despite his initial plan, Theta did not end up spelling out profanities on Koschei’s forehead. Instead, he went for his forearm, and used the letters to write something which was far more mundane but fun enough that his friend was still okay with it.

After all, why wouldn’t he want “Theta & Kos 4ever” written on his arm for the next fourteen to eighteen washes?

//

“Thank god someone is here.”

Mortimus slammed his bag down onto the table, not caring one bit about whether he interrupted his friends’ work. He’d never been big on actually participating during study hall, so he wasn’t too concerned about taking time away from Jelpax and Ushas, who obviously had very different opinions about what study hall was meant to be used for.

“Okay, so I have this exam tomorrow afternoon,” Mortimus started, seemingly unaware that neither of his friends were paying attention, “and I have no fucking idea what I’m doing. It’s supposed to be about the political chapters and stuff and it’s all multiple choice but I’m remarkably unobservant and I don’t know three-fourths of the shit on the practice test.”

“And this is our problem how?” asked Ushas, not looking up as she flipped to another page in her textbook.

“Well, you’re my friends and you’re really smart so I thought you might help. I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s fine, I just thought that maybe—”

“All right, all right, we’ll help you.” Jelpax didn’t know whether it was the pathetic tone Mortimus used when he spoke or the urge to get out of spending time with Drax—or rather, Drax’s camera—that evening, but something convinced him to come to his friend’s aid. “Or, I will. I can’t say anything for Ushas.”

“I will commit to nothing,” said Ushas, “but because I recognize that you are both absolute fools, I will try to be there to help you. If only to prevent the spreading of misinformation.”

“Yeah, right.” He rolled his eyes as he turned back to Mortimus. “Anyway, do you know what kind of questions you’re going to be asked? Like, political movements, order of authority, general statistics…?”

“Uh, yes.” Mortimus nodded eagerly, as if he’d correctly answered the question which was most definitely not a ‘yes or no’. “I think we’re supposed to know the colors they wear and stuff too because it’s like a midterm kind of thing? Even though it’s not midterm. But my professor wants to test how much I remember.”

“And how much do you remember?”

“On a scale of one to ten? Maybe a three. Honestly, the class hasn’t been on my radar much thanks to a number of psychology classes I’m balancing right now. Which are far more fascinating, you know. Just the other day I started learning about this thing called—”

“Are you aware that you’ve become physically incapable of holding a thought?” Ushas’s tone was sharp, but her words were not as harsh as they sometimes were. “I don’t know if this is a new thing or what, but your attention span has gone from short to non-existent the last few years and it’s honestly very, very annoying.”

“Thank you for the feedback, I will consider fixing that in my next update.” Mortimus glared at her, rolling his eyes before he went on. “Anyway, you’re still going to help me, yeah? We’ll meet up in my room after classes. Thanks a lot, I really, really appreciate it.”

Mortimus didn’t give them space to speak another word to him before he grabbed his bag and strode out of the study hall; not one glance spared to the poor sod who’d agreed to help him.

//

Ever since the disasters which prevented him and Millennia from properly enjoying their extra-long weekend, Rallon had been trying to make it up to his girlfriend. Not just for her, but for him too. He hated that their wonderful afternoon was ruined by their friends and he wanted more than anything to try it again.

So, he crammed all the homework he could to be finished in time for them to have an entire evening to themselves. He arranged for Vansell to be out of the room, made up everything to be as neat as possible, and told Millennia that she should come over for a study date. Little did she know that the study date wouldn’t involve studying at all.

It would be a purely romantic evening, complete with snacks, candles, and the strange flowers he’d picked from the Academy grounds. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best he could pull together, and he hoped that Millennia would appreciate the effort more than what he actually managed to produce.

Rallon ducked into the restroom before Millennia was meant to arrive, making sure that he looked his very best, and then stopped dead in his tracks when the door swung open without so much as a knock. It was unlike Millennia to come in uninvited and to do so when Rallon was so hideously unprepared was unheard of.

He stumbled out of the restroom, his eyes going wide when he saw that it was not Millennia who came into the room, but his roommate, Vansell, who was not meant to be back for five more hours. He glanced up at the clock, his heart racing when he realized he only had a few minutes left until Millennia was meant to arrive.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, unable to stop himself from looking to the clock, as if time would somehow speed up. “You were supposed to be gone for the rest of the evening.”

“Yeah, the event got postponed,” Vansell told him casually. “I guess there’s some kind of flooding going on in the building over there. It’s fine, though. I’ll just read about it in my book and if I can’t get good information I’ll just ask my professor for an extension. I’m sure she’ll understand.”

“No!” Rallon ran over to his side of the room, trying to stop his roommate before he sat down. “No, you should go to the library. I doubt there’s anything in your textbook and you should really just see if there’s more interesting information there just in case. After all, if you’ve checked out a book then no one else will find the exact same information.”

“Okay, no. That’s not how that works and I kind of feel like you’re trying to kick me out of my room right now which honestly is pretty weird. Would you just relax and get to reading your own stuff? Because I really need to work on my report. If I don’t get an extension then it’s due in two days and I’ve barely even started on it.”

He looked up at the clock again, swallowing hard. “Can you just please work on it somewhere else? It’s not that I don’t want you here, it’s just… I invited Millennia over and I was kind of hoping to have some alone time but if you’re here then that kind of… negates it. You know? So, if you could just shoo, that would be great.”

“Sorry, but no.” Vansell shook his head. “I have a lot of stuff I need to get done here. You’re welcome to take your date elsewhere, though.”

“No, no, no. Don’t do this to me. Please, Van, do not do this to me. I know that you don’t have much of a heart, but this is so important to me and if you mess it up—”

“I’m not going to mess it up. Don’t you trust me at all? I’ll just sit here quietly and work on my project. It’ll be like I’m not even around.”

“Van—”

Rallon didn’t get a chance to finish his thought before Millennia knocked and entered the room, forcing him to go through with the date despite the immediate setback.

//

“Thank you so much for coming out here tonight, boys,” said Drax, both hands wrapped around his video camera. “I was very disappointed that Jelpax was unable to be here this evening, but things happen, so we’re just going to have to make do.”

Drax was, of course, speaking to Theta and Koschei who had agreed to be in his video that evening, if only for the opportunity to show off their new temporary tattoos. They didn’t have any real plans, just hanging out while Drax experimented with the various settings on his device.

“All right, so what exactly are we going to—”

Koschei didn’t get to finish his question before some unfamiliar girl came racing down the courtyard; her bleached blond hair and red crop top flying in the wind as she ran over to tackle-hug Drax. Theta and Koschei turned to gape at each other awkwardly when she did, neither recognizing the girl and neither understanding when Drax started letting random chicks hug him.

“Drax!” she squealed, not releasing her grip.

“Yeah, hi.” Despite the friendly opening, he looked very uncomfortable in her arms and quickly pushed her away, pulling his arms into himself after he took a step back. “I didn’t think that you were going to come.”

“What do you mean you thought I wouldn’t come? I haven’t seen you in years!”

“I know, but you could get in trouble if anyone—”

“Are these your friends?” The girl bounded over to Theta and Koschei, quickly reaching out to shake their hands. “I’m Annistyn, pleased to meet you. Drax has told me all about you.”

“All about us, has he?” Theta wiggled his eyebrows at Drax, who looked almost repulsed in response. “Well, it is a pleasure to meet you too, Annistyn. You’re not a Prydonian, I gather?”

“I am not but I don’t think that has to change the way we interact. After all, people are just people in the long run. So, are we going to start filming or what? Because if someone is going to catch me then I would at least like it to be caught on film.”

Theta watched silently as Annistyn ran back over to Drax and started fumbling around with him and his camera, seemingly unaware of all personal boundaries. Never before had he met this girl, and yet she was hanging on Drax as if they’d been friends for years. It was almost the way that Drax interacted with Jelpax, except Drax himself looked significantly less comfortable than Jelpax did in similar situations.

Curious as to whether he was the only one confused by what was happening, Theta looked over to Koschei only to find the most puzzled expression on his face. He was standing completely still, staring at Annistyn as if she were a ghost. Obviously he hadn’t expected Drax to have a mysterious friend either, especially not one of the opposite gender. (Not that he couldn’t have female friends of course, it was just that Magnus did kind of have a point when he poked at the fact that Drax was almost incapable of physically interacting with women.)

“Am I the only one finding this a bit strange?” asked Theta quietly, leaning in close to his friend. “They’ve clearly known each other a long time and I have no idea who she is. At all. Have you?”

“Do I look like I have?” Koschei crossed his arms, his brow furrowed as he watched the two interact. “I know he’s socially awkward but if they’re really friends then all I can say is, his gay is showing.”

“What?”

“Nothing, it was just an observation. Like I said, everyone knows he’s terrible at socializing, but I felt it was worth mentioning that Magnus isn’t wrong all the time. Also, who the hell is she and where did she come from?”

“I don’t know, but she said it’s been years so they’re obviously old friends.” Theta shrugged. “Also, they’re turning the camera on so we should probably stop talking about this before they catch us on film. Oh, hey, there’s Magnus!”

He ran off suddenly, leaving Koschei behind and far too distant from them to overhear what they were discussing. What he could see, however, was that Theta kept gesturing to Drax and Annistyn whilst speaking to Magnus, obviously trying to explain to him what was happening from his perspective.

Koschei would never know exactly how he managed to do it, but somehow he convinced Magnus to come over to where they were and join in on the action, even though he despised being on camera and they all knew that. He refused to shake Annistyn’s hand when she offered, and luckily she took no offense to it, seeming to recognize that it was nothing personal and Magnus was just a bit of a dick to everyone he didn’t know well (and most of those he did).

“Okay, I don’t know about you boys but I’m not here to be bored,” said Annistyn, clapping her hands together, “so let’s get to making videos, yeah? Drax, prepare to film. Magnus, stand there looking brooding. And you boys, go be gay over there.”

“What?” Koschei made a face, his eyes going wide as he looked over to Theta and then back to Annistyn.

“I think she’s talking about the temporary tattoo,” Theta whispered, leaning in closer to him. “It does look a bit homosexual if you don’t know how good of friends we are. And actually, even then, it—”

“Okay, I get it, so just shut up now. We have a video to film.”

And with that, he walked over to join Magnus in hiding from the camera, forcing Theta to be the awkward third wheel in Drax and Annistyn’s video.

//

“Okay, if you want to remember all of this quickly, then flash cards are the way to go.”

Mortimus nodded, staring out the window rather than looking to Ushas as she spoke. Just as they’d planned, he, Ushas, and Jelpax were gathered in the dorm that evening, preparing to teach Mortimus everything he might need to know about Gallifreyan political chapters.

Unfortunately, Ushas managed to predict exactly how the evening was going to go just by her quick comment about Mortimus’s short attention span, which had already zoned out enough that he was barely listening to them speak anymore. It didn’t appear to be intentional, but he was just completely lost in thought; staring out the window and nodding along as they spoke without responding once.

“…and then we can do a quick review, with—Mortimus.” Ushas sighed deeply, reaching over to tap him on the shoulder. He whipped around to look at her, the expression on his face somewhat confused. “Have you heard one word of what I have been saying these past ten minutes?”

“Yes.” Mortimus nodded quickly. “I heard every single word. I… forgot a lot of it, but I still heard it. I’m sorry. Seriously. I really want to learn; I don’t know why I zoned out like that. Can you just start again, please? I’m going to try harder to focus this time.”

“Fine,” she said, her lips forming into a thin line, “but if you ignore me again then I’m just going to go because honestly, I don’t have the time to deal with this.”

“Ushas, just cut him a little slack, yeah?” Jelpax sounded almost pissed off, and Mortimus was grateful for the interjection, though he would have preferred it to be a bit calmer. “I know you think he’s not trying but you can’t just assume the worst in people.”

“False. I can and I will, especially when it’s an idiot like this one.”

Still she shook herself off and went on with repeating herself, even doing so again when Mortimus asked her to clarify or say something again; showing that she cared more than she would care to admit. When she finally went over her entire game plan a second time, she whipped out some cards she wrote up during lunch and got straight to work.

It took about six minutes for Mortimus’s mind to wander away from the project again. He wasn’t working on anything else, but was simply staring straight ahead, barely paying attention as Ushas explained the things on her flashcards. Jelpax nudged him a few times to bring him back to focus, but it was far too obvious that they weren’t going to get anything done. After the second time Ushas left to take a short break, Jelpax slid closer to Mortimus and lowered his voice to be more friendly.

“Have you ever talked to anyone about this?” he asked gently. “Like, as a potential issue? Not that I think you have a problem, it’s just—”

“No, actually I have.” Mortimus looked somewhat awkward when he answered, not quite meeting Jelpax’s eyes. “I spoke to my psych professor about maybe having ADD or something, but he didn’t think so. He said the way I do it doesn’t line up with the symptoms in the right way, so…”

“Did he think it might be something else?”

“No. The official diagnosis is that I’m frequently uninterested and I have a difficult time getting myself to do things that I deem boring, which I guess isn’t an actual problem. Which it isn’t, I just don’t like doing things that are boring so if you have any ideas as to how you could make this more fun, that would be amazing.”

“Are you sure it’s just boring things though? Because you—” Jelpax cut himself off, deciding not to push the situation any further when he realized that Mortimus was unlikely to want to discuss his hobbies—or lack thereof—any further. “Okay, I actually think I have an idea for this. Ushas probably won’t like it, but it will keep you interested… I hope.”

//

“I’m really sorry that the evening is turning out like this.”

Rallon had already apologized to Millennia about a thousand times and he still felt as if he would need to do so a thousand more. It wasn’t the absolute worst way the evening could have gone, but Vansell was being just loud enough to soil the mood and the weather outside was hot and awful which meant there was nowhere else to go instead.

“It’s fine, honey,” said Millennia, also for the thousandth time since she arrived. “I know you think that this is a disaster, but I think it’s really sweet what you were trying to do, and Vansell isn’t even being that loud. He’s just doing his homework, so I really don’t think it’s a big—”

She was cut off by the sound of loud orchestral music before she could finish her sentence. Her and Rallon both looked over to see what Vansell was doing, their faces twisting in confusion when they saw him nodding along to the music that was playing far too loudly from his phone.

“What are you doing?” asked Rallon, storming over to shout at him. “I thought you said you were going to be quiet!”

“Yeah, I was.” Vansell calmly paused his music, turning to look at his roommate with innocent gray eyes. “But then I remembered that I have a music appreciation project due tomorrow and I have to finish this. So, if you don’t mind…”

He pressed ‘play’ just in time for Rallon to slam his index finger down on the ‘pause’ button. He glared at Vansell, not the least bit amused as to how he was foiling he and Millennia’s plans for a beautifully romantic evening. Somehow, Vansell didn’t seem bothered at all by Rallon’s glare, only annoyed that he’d turned off the music.

“Can’t you listen to that with headphones?” Rallon suggested, his tone almost pleading. “Millennia and I were trying to have a conversation.”

“No, you were just whining about me,” said Vansell. “And I cannot listen to it with headphones because mine are broken and even if they weren’t, my professor was certain that listening to it without them would make for a few more pure experience.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Honestly, I’m not really sure, but I’m doing very poor in this class so far so I might as well give it a try, yeah? Now, go get back to snogging or whatever the hell it was you were just doing. I have music I’ve got to appreciate.”

With that, he resumed playing the ungodly loud orchestral music, ignoring Rallon when he asked again to turn it off and making it even louder when he refused to stop pestering him. That left Rallon with no other options as to what to do and he ended up turning back to Millennia, hoping that she might have some sort of suggestion as to how they could end the awful evening he’d unintentionally created.

“Could we go to your room?” he asked, as he sat back down on his bed.

“No, Ushas and Jelpax are helping Mortimus in there,” Millennia answered. She looked just as troubled as he, though wouldn’t want to admit to how poorly the evening had gone so far. “We might be able to go to the library, though we’d have to trek through the heat, and we couldn’t bring our snacks.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Rallon flopped back onto his pillows, sighing when Millennia laid down beside him. “Well, this is a bust then. You might as well just head back to your place and do whatever it is you were planning for tonight. At least the tutoring in your room won’t be as loud as the awful music here in mine.”

“Hey, I think it’s romantic. And at least with the music playing, Vansell can’t hear us as well. It’s more like we’re on our own now, even if he is still sitting right there, looking all studious and intense.”

“I suppose you do have a point. And in that case, shall we get back to our snacks?”

Millennia nodded and reached around to grab the basket. “Crumpet?” she shouted over the music.

//

“All right, so once we’ve finished this video, I’m thinking we submit it to—”

“Okay, no, stop. What?” Drax made a face, suddenly reaching out to rip his camera away from Annistyn. He shook his head quickly, blinking several times to rid the bewildered expression from his eyes. “This is just for fun; we’re not going to do anything with it.”

“Seriously?” Annistyn frowned. “What’s the point if you’re not going to show it to anybody?”

“Well, you can do fun things like this.” He turned the camera on to record, then pointed it towards Magnus, a sinister grin appearing on his face. “Hey, Magnus, you want to see something great?”

Magnus looked over to Drax only to storm over and slam the camera shut. He’d already done that two or three times, and every time he did it made Drax burst out laughing despite how stupid and repetitive the sequence was. On the other hand, Magnus did not laugh at all, and simply glared at Drax.

“You see this face?” he said, pointing at himself. “This is the face of someone who is going to shoot themselves if you don’t stop fucking filming me.”

“If you don’t want to be filmed then why are you here, hm?” asked Drax, crossing his arms as he put on a challenging stare. “This is very clearly a recording session so if you’re not interested in doing this then I don’t think there’s any point in you—”

“I mean, he’s here because of me,” Koschei interrupted, walking back over to them with Theta trailing behind him. “Theta went over to talk to him when he came out of the building and then I invited him to hang out with us. I thought you saw, but I guess you were too busy talking to your girlfriend to notice, yeah?”

The look on Drax’s face was nothing less than stunned. He looked over to Annistyn, his head whipping back and forth between her and Koschei as his mouth repeatedly opened and closed, as if he couldn’t find the words he was meant to be saying. When he finally did, he stumbled over them so badly, his face flushed such a bright shade of pink, that he was barely even understandable.

“She’s not— I mean, she’s— she’s not my—”

“What he’s trying to say is that I am not his girlfriend,” Annistyn interrupted. “We’ve only even spoken two or three other times in person, which is honestly a shame because he is pretty cute.”

“Okay, can we just not?” Drax glanced around at all his friends, biting his bottom lip as he snapped awkwardly at the rubber band around his wrist. “I know that I get weird about stupid things, but this is making me like, really uncomfortable, so if we could just go back to having random fun, that would be great.”

“Yeah, of course. In fact, I should probably be getting back to my own building before anyone notices I’m missing from dinner. Thanks for inviting me to hang out, it was really fun.”

Annistyn laid a quick peck on Drax’s cheek before she ran off in the direction of the other schools, leaving the four members of the Deca standing there in silence. Drax was the stillest of all, his expression frozen as if he was in a state of utter shock. Whatever he was feeling on the inside, he definitely didn’t look pleased by what happened, though it was unclear whether he was uncomfortable or just ridiculously awkward.

“All right, uh, let’s move past this please,” he said suddenly, breaking the odd silence. “Theta, Koschei, why don’t you get on camera and explain to our future selves why you decided to brand yourselves for a month?”

Theta and Koschei did as they were told eagerly, all too happy to move past the awkward moment. Magnus also looked pleased by the idea, likely because it meant they would not have to be on camera but would still get to laugh at his friends’ ridiculousness.

“Okay, so I did this one on his arm,” Theta began, reaching over to lift up Koschei’s arm. “That says Theta and Kos forever, obviously. That’s because we’re best friends and we’re probably going to be best friends forever unless hell freezes over. And then I put the flutterwing by his ear when he wasn’t looking so I thought that was funny.”

“Yes, and then I noticed it,” said Koschei, his tone bitter, “which is why Theta has that rainbow behind his ear. Tit for tat, as they say. Though I must admit that it looks surprisingly good on his stupid face.”

“That’s because it’s bright and I’m bright and with that extra bit of sparkle I have enough positivity in my bones to destroy the universe with my joy.”

“Isn’t that counterproductive?” asked Drax, furrowing his brow. “You would want to make the world better with your joy, not destroy it, right?”

“Where’s the fun in making the world better?” Theta made a face, his normal happy demeanor suddenly looking as if he were ready to actually destroy the world. “I think it would be far more entertaining to make some things go up in flames, don’t you?”

“You are spending way too much time around me and Koschei,” said Magnus suddenly, shaking his head in disbelief. “I mean, seriously. You used to be the one of the most positive people I knew and now you’re talking about blowing up planets.”

“What, you don’t think I could do it? Because if you think I’m too childish or positive—”

“This is the most ridiculous conversation we have ever had,” Drax cut in. “And yes, I know what kind of conversations we’ve had before, but this is just bizarre. Nobody is going to blow up any planets and if any of us do it’s going to be me. I would kill to blow up Gallifrey.”

“Well, you would kind of have to,” Magnus told him, rolling his eyes. “If you blew up Gallifrey you’d be consequently committing genocide. It’s kind of a package deal.”

“Then commit genocide I shall.” He smiled and turned to Theta and Koschei. “You joining me?”

Koschei shrugged and nodded. “Sure, why not?”

//

“Art, N-Forms, heliotrope—”

Mortimus’s eyes darted back and forth, as if he were reading his own thoughts as he tried to process them. The answer should have been obvious, considering Jelpax was describing some of the most notable things about a lower-class political chapter, but somehow, Mortimus managed to over-think it to the point where he had no idea what he was saying.

“It’s, uh, Prydonians?” he said, his tone more than a little bit flustered. “Wait, no, that’s us. Uh… Arcalians! No, they wear green, right? Or is it brown? I know it’s not Scendeles because their robes always look like they’re covered in—okay now I’m extra confused. Who wears what color?”

“That’s what your focusing on right now?” Ushas scoffed, crossing her arms as she shook her head. As per Jelpax’s prediction, she was not remarkably enthused about his new method of teaching, though it was doing better at keeping Mortimus engaged. “He’s just pointed out one of the most important things they’ve ever contributed to Gallifreyan society. How do you not know who it is?”

Mortimus shrugged. “I guess I just thought it would be easier to go by color. And sorry if I don’t know who it is but I’m not remarkably interested in political endeavors, okay? I’m a psych major. Politics are generally one of the things we don’t want to talk about.”

“Okay, but Jelpax just described the three most well-known things about Patrexes and you don’t even know who he’s talking about. You weren’t kidding about not having a clue about anything that you’re supposed to be doing your exam on, were you?”

“No, that’s why I asked for help. And excuse me if I don’t pay attention to what color clothes everyone is wearing, and their stupid interests. It’s not like I’m even hating on Patrexes, you know. I can’t remember anything about Prydonians either. Politics just don’t matter to me.”

“Well, they should,” said Ushas. “Like it or not, you’re going to have to vote and participate in our society one day and if you choose not to become informed now then you’re going to regret it forever. Especially once you’re trying to catch up on everything significantly later in your life.”

Unable and unwilling to listen to them go at each other for any longer, Jelpax decided to cut in and slid between them, holding up a new set of Ushas’s note cards. He looked to both, giving them a chance to shut up before he verbally interjected.

“Can we just get on with this, please?” he asked, his tone almost defeated. “We only have so much time before curfew and at this point, I’m fairly certain that Mortimus hasn’t learned anything.”

“That’s not true,” said Mortimus. “I already learned that Patrexes wear green and brown.”

“That’s… no. If anything, you’ve just proven my point so just… Let’s try this again, yeah?”

Jelpax started over with a whole new round of questions, firing them off quickly the same way he had the first time. Mortimus was remarkably hit and miss, as he would get some answers correct almost immediately and sometimes he stared at Jelpax in silence until he finally fired off an answer that had nothing to do with anything.

Still, he was trying his hardest and he finally managed to get himself to focus which was pretty much the only thing that Jelpax really wanted out of him during that first hour. As time went on, however, he wished that Mortimus would get more reliable with his correct answers, though he knew there was nothing he could do to speed up the process without throwing his friend completely off his game.

So, despite the ridiculous amount of wrong answers, Jelpax continued—hoping that Mortimus would at some point finally catch on.

//

While the music was playing, Rallon and Millennia’s evening became surprisingly tolerable.

It still wasn’t the romantic perfection that he’d been planning, but the music made it loud enough that they felt like they were alone and Vansell was being quiet despite his obnoxiously loud tunes. Plus, he was listening to music with a somewhat romantic melody, so it did kind of set the mood, even if it was being played far too loud.

Somehow, they managed to keep a conversation going for a while and when the music hit points where it was too loud to speak they just snuggled in silence. It was warm and comfortable and perfect and even if it was kind of a weird way to spend an evening, Rallon didn’t think he would consider trading it for the entire world (unless he could trade it for the exact same evening without Vansell playing music right beside them, of course).

“Thank you for arranging this, Rallon,” said Millennia. She was lying with her head on Rallon’s chest, her soft breath warm on him. “I know it’s not exactly what you were planning for the evening but I’m really happy right now.”

“And if you’re really happy then I’m really happy.” Rallon sighed deeply, a small smile on his face. He nearly closed his eyes in a moment of peaceful bliss but was abruptly brought back to his senses when the song Vansell had playing at the moment hit an unexpectedly dramatic part and got about four times as loud. “Okay, please tell me I’m not the only one going insane because of this.”

“It’s not as bad as it could be. Though, I am a little bothered by the fact that Vansell doesn’t actually appear to be working on anything to do with music. Unless music appreciation is suddenly done with a quantum physics textbook.”

Rallon’s jaw dropped and he swung his legs over the side of the bed, gently nudging Millennia out of the way as he ran over to see what exactly Vansell was doing. His roommate didn’t seem to notice, and in fact, when Rallon got close enough he realized that the reason was because Vansell was wearing earplugs which likely drowned out anything he could’ve possibly heard over the music.

Knowing that speaking to him was useless, Rallon opted for the physical option and tapped him on the shoulder somewhat aggressively. He did it repeatedly until Vansell finally turned around to look at him; one eyebrow raised as if he had no idea what was wrong.

“Can I help you?” he asked, his tone somewhat amused.

“Yes.” Rallon nodded quickly, his hands clenching into fists. “I was just wondering why you’ve decided it would be hilarious to put a damper on Millennia and I’s evening. Do you really think it’s funny to do this to us? All we wanted was to have a nice, quiet evening in and you just had to go and mess it up with your music and your earplugs and that classic Vansell attitude—”

“Oh, for the love of god, Rallon.” Vansell reached into his ears and whipped out the earplugs, sighing deeply as he reached over to turn off the music and turned to look at his friend. “I just thought that your plan sounded rather dull and it just wasn’t quite up to Deca standards, so I made it a bit more lively. Is that such a crime? It certainly made things more interesting, didn’t it?”

“I didn’t want things to be more interesting!” Rallon squeaked. He immediately glanced back over to Millennia, hoping his tone didn’t come out too pathetic. “I don’t understand why all of you want everything to be so exciting all the time. Can’t I just have one nice evening in with my girlfriend? Is that such a crime?”

“A crime? No. But ridiculously boring? Yes, I would think so.”

“You’re just angry because you don’t have a girlfriend and you don’t understand how this works. I don’t want things to be exciting, I want things to be calm. Nice and plain and comfortable. Why the hell do you think everything needs to be such a rush all the time? All of you.”

“Honey, it’s not a big deal,” said Millennia, hopping off the bed and running over to him. “He just wanted to have a fun evening, is that really so bad?”

“Yes, it is!” Rallon snapped. He immediately felt bad for the tone he used and took a deep breath to make sure that his next words would come out far less harsh. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand why all of my friends want everything to be exciting. Can’t we just do something relaxing for once? Please?”

“Okay.” Vansell nodded, his tone somewhat defeated. “I’m sorry, all right? You’re right about this. I crossed a line and I shouldn’t have done that. I’ll go hang out with someone else for a bit and you two can have the room to yourselves, sound good?”

“Yes, thank you.”

With that, Vansell grabbed his things and headed out of the room, leaving Rallon and Millennia on their own at last. Unfortunately, the one thing that Rallon failed to notice was the disappointed look on Millennia’s face—clearly disapproving of the way her boyfriend went off at their friend.

//

“All right, everyone. This is the beginning of a new future for the universe.”

Drax zoomed in the camera on his friends, though it was him who spoke from behind the camera. They’d moved on to a new project, now in the library researching how they would successfully destroy Gallifrey (someday far in the future, of course—if they tried it now, they’d inevitably get caught and expelled). It hadn’t gone much of anywhere so far, but it was fun to research and even Magnus was starting to warm up to the camera.

“Okay, so imagine there’s a button,” said Theta, continuing with the plan he’d begun explaining before Drax had turned on the camera. “I think that I should be the one to press it. Because honestly, you’re a chaos god, Drax, and you two are both absolute assholes. Therefore, nobody would see it coming if I did it, which means I deserve the honor. Yeah?”

“Uh, no.” Koschei shook his head, furrowing his brow as a confused grin worked its way up his face. “If anything, you should be the one keeping watch because people are more likely to believe you. I think that I should press the button since I’m the one who is expected to do it, so if I get caught then you’ll be out without a hitch.”

“Since when do you care more about me then you do about you? You can’t be putting other people first, Kos, regardless of your personal relationships. In the game of genocide, it’s every man for himself. Excluding the race, you’re committing genocide on because they’re all going to die together.”

“As you can see,” said Drax, turning the camera on himself, “this is a remarkably bizarre conversation. If anyone sees this video before we carry out this plan, please don’t tell anyone about this. And if we never carry out this plan, still don’t tell anyone about this. I really don’t want to get in trouble for something as stupid as this. Also, disclaimer, we’re not actually threatening the safety of Gallifrey. We’re not terrorists, we’re just a couple of troublemaker Academy students who want to have some fun. So please, for the love of god, do not arrest us.”

“Would you stop being such a buzzkill?” Koschei sighed, running his hands over his face before he leaned forward onto the wooden. “You’re making this exclusively for us to watch so there’s no reason to freak out about other people to see it. Just relax, okay? This is all in good fun.”

“Yeah, it’s not like we’re actually destroying anything,” said Theta. “Not yet, at least. We can take care of that once we’ve milked these people for all the education they’re worth. Not that that’s all they’re worth, obviously. I believe that all lives are valuable, but there are a lot of dicks on this planet, so—”

“Okay, can you stop being so weird?” Magnus crumbled up a ball of paper and threw it across the table at him. “It’s really fucking strange when you’re going back and forth between being an evil war monger and an absolute goody. It makes you seem like you have worse mood swings than Drax and you know that’s a fucking insane thing for me to say.”

“Thank you for saying it though,” Drax commented. “It’s nice to not be the worst for once. Though I will admit I’ve had some ridiculously fast mood swings at time. Not that I think that’s bad, but—”

“Is it just me or are we having an ungodly passive-aggressive conversation right now?” asked Koschei, laughing awkwardly. “I mean, I’m not trying to be rude or anything, but this is just getting a little bit uncomfortable and I can’t be the only one thinking that, right?”

“You are definitely not the only one thinking that,” said Magnus. “I also realized that we were all being remarkably passive-aggressive, I just really didn’t care and honestly that’s how I tend to talk anyway. So really, it’s all of you who were being the dicks.”

“Just so you know,” Drax started, “I am still recording and I don’t think that this is a conversation that any of us really want to remember so if you don’t mind, I would really like to move this back to something more humorous or entertaining. Preferably just something that we’d actually want to watch in the future.”

“I have an idea. How about this?”

Magnus flipped his middle finger right at the camera, a completely blank stare on his face as he did so. He obviously didn’t care that he was flipping off a future version of himself and all his friends who might be watching it later as well. Drax decided to let it go only because he knew that, if nothing else, it was an accurate capture of how Magnus behaved at the time the video was taken.

“Okay, okay, back to our plan,” said Theta, waving his hands around frantically. “Let’s get back to figuring out how this might work, all right? If nothing else, at least we will have learned something interesting to write a paper about at some point in the future. That’s good enough, right?”

“Good enough?” Koschei gaped. “We don’t want good enough, we want Gallifrey good and gone. Right boys?”

Drax nodded eagerly, while Magnus simply sat there in silence, finally coming to his senses and realizing that the entire thing was a waste of an evening. Not that he didn’t think it would be fun to laugh at themselves later, but because he thought it would be sad to have a video log of just how much time they wasted on an average day.

(Which was, of course, far more than any of them would ever care to admit to.)

//

“…and they didn’t really have much of an impact in the long run, but they made significant technological advances during the war when we needed them the most…”

Ushas groaned, rubbing her temples in a state of stress and annoyance. They managed to get in a decent chunk of studying before Jelpax finally got off course, but when he did, he strayed so far from what they were meant to be talking about that he may as well have been in another galaxy.

The problem with Jelpax was not that he stopped giving information, but that he began to give too much. He went from telling Mortimus simple factoids to explaining the entire history of Gallifrey, which contained so many details and so much information that the poor boy looked as if he might explode. After a certain point, Ushas decided she’d had enough and snapped her fingers to get Jelpax’s attention.

“Hey, Jel,” she snapped, “you know that you’ve gone very, very off topic, yeah? Mortimus is taking intro to politics, not advanced historical Gallifreyan affairs. You’re not even telling him what he needs to know, you’re just filling his brain with useless information he’ll never be able to remember.”

“No.” Jelpax shook his head. “I’m just helping him to remember better with the aid of stories. Everyone remembers things better when they have something to associate the facts with. I’m telling you, this is a great idea to help him remember everything, since our other plans so far have been a bust. It—”

“Okay, but this really isn’t helping me,” said Mortimus, a slightly embarrassed look on his face. “I’m not trying to be rude, it’s just… you’re kind of giving me a lot of information right now and none of it is the information that I actually need. Well, maybe it’s buried in there somewhere, but I’m really not sure where. I lost the colors somewhere back in the Dark Times.”

“I didn’t even mention the—” He cut himself off, sighing as he pushed his hands through his hair, shaking his head slowly. “Never mind. I guess we should probably get back to what we were working on. Do you know what you’re still struggling with the most?”

“Uh, no. That’s why I’m struggling with it.”

It was Ushas who slapped her forehead first. “He was asking if you have any particular concepts you’d like to go ever again, you dumbass. He wasn’t asking whether you actually know things that you’re still struggling with. This is why we’re not getting anywhere.”

“What?” Mortimus made a face. “I don’t see how those things connect.”

“Right, exactly the way that I don’t see how Jelpax’s stories connect to the facts that you’re trying to learn. We’re not writing an essay; we’re just trying to get him to memorize some general facts. There’s no reason to get so in depth with what you’re talking about.”

“Why not?” asked Jelpax. “I’ve always learned better when I have a story to tie it back to. It’s like mental reminders as to how certain things fit into place. After all, studies have proven that—”

“I don’t give a shit what studies have proven,” said Ushas. “They’ve proven things about the authority, but they haven’t proven anything about Mortimus here and he’s far from ordinary. So, I say we go back to that weird game thing you were doing earlier and just see how much we can get him to remember. At least that bit was kind of getting us somewhere.”

“Kind of?” Mortimus scoffed, pushing back his hair as if he were some kind of celebrity. “I remember basically everything from what we were doing earlier. The Patrexes wear blue, right?”

“No, heliotrope.”

“We have a political party called ‘heliotrope’?”

Ushas shook her head, her brow furrowed. “No, that’s a color.”

“Oh.” He froze for a second, then suddenly burst out laughing as if his failure was somehow amusing. “Okay, I think it’s probably time we get back to work, yeah? Where did those flash cards go?”

Jelpax shot only one look over to Ushas before he reached out to collect the cards, sighing deeply as they went in for their seventh round of the studying game.

//

“Are you mad at me?”

It was the last question that Rallon ever wanted to ask, especially when it came to Millennia, but he had no choice other than to ask it. He and Millennia were still sitting in his dorm room, hanging out free of any annoying distractions, but somehow, it wasn’t as nice as it had been before.

Millennia didn’t snuggle like she was earlier, and the smile had all but disappeared off her face. She still responded to his questions and kept talking as if she didn’t want to make things uncomfortable, but it was clear that she was unhappy about something and Rallon was almost certain it had something to do with him. After all, what else could it be?

“Mad?” Millennia shook her head, but Rallon was almost certain that she was using some secret girl talk to evade an argument. “No, I’m not upset with you at all. I just don’t understand why you had to be so rude to poor Vansell. I know that he was bothering you, but you could have confronted him nicely.”

“Nicely?” Rallon gaped. He blinked several times, his eyes wide in shock. Clearly, they hadn’t witnessed the same situation. “Mil, he was intentionally destroying our evening. I think that’s pretty much the last time that I need to be nice to him. Or have social rules changed since I last heard, and now you’re meant to wreck your friends’ dates?”

“Now you’re just going too far. I know that you were upset with Vansell over what he was doing but it’s not the end of the world. There is no reason to shout at him just because he was having a bit of fun.”

“He was having fun at our expense. I don’t understand how you’re so okay with this. He intentionally ruined our night, Millennia! It wasn’t just a prank; it was intentional sabotage. Maybe you don’t think that’s a big deal but for me, that’s crossing a line. Friends don’t do that to each other.”

“Yeah, and friends don’t shout at each other when they make mistakes.” Millennia crossed her arms, suddenly rising from the bed and taking a step back from him. “You might be mad at him, but you have to understand that he knows what he did wrong. He made a bad choice but he’s not a bad person.”

“I never said he was a bad person,” Rallon argued, “I just said that I was upset about him intentionally ruining our date. Honest to god, my mind is blown by the fact that you don’t see a problem with this.”

“And mine is blown by the fact that you’re somehow surprised. These kinds of shenanigans are exactly what the Deca is known for and the mere idea that you think you can sneak by without being a part of it is ridiculous. Do you even want us to be your friends?”

“You? Absolutely. But if I’m being completely honest here, I could pick and choose the others.”

That was clearly the wrong thing to say as Millennia’s hands curled into fists for the shortest second before she released them, taking a deep breath to calm her rising temper. She did everything in her power to stop from glaring at him, trying to keep herself calm for long enough to finish their argument.

“You don’t get to just pick and choose your friends, Rallon,” she said, her tone surprisingly level. “The mere idea that you’re okay with abandoning your friends just because they’re imperfect is ridiculous, and I can’t believe that I someone I care about so much would even consider something like that.”

“I’m so sorry, Millennia. I didn’t mean that. I don’t know why I—”

“Please don’t make excuses, it’s not flattering, and it isn’t going to help your case. You’ve already said everything that you need to say so you might as well just stop now. You can’t take back your words.”

“No, but I can apologize for them.” He walked over to Millennia and slipped his hands into hers, gripping them just tightly enough to make her feel warm. “I’m so sorry if you thought I crossed a line tonight. I know that I can overreact sometimes when things don’t go my way and I hope that you’re not going to think less of me for that.”

She sighed softly. “Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes and if I’m being completely honest, I think that Vansell’s was bigger than yours. It’s probably me who’s overreacting, actually. It’s really not a big deal, it’s—”

Rallon cut her off when he leaned in to plant a kiss on her lips, causing her to smile uncontrollably and forgive any mistakes that happened that evening.

//

“…so, we put forth an admirable effort but, as to be predicted, it was all for naught.”

Mortimus dropped his head into his arms when Ushas said the last part, not wanting to meet eyes with any of his friends. A guilty or disappointed expression would do nothing but ask for mocking, and he was not in the mood for that so early in the day.

“I mean, it could have been worse,” said Jelpax. “I reckon if he really begs, he could get his professor to bump him up that extra two percent.”

“Wait, you failed by two percent?” Though his tone was initially shocked, Magnus quickly started to laugh, highly amused by his friend’s misfortune. “God, that’s worse luck than Theta.”

“It’s not luck, it’s what happens when you don’t bother to study until the last second.” Ushas rolled her eyes, leaning back against Borusa’s desk. She crossed her arms; her gaze lingering on Magnus for just a few more seconds before she suddenly turned back to Mortimus. “Anyway, I thought we could use this as an opportunity to finally commit to better study habits. Unless I’m the only one bothered by the fact that we’re turned from a group of scholars to a group of idiots, in which case—”

“Yeah, sorry to burst your bubble,” Drax cut in, “but you are, in fact, the only one who gives a shit.”

Though she’d walked right into the comment, Ushas still turned to glare at Drax; her lips forming into a thin line. They stared at each other for several seconds, neither saying a word but both standing their ground. When finally, the silence was broken, it was not by one of them, but by Theta behind them.

“Oh, for the love of god!” he cried, his tone far too dramatic considering the mundane situation. “Can we please just move on already? I don’t know about you all, but I actually had some things that I wanted to talk about this morning and all this glaring is taking up my time.”

“Fine then,” said Ushas, shifting to glare at him instead. “What do you want to talk about, Theta Sigma?”

“Well, we have this whole plan going to blow up Gallifrey and I was just wondering if any of you lot might want in. I know it sounds ridiculous now, but we have a really great idea going. We just need a bit more help, so—”

“Nobody wants to help us blow up the planet,” Drax grumbled, his expression suddenly falling. “It was a great idea but we’re just a bunch of stupid school kids. It’ll never work out.”

“You’re just bitter because your girlfriend had to leave early,” said Koschei teasingly.

In a turn of awkward coincidence, Jelpax just so happened to take a sip of water at that point and nearly choked on it when he heard Koschei speak. He barely stopped himself from spewing it across the room, launching into a sudden coughing fit before he managed to compose himself well enough to speak.

“Girlfriend?!” he gaped, his tone a mixture of humor and disbelief.

“She’s not my girlfriend,” Drax said quickly. “She’s that girl I met on the ship when we went on the trip to the Medusa Cascade, remember? We just message each other sometimes, that’s all. There’s nothing going on between us.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that’s what she thinks,” mused Magnus. “Even if you think it’s platonic, she was seriously hanging on you the other day. I mean, she almost tackled you with that hug. Not to mention the kiss before she left. That was just strange.”

“She kissed you?” Jelpax’s face was flat, his tone almost more shocked than the look in his widened eyes. “Were you just not planning to tell me anything about this, or…?”

“It wasn’t a kiss,” Drax snapped, his anger directed towards Magnus, who he glanced at only briefly before leaning on his desk towards Jelpax. “She pecked me on the cheek, yeah, but it doesn’t mean anything. Not to me, at least. I can’t say anything about her, but it doesn’t matter anyway because I doubt I’ll see her again anytime soon.”

“Do you want to, though? Like, do you think she could—”

“No.” He spoke before Jelpax could even finish his sentence; his tone so sharp that he almost looked ready to apologize. “I mean, she’s nice to talk to sometimes, but I wouldn’t ever think of her in a romantic way. I couldn’t. She’s just not my type.”

“Yeah,” Magnus agreed, his tone vaguely amused. “She’s a bit too much of a woman.”

“A bit too much of a woman, yeah.” Drax nodded distantly, before suddenly snapping back to attention and shaking his head. “Wait, what? It’s not that I don’t like her because she’s a woman, it’s just that she’s way too much for me. Too much pep and shit and she doesn’t know when to stop.”

“Are you describing yourself right now?” asked Ushas.

“You’d be surprised,” Jelpax mumbled. He was staring at his desk, somewhat detached from the rest of the meeting. “So, you really don’t have feelings for this girl then, yeah? ‘Cause I don’t care if you do, but you know I don’t like secrets.”

“I really don’t have feelings for her,” Drax confirmed. He glanced down at his shoes; his voice far too quiet when he went on. “And I know you don’t like secrets, so if anything did happen, you know I would tell you.”

“Of course.”

Though he nodded, there was something just off about Jelpax’s body language and the air in the room was strange enough that nobody else said a word. They all sat in a ridiculously uncomfortable silence, none of them quite knowing what to say that would break the silence in a reasonable manner.

Unsurprisingly, it was Millennia who managed to find something to say, her constant cheer breaking the awkward silence and putting a spark back into the conversation.

“So, anyway, does anyone want to hear about how Vansell sabotaged Rallon and I’s date the other night?” she asked. “It was really annoying when it was happening but if I’m being honest, it’s quite funny to laugh at, looking back.”

“No, nobody wants to hear about that,” Vansell mumbled. He was staring down at something on his phone, basically ignoring the group with all but his ears. “I was in a weird mood. It’s not going to happen again.”

“I think that means he wants you to tell everyone, Mil,” said Rallon, a mischievous smile sliding up his lips. “Unless you’d rather I?”

“It’s probably best we tell it together,” Millennia resolved. “Would you like to start?”

“Oh, very much.”

It’s safe to say that eighty percent of their story was not true, but they agreed it was worth it for the look on Vansell’s face. As he would’ve said, after all, it was only a prank.

Chapter Text

“Hey, do you lot mind lending me a hand?”

Only Rallon bothered to run over to help Millennia, grabbing half the papers she had stacked up in her hands. He helped her carry it over to the dining table, then set it down between their seats before sitting back down and leaning over to read one of them.

“You’re doing a fundraiser?” he asked, despite already knowing the answer from his reading.

“Yeah.” Millennia nodded, her tone somewhat solemn rather than excited for the project. “The Headmaster wants to cut funding from the Prydonian Paper, so we have to find a way to make money to keep it running. I’d love some help with it, if anyone is willing.”

“I’m not,” said Ushas almost immediately. She did not sound the least bit regretful, instead almost cocky in both her voice and her body language. “I, for once, actually agree with the Headmaster in this situation. There is no reason to be funding such a ridiculous waste of time. No offense to you or anyone else who works on the paper, of course.”

“Except for Dourgonn,” Koschei cut in, his mouth half stuffed with his dinner. “I would cancel the entire gender and sexuality column if I could. Or at least give it to Mortimus. Even he would be better than fucking Dourgonn.”

“I don’t know what your problem is with Dourgonn,” Mortimus started, “but that doesn’t sound like the worst thing in the world. Do you think he’d let me join him? I could write about hot people and the glories of pansexuality every so often. Not a regular gig, but—”

“Why did you have to say that?” asked Ushas, groaning loudly. She rubbed at her temples, closing her eyes as if she were in pain. “Now he’s going to waste precious funds writing a bunch of bullshit.”

“I never said that I was going to, I just said that it wouldn’t be the worst idea. I mean, you know how I can babble. I might as well do it for an audience.”

“There is no reason for you to do it for an audience. Literally nobody wants to listen to you babbling so I highly doubt anyone is going to want to read it.”

“Why wouldn’t anyone want to listen to me—” Mortimus cut himself off when a group of girls walked by, his entire expression suddenly going serious. “Okay, I have to go. I’ll talk to you guys tomorrow.”

He grabbed his backpack in such a hurry that he forgot to zip it and dropped multiple pencils as he rushed to catch up with the group, apparently trailing after one girl in particular. Ushas simply rolled her eyes and collected the pencils he dropped, not yet decided as to whether she would give them back.

“Think he has a new crush?” asked Koschei.

“Nope.” Magnus shook his head, finally looking up from his meal to join the discussion. “That’s not how he acts when he has a crush and if he did, he would have said something about it. The bloke couldn’t keep his mouth shut to save his life.”

Rather than trying to join in on the random speculation, Rallon opted to turn back to Millennia and engage in a conversation that he was more likely to understand.

“Do you need any help running this booth tomorrow?” he asked. “Because even if you don’t, I’m not doing anything, and I would love to help.”

Before Millennia had a chance to say ‘yes’, Drax suddenly reached over and grabbed one of the papers out of her stack, his expression twisting into one of complete shock.

“Wait, we don’t have classes tomorrow?” he gaped. “I totally forgot about the holiday! Goddamn, there are so many possibilities as to what I could do. So many things to do and only so many hours to do them in. Shit, I got to go plan this.”

With that, he rose from his seat and ran out of the dining hall, leaving room for Millennia to finally accept Rallon’s offer. She already expected the fundraiser booth to be fun, but it would be even better with her boyfriend there.

//

“I have just come up with the most genius idea known to mankind.”

Jelpax took a deep breath as he spun around in his chair, knowing that whatever Drax was about to tell him about was not going to be a great idea. In fact, it was probably going to be a horrible idea and judging from the look on his face, one that was not nearly as amusing as Drax believed it to be.

“Please tell me you’re not going to blow something up,” said Jelpax.

“Can’t guarantee anything at this stage,” Drax told him eagerly. He dropped his bag onto the floor, plopping down onto Jelpax’s bed rather than his own. “So far, all I’ve got is the basic idea. We’ve got the whole fair thing today, yeah? Well, I’m not going to enjoy their festivities, I’m going to create my own.”

“Oh, god.”

“Yes. I am going to try to make the universal record of most rules broken in one day. I’ve already got the list and everything—” he held up a sheet of paper to show Jelpax “—shortened to the ones I think I’m most likely to be able to do in a speed run. Now, I won’t drag you into this too much, but I would like your help with—”

“No.” Jelpax held up his hands in defense, swiping them from side to side as she shook his head slowly. “Hell no. Drax, I love you, but there is no way in hell I am going to help you with this. In fact, I think this is something that I would rather not touch with a twelve-foot pole.”

“What about just like, an eleven-foot pole?” asked Drax, biting down on his lip awkwardly. When Jelpax inevitably shook his head a second time, he sighed dramatically. “So, you’re just going to leave me to do this all on my own? Great. Some friend you are.”

“Some friend you are, wanting to get me into shit tons of trouble like that. And besides, it would be far better for your ‘record’ if you did it on your own because you’d be counting how many rules you broke solo, not how many rules you broke with assistance. Tell me that’s not more impressive.”

“Okay, maybe you’re right. That would definitely be more impressive. I still don’t know if I trust myself to go through with all these plans on my own, though. It’s quite a commitment to watch my own back for an entire day.”

“Yes, but maybe that’s practice you need.” Jelpax started to pack up his things, glancing up at the clock to make sure he wasn’t running too late. “You get caught all the bloody time so maybe if you tried watching out for yourself for once, it would help you stop getting caught after every fucking scheme.”

“Yeah, but why would I do that when I could keep being a dumbass?”

Jelpax opened and closed his mouth several times before he decided not to say anything at all and stood up instead; shaking his head for the third time in the past three minutes as he headed out of the room, leaving Drax to finish thinking up his schemes on his own.

//

“Okay, I know that you think this is going to be a really boring day, but it’s not. I have a plan.”

Theta froze right where he stood, whipping around to look at Koschei and blocking the entire middle of the corridor in the process. He frowned, crossing his arms as he ignored the people around him to focus on whatever awful idea his best friend might have come up with.

“What are you thinking about?” he asked, his tone filled with more concern than he intended. “Not that I don’t trust you or anything, it’s just that this holiday is important to a lot of people and I don’t want to ruin it. Intentionally or unintentionally, that is. So, if you’re thinking about including me in any of these plans, I would rather you not—”

“I’m not trying to get you to help me,” said Koschei, rolling his eyes. “I just wanted to show you my new trick. Here, check this out.”

He grabbed onto Theta’s wrist and dragged him to the side of the hall nearest the windows, leaning back against the wall before he continued. He nudged Theta and pointed to a chubby boy bouncing down the hall, then smiled and focused his expression extremely hard, looking more serious than Theta had ever seen before.

One second, Lungin was just waddling along, minding his own business, and the next he was walking into the wall. Repeatedly. Banging his head into the dark red bricks repeatedly as if he was unable to stop. It was almost like he was in some kind of a trance, just walking into it completely devoid of emotion.

“Uh…” Theta frowned, looking back and forth between Lungin and Koschei as he tried to figure out what exactly was happening. “Do you mind telling me what’s going on right now?”

“What’s going on?” Koschei laughed. “I thought it would be obvious. I’m hypnotizing him.”

Theta’s jaw dropped. As soon as he said it everything made sense, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling alarmed at the idea of it. Koschei was actually hypnotizing people. He had spoken about learning it in the past, but he never made any action to truly entertain the idea. At least, none that Theta had seen. Considering he was hypnotizing people out of nowhere with complete and utter ease, there must have been something happening behind the scenes.

“Well, stop it!” Theta cried. He reached out to grab Koschei’s hands and shove them down to his sides, as if that would somehow break the mental bond he’d formed with poor, innocent Lungin. “It’s not funny, Kos! You’re hurting him!”

“I think you misunderstand what funny is,” said Koschei, making absolutely no move to stop what he was doing. Other people had noticed what Lungin was doing and—not knowing that he was under Koschei’s control—had gathered around to start laughing at his stupidity. “This is fucking hilarious. I mean, look at them all! They’re gathered around him like he’s an exhibit at a zoo.”

“It’s not funny! This is just mean. You know what it feels like when Torvic comes after us? That’s probably what he feels like right now. Okay, well, maybe not because he seems pretty fucking out of it, but you know what it’s like to be hurt and manipulated, Kos. Why would you do it to someone else?”

“Because I’m—” He cut himself off, as if he were realizing that something about what he said didn’t make sense. Suddenly, he dropped his hands and sighed, rolling his eyes before Lungin suddenly regained power over his motor controls. “Fine, fine, that’s enough for right now. Let’s get out there before all the best food is gone out there.”

He strode off down the hallway quickly, forcing Theta to shove through the crowds to catch up with him. He was no longer particularly interested in spending time with Koschei, but he didn’t want him to start hypnotizing other people without supervision either.

//

“Muffins! Get your muffins right here!”

It was likely due to how early in the morning it was that Millennia was still as chipper as she managed to be. Rallon, on the other hand, was already tired of sitting outside of the sun and just generally tired and was falling asleep at the booth. It wasn’t until Millennia sat back down beside him and leaned against his shoulder that he suddenly jerked back to attention.

“We’ve only sold a few so far,” said Millennia, “but I’m hoping we’ll be able to get more soon. We do still have the whole day ahead of us, and I’m sure that people are going to get hungry at some point, yeah?”

Rallon said nothing. He should have responded, but he hadn’t realized that the other girl working the booth—whose name he’d forgotten—had gotten up to leave, meaning that Millennia was actually talking to him, not her. He only realized his mistake when Millennia spoke again, her tone immensely confused.

“Honey?” she started, furrowing her brow. “You still there or you zoning out on me?”

“What?” He blinked quickly, shaking his head as he came to attention. “Sorry, I thought you were talking to— uh, never mind. I know that you’re going to sell every muffin by the end of the day. Not a doubt in my mind. Your muffins are like, the best thing that anyone has ever made ever.”

“Well, that’s quite the compliment, I suppose. They are still a breakfast food though, so I was kind of hoping we would have sold more in the morning. We do still have other gifts, so people might buy those. What do you think is the best thing we have to offer today?”

“Honestly? You.” Rallon smiled and wrapped an arm around her. “The products might be great, but you are by far the most wonderful thing that will be at this booth for the entire day. Though, you would probably be a bit better if you didn’t have that dull dud sitting beside you.”

Millennia feigned offense. “Hey! That’s my boyfriend you’re talking about.”

“Is it? Well, I guess he won’t be happy if I do this then.”

He leaned in and planted a quick kiss on her lips, pulling away when he heard a sudden clapping from beside them. Rallon groaned when he turned to see Mortimus standing on the other side of the booth, a stupid grin on his face as if he’d just witnessed something far more exciting than a kiss.

“Well, hello there, lovebirds,” he said jokingly. He pushed his hair back behind his ears, not bothering to do so again when the wind almost immediately blew it back into his face. “I just came for the muffins, but I suppose I’ll have to pay extra now that I’ve seen the whole show?”

“You are ridiculous, Mortimus,” Millennia told him. She gathered two muffins and held them close to her, extending one hand to take the coins from him. Once he did, she slid them over, then reached down to grab a bracelet and handed that to him too. “An apology for walking in on that. And also, I made that one just for you, so…”

Mortimus smiled as he looked down at the pink, blue, and yellow bracelet, inspecting it thoroughly before he slid it onto his left wrist. “I love it, thank you.”

“You’re very, very welcome.”

“Anyway, I was just about to—” He cut himself off when a group of students passed by the booth beside them. “Sorry, I’ll be back in a bit. I just have to go do something really fast.”

He nearly dropped his muffins in his rush to catch up with the group, clearly on a mission that he wasn’t quite ready to tell them about. Millennia didn’t mind, though; it gave her more time alone with Rallon before the next customers arrived.

//

The first rules Drax had to break were obviously the ones which were simplest to do and easiest to get away with. Those like the dress codes, speech policy, and general laws of conduct. He had significant experience in breaking those, of course, so it wasn’t hard at all to break those three right away.

It was hard, however, to get past Magnus when he caught Drax in the middle of his dress code-breaking chaos. He nearly burst out laughing, unable to stop staring at the outfit he’d chosen to wear. Though, Drax was kind of asking for it with his cuffed blue jeans, high-top purple trainers, cutoff yellow t-shirt, heart-shaped sunglasses, and extra colorful rubber bracelets.

“What the hell are you wearing?” Magnus gaped, his eyes going wide. He looked like he might choke on his own laughter, unable to stop himself from staring at his friend’s strange attire. “You look like you’re ready for the catwalk.”

“Yeah, ha ha, very funny.” Drax rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he adjusted his stance. “I’m on a mission today and I have to break a lot of rules. This goes against dress codes, so this is what I’m wearing. Deal with it or shut the hell up.”

“Wow, holy shit. It’s almost like dressing gayer has actually given you a pair of balls.”

“I have a really good comeback for that but I don’t think it would be appropriate for—” He cut himself off, a small smirk creeping up his cheeks as he realized that going against the Academy’s speech policy was exactly what he was meant to be doing. “By definition, don’t I have to have balls to be gay? Or do I just have an extra pair now because if so, I would graciously donate them to accompany your gigantic dick.”

“Draxin!” It was just then that Professor Borusa happened to walk by, the expression on his face nothing less than shocked by both Drax’s general appearance and his inappropriate speech. “You need to watch your tongue; we’re hosting time tots today! And what in Rassilon’s name are you wearing?!”

“Sorry, Professor,” said Drax, shrugging innocently. “I thought that it was stylish and fitting of the warm weather. And I hadn’t realized that there were any time tots around. I thought I was just speaking freely and privately to my friend the big dick here.”

“This is your last warning, Draxin. You watch your tongue and do something about that atrocious outfit or I’m banning you from this event. No exceptions.”

Borusa didn’t bother waiting for a response, knowing Drax too well to wait around for his classic sigh and roll of the eyes before he headed off. Almost immediately after he disappeared into the crowds of students, Jelpax appeared behind Drax, tapping him on the shoulder to grab his attention before handing over an over-sized black jacket.

“I kind of figured you were going to get called out on that,” said Jelpax, as held out the jacket. Drax zipped it up just high enough to cover the exposed part of his stomach, then stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Though, I’m also pretty sure that was the point.”

“That was absolutely the point,” Drax confirmed. “I wasn’t intending to get stopped by this asshole, though. Not that it didn’t work out, because he gave me fuel to piss off Borusa right before he showed up. And he pissed me off, but I guess that’s a daily occurrence, yeah?”

“I’m not trying to piss you off,” started Magnus, “I’m just speaking my mind. You wear an outfit as stupid as that one, you can’t possibly expect me not to say anything. I mean, seriously. You’re wearing a fucking pastel yellow crop top and neon purple trainers. It’s just ridiculous.”

“And yet I pull it off so well.” He smiled. “Come on, Pax. We have more rules to break.”

Jelpax didn’t bother arguing as he followed Drax away from Magnus and into the crowds; hoping that, if anything, he would be able to stop his friend rather than help him.

//

“I can’t believe you don’t think this is fun.”

“I can’t believe that you do,” Theta grumbled. He barely had the motivation to walk around, an angry expression on his face the entire time they moved around the grounds.

They were honestly rather pathetically decorated but the booths which littered the grass and paths were exciting and decently fun to look at. Not that Theta had much time to check them out, since Koschei was so busy hypnotizing people he didn’t like. Theta knew that it wasn’t really his problem, but he couldn’t stand to see people get hurt and felt an obligation to stop Koschei from causing too much damage—which was far easier said than done.

Koschei had clearly been honing his skills for quite a bit at that point, and Theta’s mediocre knowledge on hypnotism wasn’t enough to stop him manually. So, whenever Koschei decided he wanted to go after someone again, Theta was forced to try and talk him down. Which almost always failed epically but Theta did the best he could.

“Thete, I could go after the Headmaster if I wanted,” said Koschei, grinning to himself. “I wouldn’t, because I know that it wouldn’t end well if he found out, but I could. And it would be a hell of a good time, I’m sure. Not counting the inevitable repercussions which I don’t particularly want to deal with.”

“Well, if you don’t want to deal with the repercussions, maybe you shouldn’t be doing this in the first place.” Theta knew that he sounded like a mum and was going against everything he’d ever learned about causing trouble, but he didn’t care. Koschei was crossing a line this time and he couldn’t stand it any longer. “Can’t we just let people enjoy the holiday in peace for once?”

“Of course not. If we did that then our reputation would be ruined. I mean, we’re the most notorious troublemakers around. To let an event like this slide by—”

“Isn’t that what you’re doing anyway? You don’t want to get caught so it already looks like we haven’t done anything. If you care so much about keeping up your reputation or whatever then just do something else. Something that people can actually associate with you.”

“But why would I do that when I could do this?”

Koschei slid to the side of the stone path they were walking upon, smirking to himself right before he narrowed his eyes; focusing intently on Dourgonn, who was standing in a group of people only a few feet away. One moment, they were simply talking and laughing with their friends, and the next, they were doing the chicken dance right in the middle of the crowd.

Eyes wide and both alarmed and amused by the situation, Theta reached out to slap Koschei across the face, hoping he would be able to break his concentration. Unfortunately, his friend was far too deep into his trance, and the action was all but useless against him.

Out of ideas and desperate to stop the madness, Theta took a deep breath, focused his gaze, and stared straight into Dourgonn’s mind. The world around him seemed to spin as he became entranced in what he was doing, his eyes losing focus on the world and instead observing a single person and their actions.

It took as much concentration as Theta could fit in his body to undo the damage that Koschei had caused. It was one of the most taxing things he’d ever done in his life—fighting Koschei off with nothing more than his brain—and by the time he snapped back to reality, he felt like he might collapse.

Beside him, Koschei did not look so physically exhausted, but the expression on his face was less than pleased. A quick glance back over to the group of friends a few feet away from them told Theta that he had managed to win, but the cost was high. Koschei’s temper was already flaring and the suns were barely up in the sky.

“This is going to be a long day, isn’t it?” he asked quietly.

Koschei only nodded, his eyes narrowed in disappointment.

//

“I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

Sales hadn’t gone up much since the beginning of the fair and Millennia was starting to fear that they weren’t going to make enough money for the Prydonian Paper to remain active until their next event. So, she decided to come up with some new ideas to make more sales. Ideas which Rallon was not thrilled to be a part of.

“Well, I think you’re mistaken because this is an absolutely brilliant idea,” said Millennia cheerily. “People will be more engaged with the stand and it’ll give you something to do so you stop falling asleep at my table.”

Rallon winced. “Yeah, sorry about that. I knew I’d be here all day today, so I had to cram a lot of homework last night. Might have forgotten to sleep at some point. Actually, I’m a bit grouchy from all that restlessness so it’s probably not a great idea to have me talking to people. Sorry.”

“Oh, no. You are not getting out of this that easily. You promised me you would help today and sleeping on my merchandise is not doing anything at all. Now, go out there and make some sales.”

He nearly opened his mouth to argue against it but decided not to when he remembered that Millennia was his girlfriend and therefore, he was inevitably doomed to lose. Since he was going to end up doing as she asked anyway, he might as well do it with dignity.

Rather than speaking, Rallon only nodded and mumbled something about being awful at social interaction before he wandered off to find people to sell to. He had a box of trinkets in his hands, carefully selected by Millennia, and was meant to be selling them to his peers like some sort of actual salesman and not just a socially awkward boyfriend.

Knowing that he was likely to botch any kind of regular conversation, Rallon decided to go for the easiest targets and sought out his friends. Unfortunately, the first person he found was not one of the nicer, more willing shoppers, but instead Ushas—who’d already expressed her disinterest in the funding of the newspaper.

“Are you lost?” she asked when Rallon walked up to her. “You seem to be carrying merchandise for Millennia, but her booth is on the other side of the fair. Do you need me to walk you back over there?”

“No, I’m actually trying to get more sales,” Rallon said awkwardly. “It would really help us out if you could buy something. The numbers aren’t looking too good so far.”

“Well, for one thing, it’s stupid to count the numbers right now. It’s far too early in the day. And for another, it’s probably because nobody else wants the funding to go to that ridiculous newspaper either. There’s really no reason to keep it going, you know. Extracurriculars are a waste of time.”

“Yeah? What do you call your hours of science every evening?”

“I call that research,” Ushas answered simply. “It might not be the most productive thing in terms of my Academy life but it’s fascinating and it educates me better.”

“The paper educates people too,” said Rallon challengingly. “You know that there are tons of students out there who only know about current events and things of the sort because the school paper informs them of it? And so much research goes into creating each article. So, before you dismiss it completely, I think you should really consider the good that the paper does for the Academy as well.”

Ushas opened her mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again and shook her head, sighing loudly. “All right, all right. Give me a muffin.”

Rallon couldn’t help smiling to himself as he made the transaction. One down, countless left to go.

//

“Please don’t do this.”

Drax looked over his shoulder to where Jelpax was standing, rolling his eyes when he saw the fearful expression on his friend’s face. Clearly, they had different ideas as to when it was appropriate to set off firecrackers. Or rather, they had the exact same idea and differing opinions as to whether the rules should be respected.

“It’s fine,” said Drax. He rolled his eyes and turned back to the firecrackers, fumbling around in his pocket for a lighter. Once he found it, he tried to light them immediately, but his hands were shaking just too much to start the flame. “Dammit.”

“Do you think that’s because there’s a part of you that doesn’t really want to do this?” asked Jelpax, keeping his voice soft to at least dull the inevitable comeback. “I know you have this whole idea that making a record would be fun, but if it’s too much stress, you shouldn’t—”

“Stressed?” He almost laughed, rolling his eyes in disbelief at the assertion. “No offense, Pax, but breaking rules is pretty much my strongest skill. I do this every single day. You’re the one who’s stressed about getting in trouble, not me. I don’t care.”

“If you don’t care, then why are you shaking?”

“I’m not.”

In either a stroke of luck or a turn of confidence, it was at that moment when Drax finally managed to start the lighter and held it down towards the fuse, smiling to himself all the way. He and Jelpax were standing a little ways into the woods, just out of sight enough to not be caught lighting the firecrackers but not so far away that they wouldn’t be seen at all.

Drax planned for the firecrackers to be seen and heard by everyone, but he wanted to be far enough away that he wouldn’t be caught before he could run back into the crowds. It seemed like a foolproof plan, one which would be an easy segue into his next mission of defacing Academy property.

“Ready?” he asked. He waited for Jelpax to agree before he started the firecrackers. “Haul ass!”

They took off running through the woods, Jelpax trailing just behind Drax as they twisted through the trees to get away before it was too late. Luckily, they managed to escape, ducking down behind a large rock right as Borusa and the Headmaster came to see what was happening.

It didn’t take a genius to realize they were both deeply pissed, and Drax could barely contain his laughter as he watched them from a distance. The men ran straight up to the firecrackers at first, then stepped back quickly; nearly stumbling over themselves as they hurried to get away from the flames.

“That’s four,” said Drax, as their elders resumed trying to smother the fanciful explosions. “Let’s see how many more I can cross off this list, yeah?”

Jelpax didn’t get a chance to interject before Drax leapt to his feet, running back to rejoin the celebrations.

//

Theta had all but given up on fighting Koschei until he picked the target that was entirely off-limits.

Making random students do some harmless acts was one thing. Although it was, in Theta’s opinion, morally wrong, it wasn’t really hurting anyone to do a chicken dance for a few seconds. But then Koschei stumbled upon someone who’d caused them much annoyance in the past. Someone who could get Theta into more trouble than either of them knew.

“If you do this,” said Theta, running in front of Koschei, “I will never speak to you again.”

“Yeah, because you’ll be too busy laughing your ass off.” Koschei snorted, pushing Theta out of the way to see his target better. Braxiatel was just minding his own business several feet away, completely unaware that his brother’s idiotic best friend were plotting against him. “Look, if you’re really so bothered, I’ll let you pick what I do to him. But I’m not going to just give up an opportunity like this. It’s too good!”

“But Kos—” He cut himself off, looking back and forth between Koschei and Braxiatel as he tried to decide what he wanted to do. “All right, you promise not to do anything too bad to him, yeah? Because you know he’ll kill me if he finds out that we—”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, just shut up so I can focus.” He narrowed his eyes, holding his hands out in front of him ever so slightly as he focused deeply on Braxiatel. “Get ready for the laugh of your life, Theta Sigma.”

He did. Theta waited for it, biting down on his lip and bouncing up and down slightly from a mixture of excitement and anxiety. He waited and waited as Koschei focused; both their minds racing albeit about different things. Until Theta’s started to slow down when he realized that nothing was happening.

“Are you going to do it or…?”

Koschei glared at him. “I’m trying, but it’s not working. It’s like his mind is blocking me out or something. He doesn’t know hypnotism, does he? That’s not part of our courses yet.”

“I don’t think he knows how,” said Theta, suddenly doubtful. “I suppose he could, but it doesn’t seem like something he would do without permission, you know what I mean? I don’t think he would—”

“Are you trying to hypnotize me?” asked Braxiatel suddenly, glancing around to make sure he didn’t get in the way as he crossed the path to get over to them. He stopped just two feet away from Theta and Koschei, crossing his arms with his eyes narrowed. “You think I’m stupid enough to get caught in a trap like that?”

“No! No, definitely not. It’s just that we were trying to, uh, get your attention. Or practice. Or something that makes sense to you. We weren’t going to do anything bad and we definitely don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Stop sucking up, Theta. It’s fucking pathetic.” He sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to get you in trouble, just don’t do it again, yeah? At least not on me. Based on that attempt, you’re going to need a hell of a lot more practice on weak minds before you can get after me.”

Thankfully, Braxiatel walked away after that, proving that he was not, in fact, out to get Theta. Not that day, at least. Theta sighed and looked back to Koschei, opening his mouth to speak, but snapped it right shut again when he saw that his friend was already searching for his next target.

“You’re really going to keep doing this?”

“I’m really going to keep doing this.”

And so, even though Theta wanted nothing more for it all to be over, he followed Koschei as he moved through the crowd—looking for the next student who would fall victim to his hypnotism.

//

“It doesn’t cost that much, which is probably because it’s not high quality, but cheap is better than really pricey, yeah? Nobody likes to spend all their money at these things. But anyway, it’s—”

“I’m sorry,” said the blond girl, “but I think I’ll pass this time.”

Rallon groaned as she walked away, looking down to his box of things that had yet to sell. There was far too much stuff left as he’d only managed to sell a few items so far, likely due to his awful salesmanship and not the quality of the merchandise Millennia had sent him off with (which, he realized, he probably shouldn’t criticize in his sales pitch).

He was just about to give up and head back to the booth to find Millennia when he found a glimmer of hope in the crowd. Mortimus was standing with Vansell, shaking his head as they talked about something he couldn’t hear. There was little chance that Vansell would buy anything, but enough time had passed that Rallon expected Mortimus would like another muffin. Rallon pushed through the crowds to get to them.

“Hey,” he said, waving with his fingers as he couldn’t move them from beneath the box. “Any chance either of you wants to buy something from me? I really don’t want to go back to Millennia without selling at least half of this.”

“Sorry, I’m really not hungry.” Something about Mortimus seemed almost distracted, causing Rallon to wonder what he might have missed of the conversation before he walked up. “And I’d buy something else but it’s all shit except those bracelets Millennia made and I already have one of those, so…”

“Don’t mind him, he’s in a pissy mood.” Vansell reached into his pocket and whipped out several coins, which he held out to Rallon. “Just give me whatever. I’d rather waste my money on this than something else which won’t benefit my friends. You sure you don’t want another muffin, Mortimus?”

He shook his head, the expression on his face not the least bit cheery for once in his life. “I got my fill earlier, thanks. I’ll probably eat the leftovers if there are any but I’m really not in the mood right now.”

“Are you all right, Mort?” asked Rallon, his brow furrowed in concern. “Not that I’m trying to get in your business or anything, it’s just that you normally love these events like this and right now you just seem, like… like something is really bugging you.”

“You’re spending way too much time around Millennia,” said Vansell, an odd look on his face. “Since when do you get involved in stuff like this? You’re supposed to be the socially awkward one who never has a clue what’s going on.”

“Yeah, well maybe that’s true but I know my friends and I know when something is wrong. Is there something bad about wanting to make sure everything is okay?”

“No.” Mortimus shook his head, not looking directly at either of his friends, but glancing around the crowds as if he were looking for someone. “It’s good to want to check up on your friends. But you shouldn’t ask when they obviously don’t want to talk about it. Believe me, I’ve had enough experience in being shouted at to know that.”

“Okay, fair enough.” Rallon sighed, following Mortimus’s gaze as if he would be able to find what he was looking for. “But I didn’t know that it was obvious. I’m not as perceptive as you are.”

“I know, it’s fine. I’m just being pissy right now, like Vansell said. Anyway, I have some things I have to do so I’m going to head off now, but I’ll probably catch up with you again later, yeah?”

Neither Rallon nor Vansell said another word as Mortimus disappeared into the crowd, his shoulders slumped for reasons they may never understand.

//

“All right, I think that’s good.”

Drax brushed the sweat off his brow, satisfied as he stepped away from his work. He’d spray painted a decent amount of random things across the backside of the school, where the event was not taking place. The things ranged from the innocent to the awful, including flowers, f-bombs, and depictions that made Jelpax cover his face with his hands.

“Did you—” Jelpax cut himself off, uncertain of whether he wanted to go through with his question. “Did you really have to draw the dicks?”

“Uh, yeah.” Drax rolled his eyes as he placed his paint back into his bag. “No graffiti is complete without dicks.”

He slung his bag over his shoulder and started to trek back around the building to where the rest of the students were still bustling around the booths and attending the various historical lectures that Drax didn’t care about and Jelpax already knew about.

“So, what’s your next task?” asked Jelpax reluctantly. He wanted to know what to expect, but he also had no interest in being a part of it and hoped that Drax wouldn’t take that as an invitation to invite him to help with the plan.

“Noise disturbance,” Drax answered simply. “Yeah, I’ve got a whole thing planned out. Well, it’s pretty much just an air horn but it’ll still be enough to get someone’s attention. Come on.”

Jelpax didn’t bother to point out the fact that his goal was to not get caught. They headed back to the celebrations and Drax pulled an air horn out of his bag, smiling to Jelpax before he ducked behind a bush and blared the air horn loudly; the gleeful expression never fading from his face.

Unsurprisingly, someone came out to find them but for once it was not Borusa or the Headmaster. Instead, it was a boy that Jelpax didn’t recognize, but was immediately threatening. He had dark hair, was at least a few inches taller than him or Drax, and wore a scowling grin on his face that looked far too pleased to find them in hiding.

“Well, well, well,” he started, his deep voice far too smug. “So, it’s been you causing all the chaos today. I should have known. Goddamn I wish Rillo was here right now to help me deal with this.”

“Fuck off, Iolta,” Drax snapped. “This is none of your business.”

“That’s pretty funny because I think it is.” He grabbed onto the hood of Drax’s jacket and yanked him to his feet, causing him to stumble and drop his bag, spilling out all its contents as it fell. “Looks to me like you’ve been bad and that means you’re going to have to be punished. Should I send you to the Headmaster or take care of this myself?”

“You should get away because this has nothing to do with you.”

Drax slipped out of his jacket, ripping away from him as he did so. Unfortunately, that caused as much harm as it did good, as he managed to get away from Iolta’s grasp but only caused him to burst out laughing when he registered the rest of the outfit that Drax was wearing.

“What the hell are you wearing?” he asked, almost unintelligible through his laughter. Iolta glanced over to where Jelpax was standing beside Drax, a smirk appearing on his lips. “Ah, I see. So that’s your boyfriend, yeah? Fucking homos. You’re disgusting.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Drax mumbled. He took a deep breath before he stood up straighter, attempting to hold his ground. “Now get lost. This is none of your business, you fucking asshole.”

“What did you just call me?”

“I said, you’re a fucking asshole.”

“You’re going to regret that, baby cousin.”

Iolta took a big step forward and grabbed onto the front of Drax’s shirt, gripping it tightly as he pulled him in closer. Jelpax tried to step in, to stop the fight before it went anywhere, but a call from behind them broke up the confrontation before he could do anything.

“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Magnus, his tone dark. Startled, Iolta loosened his grip on Drax and whipped his head around to look at Magnus, which Drax took as an opportunity to knee him in the nether regions. He gasped and dropped forward onto his knees, prompting Magnus to walk around to the front of him. “You deserved that, motherfucker. I thought I told you not to mess with him again.”

The bully opened his mouth to respond, but before he got a chance, Borusa walked up behind them, a highly disappointed expression on his face.

//

At a certain point, Theta had to admit defeat and just roll with the punches. Or rather, the hypnosis.

Koschei was practically unstoppable and though he tried every time, Theta knew that he would have to practice far harder if he had any intention of actually preventing him from causing too much damage. He did manage to stop a few of his more casual tricks, such as the dancing and head banging, but sometimes he put so much into his tricks that it was almost impossible to undo his work.

Still, Theta did the best he could, refusing to let Koschei win even if they were best friends and his intentions were [mostly] harmless. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to be completely under someone else’s control and he hated the thought of letting it happen to people when he had the potential to stop it.

Which was why, when Koschei finally tired of the act and told Theta that he was ready to wander around the booths buying whatever leftover stuff they had discounted, Theta swore to him that he was not going to let him hypnotize anyone ever again.

Once all that was settled, wandering the fair finally became fun. Everything was a lot more relaxing when Koschei wasn’t looking for fools to practice on the entire time they walked around, and they got to buy pretty much everything they wanted thanks to discounts (not to mention the free stuff people were giving away).

After nearly half an hour of surfing the booths, they finally came across Millennia’s table, which was nearly sold out. Her and Rallon were the only ones sitting behind it, though there was one other seat there which meant someone else had to be attending the booth at some point earlier in the day.

“Hey, got anything left?” asked Koschei scanning over their table. “And just so you know, I’m expecting a decent discount because these have been sitting out all day.”

“We’ve got some left but you’re not getting a discount,” said Rallon, squinting in disgust. “I would have given you one but then you ate the muffin before paying so that’s gone right out the window. Thanks for shopping though.”

“You suck.” He shook his head slowly. “But I’ll forgive you if you tell me how the hell you managed to sell everything. The whole thing was almost full when we passed by here earlier.”

“Oh, yeah, we came up with a new strategy. It’s called the guilt trip. See, Millennia’s friend is an orphan and the paper is all she’s got. And Millennia relies on it for her mental health. And I’m just a lonely boy who wants my girlfriend to be happy. So, when you play that angle, people eat it up. I’m not even kidding.”

“Yeah.” Millennia nodded, glancing over at Rallon. “I felt a bit bad about it at first but then I realized that it wasn’t totally lying, and we really needed the money so it’s not really that bad. I hope you won’t think any less of me for it.”

“Think less of you?” Theta snorted. “Mil, we just spent the entire day hypnotizing people. Or, Kos hypnotized them, and I saved them. Sort of. Anyway, we’ve done stuff way worse than lying before so you don’t have to worry about us judging you anytime soon. I’m just glad you got that the money you needed.”

“Me too,” she agreed, smiling to Rallon as Theta and Koschei walked away. “Me too.”

//

“I would be lying if I said I was not disappointed in you for your actions today, Draxin.”

Drax did not respond, looking down to his fingers as he twiddled them back and forth rather than up at the Headmaster in the desk across from him. He’d been told to go into the office immediately after the fair ended and was consequently listening to a lecture about breaking all the rules he’d broken—especially getting into a physical fight.

“I’ve known you for several years and if I’m being honest, I expect this stuff from you,” he went on. “You’re one of the biggest troublemakers that has ever attended this Academy. But I would never have expected to find you in a fight like that. I want an explanation for your actions, and I want it now.”

But demands were not convincing to Drax and he simply sat there in silence, refusing to explain the motivations behind his actions. He was not interested in talking about the rules he’d broken for fun, and there was no way in hell he was about to explain what happened between him and his asshole cousin.

“You’re avoiding talking to me again and I’m assuming that means you’re having the same dilemma you always have which is that there’s something happening that you don’t want to tell me about. You do a lot of bad things, Draxin, and in all my years I’ve never known anyone who does this many bad things without causation.”

“Well, you’re right that I have reasons, but my reasons are that I hate authority,” said Drax, his tone flat. “I don’t do it because I have some sort of issues, I do it because I don’t give a shit if I get in trouble and I think it’s fun to cause mayhem.”

The Headmaster leaned forward in his seat, resting his elbows on his desk. “But why? I’m not oblivious. I know there’s something going on.”

Drax opened his mouth to speak but ended up doing nothing more than biting down on his bottom lip, staring down at his brightly colored shoes rather than the Headmaster. When he was told to speak with the Headmaster, he expected that he would get yelled at for the thousandth time, not have to explain the secret reason behind his actions.

Not that he had any secret reasons to address.

“There’s nothing going on, sir,” said Drax, rolling his eyes. “I do this because I’m an idiot and I think it’s fun to ruin other people’s days. There’s no secrets, there’s no tragedy, there’s nothing motivating me to do this but a hatred of authority and a passion for pranks. Believe it or not, that’s the truth. Now, can I please go?”

“One more minute,” the Headmaster told him. “I was going to let you off the hook if you told me the truth but since you’re so insistent that nothing is happening then I suppose you’ll need to be punished properly, yeah? Now, what do you think a good punishment would be?”

If there was one thing Drax learned over the years of getting in trouble, it was to keep his damn mouth shut when the Headmaster asked that question. So, despite the man’s waiting face, Drax did not say a word.

//

Though he hadn’t seen him in hours, Magnus was not expecting Mortimus to be home before him.

Regardless of the holiday, Mortimus had a habit of finding someone to latch onto and rarely returned to the dorms at a decent hour. When Magnus couldn’t find his roommate following the fair, he simply assumed that he’d run off with another person like that (likely one of the girls he’d been following around), not even considering the idea that he might see him again before breakfast.

But then he arrived at his dorm, right on time, and found that Mortimus was already in there.

Magnus didn’t see him at first, as Mortimus was not sitting in his chair nor on his bed, but instead on the floor beside it; his knees pulled up to his chest and his elbows resting upon them as his hands cradled his head. He sniffed softly, his breaths shallow and shaking far too much considering it was meant to be a cheerful day.

“You all right, Mort?” asked Magnus. He already knew the answer, of course, but compassion was not his strong suit and he knew it would be worse to start off confrontational.

“Yeah.” Mortimus nodded and brushed his hands over his eyes before sliding them over his knees, sniffing again before he looked over to his roommate, his face bright pink. “Sorry, I meant to have cleaned up by now, but I guess I lost track of time.”

“I don’t care, you can take the shower first. Did someone do this to you? Because you know that I’m shit at talking but if you need to kick someone’s ass, I will not hesitate to punch a bitch.”

“No, I’m fine, thanks. It’s my fault, actually. I don’t even know why I’m upset. I guess I just thought if I gave it enough time she would start talking to me again, but she hasn’t, so I’ve really gone too far this time, haven’t I? Dammit, I really am a fucking creep.”

He pushed his hands over his eyes again, running them through his hair after he’d dried his tears. Magnus was almost surprised to hear that the reason he was upset was a girl—he’d been on about a thousand dates before and he’d never once gotten emotional about the end of a relationship. Was there something, or rather someone, that he didn’t know about?

“Yeah, you are a fucking creep but that’s why we love you, Mort,” said Magnus. Mortimus said nothing in response, but the soft expression on his face told Magnus that he understood the sentiment behind his somewhat harsh words. “You know, you’ve… you’ve landed a lot of people, mate. Just because you’ve lost this girl doesn’t mean you won’t find another. There’s billions more out there.”

“I know there’s billions of girls out there, Magnus.” Mortimus choked on his words, a whole new flood of tears attacking his eyes as he spoke. He took a deep, shaking breath before he went on, pushing away the tears as soon as they fell. “But I only have one sister.”

Magnus’s heart dropped into his stomach as he realized just how out of his depth he was. He’d caught Mortimus in the aftermath of a thousand breakups before and it never took long to talk him round. But to deal with something as close and irreplaceable as a sister, someone he didn’t even know Mortimus had? It seemed like an impossible task and he was ready to quit right then.

Either luckily or unluckily, he didn’t have to, as Mortimus dismissed him first.

“I actually don’t really want to talk about this,” he said, finally allowing a tear to drop down his cheek as he chewed lamely on his thumbnail. “So, if you could just like, go back to being a dick now, that would be really great.”

Magnus opened his mouth to respond but decided against it. Instead, he walked over to where Mortimus was sitting and kicked a few of his things to the side, clearing space for him to sit beside him. He took a deep breath, sighing as he tried to find the right thing to say when he knew he wasn’t good at saying anything at all.

“You know, it’s hard to comfort you when I’m distracted by all this shit,” he said, looking around at the mess in front of him. “I don’t even know how it happens. You clean it up and then three days later it’s like a tornado’s whipped through here. It’s fucking ridiculous.”

For a second, it seemed like Mortimus wasn’t going to react at all. But then he sighed dramatically and turned to look at Magnus, a vaguely annoyed expression on his face. In response, Magnus only chuckled and nudged him in the shoulder.

“Smile, Mort. You know I’m just messing with you.”

It took a second, but finally, Mortimus turned to Magnus and gave him a smile. It was a small smile, but a smile nonetheless, and it was enough to make both feel better—even if it was only for one night.

//

“…so, I think it’s safe to say that Drax was the ultimate dumbass of the event.”

Though she hadn’t been remarkably active in any of her friend’s affairs the previous day, Ushas had many, many comments to make about what they’d done throughout it. She was carefully assessing everything she’d heard about happening and concluded that of all the idiotic acts that had occurred, Drax’s attempts to set a new record was the stupidest.

“I mean, you can call me a dumbass,” said Drax, tapping his fingers rapidly against his desk, “but I did what I set out to do so I think I’m at least marginally smarter than you’re giving me credit for. I may have been stupid but throughout the day I managed to break more Academy rules than anyone has ever done before which is one fat fucking win in my book.”

“Yeah, by the way, I heard that you broke the rule of not engaging in physical combat and I was wondering what the hell happened there?” Ushas raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms as if she were truly entitled to know. “Just thought it would be an easy rule to break, or…?”

Drax looked down to his shoes, the humor suddenly fading from his face. He’d barely even explained to Jelpax what happened and still hadn’t gotten the nerve to talk about it, not wanting to relive it nor delve into other issues from his past—especially not in front of all his friends. Luckily for him, someone came to his aid.

“It was just a jackass looking for trouble,” Magnus cut in, leaning back in his seat. “I’ve dealt with him and his brother before. They like to pick on people like Drax because he doesn’t fit whatever their perfect idea of a person is. It’s bullshit.”

“They’re my cousins,” Drax admitted, his gaze still directed downward. “Never really got along with them but we spent enough time together when we were younger that they caught onto all my weaknesses. It’s a pain in the ass to outsmart them so I’ve hit the point where I don’t really try anymore.”

“So, I’ve told you this before, Drax. If they’re bothering you just tell me, and I’ll kick their asses. That’s what I’m here for.”

“Great. Well, if you’re here to kick dick’s asses, can you kick your own for me?”

Magnus rolled his eyes, unable to argue with the comment he made. Instead, he simply stayed silent and waited for the next person to speak, moving the conversation in a direction that would hopefully be more positive. Luckily, it was Millennia who spoke next, a happy tone in her voice.

“Anyway, on a more pleasant note,” she started, “thanks to Rallon’s quick thinking, we managed to make enough money to fund the Prydonian Paper for another semester! Looks like we won’t be going anywhere after all. So, thank you to everyone who helped. And Mortimus, I spoke to Dourgonn, and they’d love your help if you’re still interested.”

“Interested in what?” Mortimus blinked several times, as if coming out of a daze. “Oh, the paper? No, that’s all right. I know I talk about that stuff a lot, but I don’t think it’s really up my alley to write about. Actually, nothing is really up my alley to write about. I’m terrible at writing.”

“Right, or you’re too busy thinking about that girl to consider a new hobby,” said Ushas, rolling her eyes jokingly.

He frowned. “What girl?”

“The one you’ve been chasing the last three days. Don’t act like we haven’t seen it. I know you like to think you’re sly but you’re really bad at keeping secrets. So, who is she?”

“She’s just, uh, she’s—”

“You know, I think we need to stop pushing when it’s obvious nobody wants to talk,” Magnus said suddenly, cutting off Mortimus’s fumbling response. “I know we’re close, but we don’t have to tell each other everything and frankly, it’s fucking tiring.”

“Look at you, coming to everyone’s rescue.” Koschei clutched his chest dramatically, as if he were touched by the sentiment. “You finally being a nice person, then?”

“No, I just don’t like the unnecessary gossip that’s getting into our meetings suddenly. If people don’t bring something up themselves then there’s probably a reason for it, yeah? If you don’t want to talk about something you don’t want to talk about something. Big deal. Now leave it alone. I’m sure you have plenty of mundane things to discuss.”

And, after a short bit of silence, they did. As always, they had tons of things to discuss and they ended up spending a lot of the meeting discussing Theta’s awful grades and Rallon’s poor social skills (which were, apparently, the reason he’d come up with his “genius plan” in the first place). It was all rather lame, and Magnus was practically bored out of his skull by the time they were finished but they weren’t bothering anyone anymore and that was what truly mattered.

Once they’d had their fill of everyday discussions, Ushas dismissed the meeting and they parted into the hall, each heading their separate ways to do whatever they needed before their first classes began. Magnus was usually uninterrupted at that point as he had an elective which none of his friends were taking, but that day, someone followed him down the hall; tapping him on the shoulder to get his attention.

“Hey.” Mortimus pushed his dark hair out of his face, a slightly awkward look in his deep brown eyes. “I just wanted to say thanks. For last night and what you just did in there. I don’t really know why you helped me, but it meant a lot, so thank you.”

“I helped you because you’re my friend, Mort.” Before he went on, Magnus glanced around the hall, to make sure that the rest of their friends had already dispersed. “I know I act like I hate you sometimes but honestly, you’re like the annoying younger brother I’ve never had and that’s not the worst thing in the world.”

“Oh, my god.” He gasped dramatically, his eyes going wide. “Did you just say you like me?”

“Absolutely not.”

“No, I think you just admitted that we’re friends. We’re friends, yeah? ‘Cos you totally like me. You wouldn’t think of me like a brother if you didn’t like me.”

“Oh, you—”

Magnus reached around Mortimus’s shoulders and pulled him into his chest, then used his free fist to aggressively mess up his hair. Mortimus half-laughed and half-protested as he tried to get away, until Magnus finally released his grip; sending him stumbling several feet back as he tried frantically to smooth out his hair.

“Tell anyone I said that shit and your ass will be the next one I kick, you got it?” said Magnus, his tone only partially serious.

Mortimus nodded, unable to be rid of his grin. “Wouldn’t tell a soul, mate.”

Chapter Text

“You want her to tutor me?”

Professor Azmael nodded for the umpteenth time, clearly not as confused by the idea as Drax was. “She’s my best student in this class, Draxin. If anyone is going to be able to help you figure this out, it’s her.”

“No, no, no, you don’t understand.” Drax shook his head frantically, waving his hands around as if he were warning his professor of an impending disaster. Which, thinking about it, he almost was. “Ushas might be smart, but we don’t get along. Not really. We’re good friends but we handle academia very differently and if you try to get her to tutor me then her teaching style is probably only going to make things worse.”

“I trust her,” his teacher argued. “She is a phenomenal scientist and I guarantee she’ll be able to help you.”

“If I might interrupt—” Jelpax walked up just in the nick of time, causing Drax to let out a deep sigh of relief, as if appeared his friend would be able to help him. “I know that I’m not as good a student as Ushas, but I know Drax’s learning style very well and I wouldn’t mind tutoring him if you’d—”

“No.” Azmael shook his head, and Drax’s heart again dropped into his stomach. “I know you want to help him, Jelpax, but he needs to start trying some new things. Whatever he’s been doing isn’t working and I’d like him to test out some new methods of studying. Ushas can do that.”

“Right I can,” said Ushas, sliding up behind them. “I know that we’ve had our differences in the past, but I am prepared to do everything I can to make sure that you’re well prepared for your next exam.”

“Professor Azmael,” Jelpax started, “with all due respect, Drax has some… difficulties when it comes to studying and I don’t think that Ushas is really equipped to deal with that. Not that I don’t think she can teach well, but Drax isn’t your average student, and—”

“That’s enough, Jelpax.” Azmael sighed deeply. “I appreciate you trying to help and whatever you two do in your own time is fine so if you want to help him extra, then go ahead. But I want Ushas on this, at least for the times I’ve designated, and that’s non-negotiable. Now all of you get out before you miss dinner. I don’t want a bunch of angry children on my hands.”

And so, despite the fact that none of them were entirely pleased with the outcome, they did.

//

“Theta, Koschei, are you home?!”

Mortimus practically barreled down the door to their dorm, stumbling over his own two feet in his rush to get into the room. He looked almost startled when he saw that only Theta was in there, sprawled out over his bed as he read a novel. He lowered it slowly, rolling off his stomach to see what his friend wanted.

“I’m here,” Theta answered awkwardly, at a loss as to what was happening. “Koschei’s out for the day, though. Why, is something wrong?”

“No, it’s just that I’ve found out about something insanely awesome and I need someone to share it with,” he said, sliding the door shut behind him. “I figured you and Koschei would be the most likely to get in on it with me. I thought Drax would probably do it too, but I tried to talk to him and Jelpax told me to fuck off, so…”

“Why did he do that? Is something wrong with them?”

“What? No.” Mortimus rolled his eyes, shaking his head slowly. “Nothing is wrong with anybody, Thete. He’s just busy studying or something, it’s not a big deal. Now, are you really this jumpy? Because I need someone who’s not jumpy to help me with this plan I’ve got here.”

“Plan?!” Theta gaped. “One second ago, all you said was that there was something you needed to share with me. Now you’ve got a whole plan too?”

“Well, duh. The thing I found out about is that the Scendeles have a black market. There’s no way in hell I’m going to find out about that and then do nothing about it. So, do you want to help me figure out what this black market is all about or not? Because I’ve got an in and it expires in the morning, so…”

Theta took a deep breath, deeply contemplating his answer before he responded. “Yeah, all right. But they better be selling some good shit, or I’ll get Koschei to kick your ass.”

“Yes! Thank you. Let’s go.”

Mortimus headed straight out of the room, leaving Theta to follow behind him—partially excited, and partially dreading what was yet to come.

//

Millennia woke up far too early that morning and was just getting ready to take an after-school nap when someone suddenly began banging on her door. She groaned and stood up to answer it, confused when her eyes landed upon Koschei on the other side of the door.

“Ushas isn’t here right now,” she said, assuming that Koschei was there for the girl he talked to more often. “I can take a message if you want…?”

“No, I’m actually here to talk to you,” Koschei told her. He slung his backpack off his shoulder and unzipped the largest pocket, pulling out a bunch of thread, needles, and what looked like a premade needlepoint kit. “See, I’m taking home economics this semester and I have to do this needlepoint and I have no fucking clue how this works.”

“Didn’t they teach you in class?”

“I mean, I would assume so, but I sleep through most of that class, so I really have no idea.” He shrugged, as if it were no big deal. “Anyway, I thought you’re all into that fashion and girly stuff, right? So, you probably know how to use a needle and thread. Not that I’m trying to stereotype but you know the other members of the Deca, yeah? You’re clearly my best bet, even if you don’t know.”

“Well, luckily I do know,” said Millennia, reaching out to take the stuff from him. She turned it over in her hands once or twice, furrowing her brow. “Somewhat, at least. I’m not real experienced in these but my mum used to do a lot of them when I was in primary school so I can probably figure it out. When is this due?”

“First class in the morning.”

“What? You put this off until that late? No wonder you’re freaking out! Well, sit down, then. We have to figure this out before you run completely out of time. Do you know what you’re making?”

“Uh, yeah.” Koschei pointed to the needlepoint kit with his middle finger. “That’s supposed to have the picture in it.”

“Okay, great. Come on, sit down. I won’t do this for you, but I’ll do my best to help you figure it out.”

“Thanks, Mil. You’re a lifesaver.”

She smiled, though she knew that she’d far from helped him get a good grade yet.

//

Ushas knew that tutoring Drax would be no easy task, but she didn’t anticipate just how unfocused he could be.

He spent far too much time joking around, mocking her (in a way he claimed was friendly banter), and at some points, just completely zoned out. Most times he got right back into it when she called for him, but that one particular time he seemed to be so completely lost in his thoughts that she couldn’t even get him to look at her.

Drax stared straight at the floor in front of him, his eyes not even blinking as he thought about whatever the hell was going on in his mind. Ushas tried asking him to pay attention, shouting at him to pay attention, and then started to snap her fingers in his face. Nothing. He didn’t move an inch.

Then, out of nowhere, he suddenly snapped back to attention, blinking repeatedly as if he’d just come out of a dream. He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, shaking his head slowly and looking around the room for a minute like he was trying to remember where he was.

“What the hell were you thinking about?” Ushas demanded, her tone sharp.

“I, uh—” Drax cleared his throat, blinking rapidly for no obvious reason. “I don’t know, I just got really wrapped up in my own mind for a second there. Sorry. What were you talking about?”

“I’m not sure I fancy telling you because it’s pretty obvious you don’t care.” She sighed deeply, rolling her eyes as she readjusted her seat leaning against Drax’s bed. “Now, do you really want to learn, or do you just want to sit here?”

“I’m sorry, Ushas, seriously. I wasn’t trying to ignore you. I didn’t even zone out; I was just having a—”

He cut himself off suddenly, biting his lip as he looked down to the floor; his fingers reaching out to snap at the rubber band on his wrist. Ushas took this as a sign that he was out of excuses rather than that he didn’t want to elaborate and decided to finish her bitching before she went back to work.

“You were having a what? A moment? A zoning out?” She shook her head. “What you’re doing is disrespectful. I’m taking time out of my day to help you and you’re—”

“Sorry,” Drax said again, this time sounding truly regretful. “I really wasn’t trying to ignore you and I swear it won’t happen again. Just tell me about what’s happening here. You look like you were writing down some kind of chemical equation, yeah?”

“Yes, one which you appear to have heard none of. Are you seriously not going to tell me what was so distracting that you wouldn’t even respond to my speaking?”

“No, I’m not. I wasn’t thinking of anything and honestly it’s none of your fucking business anyway so let’s just get back to work, yeah? I know I’m pissing you off but there’s no reason to waste more time just babbling on about it. Now remind me what this little symbol means, please.”

Ushas sighed and did as she was asked. Drax did have a point, after all—just because she was angry at him didn’t mean she needed to waste time bitching about it.

//

“I don’t understand why you can’t just tell me where you’re getting your information from.”

“Because we’re shopping off the black market, Theta,” Mortimus told him, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “If I tell you who gave me this information then I’m going to have to kill you.”

“What?” Theta rolled his eyes. “You’re literally taking me to see them right now, you dumbass. And if I’m shopping off the black market anyway, what’s the issue with me knowing who knows about it? Like, I’m about to become one of the many so just give it up, yeah? This is just stupid.”

“Okay, fine, I get it. We’re going to see Vansell, all right? Vansell knows about the black market.”

“Vansell knows about the—okay, I really don’t know why I’m surprised right now. Vansell is like, the shadiest piece of shit anyone has ever known. Not to be rude, you know he’s still our friend, he’s just like, really untrustworthy, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do,” Mortimus started, his tone somewhat confused, “but I kind of want to be on his good side when we ask him what the hell is going on with this so if you could just relax for a minute that would be really great. I don’t want to be all badmouthing him when we walk in. Now, come on.”

Mortimus strolled in front of Rallon and Vansell’s door and adjusted the collar on his dark purple jacket before he knocked on the surface, straightening his back to appear more professional. Apparently he thought that if he looked good enough, Vansell would somehow forget everything he’d learned about him over the last few decades.

After a moment of Mortimus bouncing on his heels and Theta standing there in an awkward silence, the door finally slid open to reveal Vansell standing on the other side of it; not appearing the least bit surprised by their arrival. Obviously, Mortimus was not making this up and had actually spoken to Vansell before starting his mission. (Not that Theta doubted him, of course—it was just that he had a habit of making things up and it was hard to trust him one hundred percent of the time.)

“I assume you’re here about the market?” said Vansell, keeping his voice low. He glanced to each side of the corridor, confirming that no one else was around before he stepped aside, gesturing for Theta and Mortimus to enter his room. “All right, well, I’ve got the information you want but it’s going to come at a price.”

“A price?” Mortimus frowned, his brow furrowing in confusion. “I haven’t got anything to give you.”

Vansell shrugged, suddenly pushing them back towards the door though they’d barely been in there ten seconds. “Well, I suppose that’s the end of our deal then, yeah? You know I’m not the type of person to give away information for free.”

“All right, then how about I make you a new deal? I can’t give you anything tangible, but I’ll commit to reading anybody you want. Anyone. You want to know something about them, I’ll go dig for every bit of information on them that there is.”

“For real?” Though it wasn’t immediately clear as to why, Vansell looked to Theta for just a second before turning back to Mortimus. “Yeah, I think we can work with that. Okay, then. Let me tell you what I know…”

//

“Okay, so you weren’t exaggerating when you said you slept through those classes.”

Koschei, who was in the middle of bandaging up his index finger, shook his head. He wasn’t remarkably alarmed by how terrible he was doing at the needlepoint. He was just as awful as he had predicted and even though Millennia was about ready to scream, he was still just as calm and collected as he had been all along.

“No, I’m in the back of the classroom and the light’s burnt out back there, so…” Koschei shrugged casually, still not bothered by the fact that he was somewhat wasting her time. “Anyway, I’m pretty lost on what’s going on right now so if you wouldn’t mind explaining it again—”

“I’ve explained it four times,” said Millennia, rolling her eyes. “How many more times am I going to have to do it until you actually listen? You know I’m not just babbling to myself, yeah? I’m really trying to help you right now.”

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I asked you to help me. I’m not an idiot.” He laughed as if it were a joke, but Millennia was not even marginally amused. “Okay, let me have that back. I need to see what’s going on with this thing. Have you figured out what we’re making yet?”

“Yes, and I told you that already too.” She handed the kit over to him, sighing deeply when he almost immediately pricked himself in the finger again. “It’s just a flutterwing. Very simple pattern on the wings and just four colors to work with so it’s not really that difficult. All you have to do is follow the instructions in this little booklet, see?”

Koschei looked down when Millennia slid the instruction booklet in front of him, opened to the first page with the most basic instructions it could possibly supply. Still, Koschei’s entire face twisted, as if he was still entirely puzzled by what he was looking at.

“Oh, for the love of god.” Millennia groaned and began to point out things on the page, outlining just how easy the instructions were to follow. “You’re studying cosmic science, Koschei. You can’t possibly think that this is more difficult than any of those classes.”

“I suppose I won’t know until I actually try, will I?”

He smiled and wrapped one more bandage around his finger before pushing the needle through to make his first stitch, hoping that he would be able to pull it out in the correct place. Unfortunately, hoping was not the same as doing and what he did next was not, in fact, where the thread was meant to go.

Millennia winced as she hurried to help him correct his mistake. She’d clearly made a mistake in agreeing to help him, but it was too late to back out now.

//

Once she managed to get Drax to focus, things started to go a bit smoother for Ushas.

It was still a bit of a pain, of course—especially since Drax asked her to repeat everything at least twice—but it was better than when he wasn’t paying attention at all. Ushas was hitting her limit with her short temper, though, and when Drax resumed his off topic joking she inched closer to breaking point.

“I’m not saying that this is stupid, but I don’t see where this will come up in the real world,” Drax went on, either not noticing or not caring about the annoyed expression on Ushas’s face. “See, I know that it matters if you want to be a chemist or an engineer or whatever but I’m not going to do any of those things. I’ve been thinking about becoming a pimp, actually.”

“You’re going to become a pimp when you’ve never even had a girlfriend?” Ushas rolled her eyes shaking her head slowly. “You never cease to amaze me with your stupidity, Drax.”

“Yeah? Well, you’re no brighter than me. Can’t believe you think it’s important to have a girlfriend to be a pimp. Doesn’t take any romantic experience to sell my body. You should be smart enough to know that.”

“I am smart enough to know that but I’m also smart enough to know you and everything I’ve ever learned about you is that you get fucking weird when people you don’t know touch you. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve got this thing and I know you know that I’m talking about ‘cos you’re getting all fidgety now. So, I’m not saying you can’t go for your dreams but please don’t be a pimp. It won’t end well. Plus, you’re so skinny you’d get crushed by your customers.”

A suddenly self-conscious expression on his face, Drax looked down at himself; his eyes narrowing at his far too bony chest—only accentuated by a shirt that was definitively too large. He stayed silent for a second then looked up suddenly, the odd expression completely gone.

“Well, at least I’m not a chubby uggo like Lungin,” he said, his tone surprisingly cheering considering the way he’d looked at himself. “Anyway, this is not the least bit productive so if we could get back to the work now, that would be great. Could you explain how this works again?”

“I could,” Ushas groaned, “but I’ve done it three times. Are you even listening when I’m talking or are you just looking at me and thinking about your dream of being a pimp?”

“For the record, I’m not actually dreaming of being a pimp. I was just making a joke which clearly was misunderstood. I don’t even know what the hell I want to do. It’s not going to have anything to do with maths though, since clearly I’m terrible at this. Thanks for bitching about it by the way.”

“Bitching about it? I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention, you idiot. Wouldn’t be the first time you’ve flat out ignored me this afternoon.”

“I didn’t ignore you, I already said.” Drax rolled his eyes, biting down on his lip before he went on. “Sorry if I sort of… stop responding sometimes. I know I do that but it’s kind of complicated to explain and I don’t really want to talk about it, so if it happens again just give me a minute to swing back into things, yeah?”

“No.” Ushas shook her head, the expression on her face not the least bit amused. “I know that we don’t get along that well, but I won’t take this disrespect, Drax. I’m trying to help you and for you to flat out ignore me is—”

“I’m not ignoring you! Jesus Christ, and you think I’m the one who’s not listening.”

“Well, if you’re not ignoring me, then how about you explain what you are doing? Because to me this just sounds like you’re making an excuse to zone out every ten minutes. And don’t say you’re not because this is the exact kind of pranks you’re always trying to pull.”

“I’m not trying to pull any pranks, I just don’t want to explain myself, okay? I can’t—”

Drax stood up suddenly, pushing his hands through his hair as he sighed exasperatedly. Ushas watched him in silence, hoping that he would eventually elaborate or sit back down and accept his defeat. However, he did neither of those things and instead walked towards the door, mumbling something about coming back in a minute.

For a split second, Ushas considered going after him, but then she decided against it. He was inevitably planning something to get back at her and it would be easier to stop him if she was already prepared.

Plus, she really had no interest in chasing him wherever he headed to. It would be a far better use of her time to just keep working on the lesson. After all, if she thought about it enough, there had to be some way to teach Drax, right?

//

“What the hell are you two doing?”

Mortimus whipped around when he heard his roommate speak, the sunglasses nearly flying right off his face. Thankfully, they were ridiculously oversized and blocked much of his expression, so Magnus couldn’t see just how startled he was by the sudden appearance.

“We’re just going to, uh, go shopping,” Mortimus answered, hoping that he sounded more convincing aloud than he did in his head. It wasn’t exactly a lie, after all—they were going to an illegal market, but it was a market all the same. “Why? What are you doing?”

“I’m walking down the corridor wearing a completely normal outfit,” said Magnus. It was technically true, though Mortimus would have described his white t-shirt, dark jeans, and pulled back blond hair as boring more than anything else. “Now are you going to explain why you’re dressed like fucking super spies or am I just going to spend the rest of my life not knowing?”

“Well, we’re going on a date and I thought that we might hide our identities with these outfits. Now thanks for outing us, yeah? We didn’t want anyone to know about our relationship yet and now everyone knows. Fuck, I can’t believe you’ve done this!”

He turned to Theta, crying out dramatically as he practically tackled the boy for a hug. Theta made a face as he patted him on the back comfortingly, pulling away after a few seconds when he realized that the look on Magnus’s face was just as bewildered as his own.

“I know you’re not dating, you fucking idiot,” he said, his face twisted in both disgust and confusion. “That’s one of the worst lies you have ever told. Now just explain what the hell is going on before I lose interest and never get an answer, will you?”

“Okay, we’re not dating,” Mortimus admitted. “It’s just that we’re doing something a tad bit illegal and I didn’t want anyone to know. So please don’t tell, yeah? In fact, I think it’s probably best if we just say that this never happened. You don’t talk about it, I don’t talk about it, we all keep our secrets to ourselves, yeah?”

“Uh, no. If you’re doing something illegal then I definitely want to know what it is. Is this actually illegal or Mortimus illegal where you just cut the first five minutes of class and act like you’ve committed some heinous felony?”

“For your information, I’ve been involved in multiple felonies. Not all of them voluntary.” He frowned, hesitating as he considered how much to reveal. “Never mind, let’s not dwell on that. Right now, we’ve got to go tap into the black market, so if you’re finished here then—aw shit. I just gave away the plan, didn’t I?”

“Not the plan, exactly,” said Theta, “but you did tell him what we were doing. So, at this point I guess you might as well reveal the entire plan because he already knows the most vital part.”

“You’re tapping into the black market?” Magnus made a face, staying silent for several seconds as he thought about the information. “Wait, wait, wait, do you mean the Prydonian black market or the Scendeles black market? Because those are two very, very different things.”

“The, uh, the Scendeles black market,” Mortimus admitted. It seemed like a great idea at the beginning, but suddenly he was doubting whether it was going to be so good at all. “Why? Do they sell different things?”

Magnus opened his mouth to speak, then abruptly snapped it shut and shook his head. “No. Nope, you’re definitely going to purchase some quality goods. Just don’t come crying to me if it’s not everything you’ve dreamed of.”

He said nothing else before he headed off, leaving Theta and Mortimus on their own to contemplate whether their plan would be worth the effort.

//

“Oh, my god. It’s beautiful.”

Koschei wiped away a single tear that threatened to fall from his eye, sniffing softly as he stared at the masterful work in front of him. He’d been so doubtful of his skills at first, but he clearly came up with an incredible project despite his initial failures. Though, it didn’t seem like Millennia felt the same way. She looked somewhat annoyed, actually, staring down at the needlepoint as if Koschei had done something very wrong.

“In terms of skill it’s not terrible,” she said, “but it’s not what you were meant to make! You’re supposed to be stitching a flutterwing, not a word of profanity. I mean, you could turn this in if you really want to, but I think your professor is going to be rather unhappy if you turn in a needlepoint of an f-bomb.”

“I know it’s an f-bomb,” Koschei told her, “but it’s a really fancy f-bomb, so I feel like she’ll cut me some slack just this once. It’s not quite what she was looking for, sure, but it certainly better than what I made based on the actual directions. I think those might be flawed.”

The actual directions were not, in fact, flawed, but Koschei’s attempt at following them definitively was. It was an awful attempt at creating what was meant to be a flutterwing and to Millennia, looked far more demented than it did sweet. She hated being so rude about it but she had to be honest and tell Koschei that it was terrible, which was when he decided to take matters into his own hands and try crafting something that was less detailed and more up his alley.

Which, of course, resulted in him stitching a blocky rendition of the word “fuck”.

Suddenly accepting his fate, Koschei grabbed the needlepoint he’d been working on and threw it across the room, grabbing the final blank slate he had to start with. It was not going to end well, and he knew it already, but he hoped that with Millennia’s help, he would be able to at least make something passable as a seventy percent.

“Okay, let’s give this one final shot, yeah? I want to make it count this time.”

Read: needed to make it count.

//

The reason Drax decided to sit on the steps on the backside of the dorms was because he wanted a break from people. Which was, of course, why he was so annoyed when the door suddenly swung open only a few minutes after he’d sat down; preceding the footsteps which quickly followed down to where he was, stopping only two steps behind him.

“You all right, mate?”

He sighed, shaking his head slowly rather than looking back. It wasn’t like he needed to anyway—he’d heard his friend’s voices enough to know immediately who was talking to him, and it was not someone he was particularly interested in speaking to anyway. Not that he had anything against Rallon, of course. It was just that if he had to speak to anyone at the moment, he would prefer it to be Jelpax.

Instead of taking the hint, Rallon sat down on the step behind Drax, keeping a bit of space between them. He had a bag slung around his shoulder which appeared to contain his homework, presumably to work on wherever he’d been planning to go before he ran into Drax in his way. He stayed silent for a few seconds before he finally spoke, his tone thoughtful.

“I like to come out here to study,” he said, his dark hair blowing in the wind as he stared out at the trees far in front of them. “Not all the time, but Vansell’s driving me nuts talking about some big joke he’s pulled, and I really need to get this stuff done. Plus, it’s just peaceful out here. With the birds singing and leaves rustling. Nature’s white noise is truly a gift.”

Drax nodded, though he wasn’t entirely sure what poetic bullshit Rallon was talking about. “I just wanted a break from Ushas. She’s supposed to be tutoring me, but we’ve spent most of the time shouting at each other.”

“Well, is there a reason you’ve been shouting at each other?” As if he realized he might be pushing too far into things he had no business in, Rallon quickly moved to explain his position. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, it’s just that I am training to be a lawyer, so I’ve taken a few courses on diffusing situations, resolving tension, things like that. I might be able to help.”

“Thanks, but I’ve sort of dug my own grave on his one.” He shrugged, forcing a small smile as he rested his chin on his hand. “It’s like, you know I’m terrible at focusing, yeah? I babble and fidget and make jokes at wildly inappropriate times, and it’s gotten on Ushas’s nerves. But there’s something else that I’m doing and it’s—”

He cut himself off, biting his lip as he turned his gaze down to his shoes. Thankfully, Rallon did not push him to continue speaking immediately, and instead waited for him to go on when he was ready; even though it did take almost a full minute.

“Have you ever kept a secret, Rallon?” he asked suddenly, turning to look at his friend. “Not like, you drank the last of the coffee, or you plagiarized half your assignment, but like, a real secret. Something you just… can’t tell anyone. And it’s not that you’ll get in trouble, you just… You know they wouldn’t understand.”

“I have an anxiety disorder.” Rallon’s tone was so casual that it threw Drax for a loop, unable to comprehend how he so easily revealed the information. “That’s why I get so weird around people. Millennia knows, but I haven’t told anyone else.”

“I have one too,” Drax admitted, turning away from Rallon as he bit down on his bottom lip. “It’s general, not social, and I think Jelpax knows but I haven’t really told him. Or anyone. That’s not what I’m talking about with me and Ushas but like… you’re not alone.”

“I kind of thought so. Not that I wanted to assume anything ‘cos you’re usually so cool and outgoing but sometimes you get the same kind of uncomfortable tics like I do. Not the exact same ones, you know, but the same sort of—”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s like your fucking leg bouncing right now.”

Rallon stopped abruptly, a somewhat embarrassed expression on his face. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t say it was a bad thing.” Drax shrugged, his gaze turning towards his own hands. “I’ve been snapping this rubber band the whole time. It’s an uncomfortable conversation no matter what way you twist it. Just wish it was easier to get through this shit, you know?”

“Mm.” He nodded, thinking for a moment before he went on. “You know, I don’t know what’s coming between you and Ushas, but she’s not quite as bad as you think. If you decide to tell her—”

“I can’t tell her before I tell Pax.”

“Yeah, I understand.” Rallon took a deep breath and stood up, patting his bag with one hand. “Well, I’ve to go get all this homework done. Let me know if you ever need to talk, yeah? You know we all worry about you.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Drax mumbled. “I’m not worth the time.”

“It’s funny you say that, ‘cos those kinds of comments are exactly why. And really, if you ask Ushas to back off, I’m sure she will. She doesn’t hate you as much as you think.”

He said nothing else before he turned around, heading back into the building to find somewhere else to study; leaving Drax on his own to think about what he’d just said.

//

“This is it, unless Vansell’s lied to us.”

Theta swallowed hard. They were standing in an oddly dark alley, the wind blowing around them and making the scene all the more terrifying. Mortimus put on a brave face but it was clear he was just as nervous as Theta, likely because they were considering whether engaging in illegal acts was truly worth the risk.

“All right, then,” said Theta, staring at the end of the alley. “So, I suppose that man with the booth is the one selling the goods, yeah?”

“I would think so.” Mortimus nodded, his brow knit in confusion. “Seems a bit odd, considering this is supposed to be a secret operation, but it is what it is, innit? Come on.”

Every bit of fear suddenly disappeared from his body as he strode further into the alley, approaching the empty booth near the very end of the brick wall. Sitting behind it was one single person: his greasy hair lying flat on his head and an evil smirk on his face. Mortimus slammed a bunch of coins onto the table and gave him a look.

“You know what I’m here for,” he said, though he and Theta had not yet discussed what they would be purchasing. “I want your best wares and I want them now. You give me something subpar and my roommate—that’s Magnus, by the way, I’m sure you know him—will kick your fucking ass. Got it?”

“Jesus Christ, Mortimus!” Theta exclaimed quietly, shaking his head. “Can’t you relax a bit? I know that this is an illegal operation but he’s still just a Scendel. He’s not any scarier or meaner than any of the others. Unless you are a scary, mean Scendel?”

The boy shook his head. “No, I just look the part because I’m not supposed to be doing this. Got to fit the perfect image of what an evil person should be, yeah?”

“Yeah, of course. So, what exactly are you selling here anyway?”

“Well, there’s a lot of wares in my store but most people want the good stuff.” He glanced from left to right, as if checking to see whether someone was coming, even though there was literally nowhere for anyone to approach from. He then slid a box out from the table, opening the lid to reveal what was inside. “We got taffy, gobstoppers, gum, all the works.”

“Is it… weed taffy?” asked Mortimus, his face twisting in confusion. “I mean, it’s not just regular taffy, is it?”

“Oh, no. It’s not just regular taffy.” The boy smiled sinisterly, again looking around as if someone were about to appear out of nowhere and arrest him in the act. “It’s saltwater taffy.”

“You’re selling saltwater taffy?” Theta knew he sounded like an idiot with the amount of confusion in his tone, but he couldn’t be bothered to care. “This is supposed to be a black market and all you’re selling is candy? You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“This is why Magnus was making fun of us in the hallway, isn’t it?” Mortimus groaned and slammed his hand against his forehead. “Son of a bitch! No wonder Vansell was laughing his ass off when we left. Well, I suppose we might as well buy something then. Hand me some taffy.”

Theta wanted to stop him from spending all their money on taffy, but he didn’t bother. After all, that was probably what Mortimus would’ve ended up spending it on if they had found the real black market. Not that he was expecting Mortimus to chicken out, of course, it’s just that he never pegged his friend as a smoker.

Or maybe he was just hoping that he could stay on the right side of the law himself.

//

“Okay, this has got to be the winning piece.”

Millennia dropped her head into her hands, shaking it back and forth slowly. They tried repeatedly and yet somehow, Koschei still could not seem to grasp the concept of the needlepoint. He just kept trying and failing and trying and failing and no matter how many times she explained it, Koschei messed it up again.

“No.” She took a deep breath before removing her head from her hands. “It’s the one you’re going to turn in because we haven’t got anything left to try again but it’s not going to be the winning piece. Your f-bomb was probably made better than that. Unless you were intending for it to look like it’s unbelievably out of focus.”

“Out of focus is still recognizable, isn’t it?” Koschei held it away from his face, then pulled it closer and repeated the action a few times before finally nodding as if he were satisfied that his work was good enough. “Nope, I don’t see it. Whatever your problem is, we must have a different perspective because I personally think it looks great.”

“You’re seriously going to turn it in?” Millennia blinked in disbelief, looking once more at the flutterwing he’d stitched which barely resembled the creature at all. “If you asked really nicely, I’m sure they would let you have another thing to work with. You don’t have to settle for this.”

“No, it’s fine. I think I’m happy with it. Thanks for all your help, Mil. Never could have done it without you.”

Koschei didn’t say another word before he gathered his things and headed out of the room, leaving Millennia on her own to ponder whether she’d actually helped at all. Not that she hadn’t tried, but it didn’t seem as if her lessons and tips had done anything to improve the quality of his work.

Oh well, she thought. Guess I’ll find out what happened at lunch tomorrow.

//

Ushas was growing incredibly tired of waiting for Drax to return so when the door finally opened around half an hour later, she leapt to her feet almost out of pure joy. However, when Jelpax walked in rather than his roommate, she only sighed and flopped back onto the floor, staring at the work in front of her.

“Hey.” Jelpax looked around the room before he went on, glancing over to both of the desks and the open door to the restroom before he turned back to her, his brow furrowed. “Where’s Drax?”

“Guess I pissed him off or something.” She shrugged, crossing her arms against her chest. “He kept like, zoning out and ignoring me and I was getting annoyed, so we got into a bit of an argument. Said he was just going for a short stroll to clear his head, but it’s been ages now and I have no clue where he’s gone.”

“Well, were you shouting at him because he was unfocused or were you shouting at him about the quality of the work? Because I’ve done both my fair share of times and it’s quite a difficult territory to be treading on. If you tell me what happened, I can probably help, though. Just let me send him a message real quick.”

Jelpax dropped his book bag onto the floor beside the door, then whipped out his phone and began to type a message as he sat down at his desk chair; spinning it around to face where Ushas was sitting near Drax’s bed. He stayed silent as he sent his message, then looked up to her after he placed it onto his desk.

“All right, first things first, did you call him stupid?” Despite knowing the answer, Ushas didn’t respond immediately, prompting Jelpax to continue. “I know you do it a lot so I’m not going to be angry, but he struggles a lot with this stuff, Ushas. I know—and frankly, he knows—that he’s a real dumbass sometimes but being a dumbass isn’t the same thing as not being smart.”

“Yeah, but it kind of is though.” She sighed, rolling her eyes. “Not to say that Drax himself is a dumbass or smart or either of those things exclusively, but you’ve literally just said the definition of a dumbass isn’t what a dumbass is.”

“You know what I mean.” There was no humor in his tone and for once, Ushas felt like she was trapped in a serious conversation with him. “I know he’s a pain in the ass, believe me. But you just have to relax, you know? Look, he’s just told me he’s on his way back so when he comes in here, you just have to be more patient with him. It’s like teaching a child. That’s why I didn’t want you to tutor him, ‘cos he doesn’t learn like most people. If he’s asking you to repeat things three or four times it’s not because he’s not listening, it’s because it’s just not clicking in his mind.”

“Right.” Ushas nodded, her gaze turning straight ahead of her when she realized that she may have actually been in the wrong. What Jelpax was describing was exactly what was pissing her off and if Drax was really trying, then she was unjustified in her reaction. “Well, that’s actually what was pissing me off the most, so I suppose I owe him an apology for that.”

“Yeah, you do. But I know you’re not going to do it so there’s no point in lying to me about it, is there?”

Before she had a chance to argue, the door swung open and Drax strode in. Despite the fact they’d had an argument, Drax didn’t actually look upset at all, but wore his typical ‘challenging authority’ expression. He plopped back into the seat where he’d been sitting, as if they hadn’t fought in the first place.

It wasn’t a situation that was entirely unheard of, as Drax was known to have ridiculous mood swings, but the fact that he seemed so calm, so relaxed, made Jelpax wonder whether the situation was as bad as he’d thought in the first place. (Of course, he hoped that it was not, but it didn’t make it any less unclear what was happening.)

“All right, well, I’ve cleared my head,” said Drax, sliding his notebook around to see what they’d done already. “You done anything about yours?”

Ushas only narrowed her eyes before opening the textbook, resuming her tutoring as if nothing had happened at all.

//

“Well, we got something, at least.”

Mortimus nodded, blowing a quick bubble of gum which he barely caught before it snapped in his mouth. It was, he realized, probably not a good idea to blow bubbles while lying upside down. Not unless he wanted to become covered in gum, that is.

“Not exactly the remarkable illegal substances I was hoping for,” Mortimus grumbled. He dragged one leg up as he bent it, his foot scraping against the bricks on the thick fence he was lying on. “But it is rather delicious. I’m not even sure what flavor this is but good as fuck.”

Theta made a face, leaning back against the fence before he spoke. “Actually, good as fuck or metaphorically good as fuck?”

“Depends, I suppose. How hot is the person I’m fucking?”

“Hm. Well, I could say someone ugly and fuck with you, but I think I’ll go with… Zakle.”

“Zakle?!” Mortimus gaped. He sat up quickly, nearly choking on his gum in his hurry to stare down at his friend. “Have you seen his face, Theta? He’s got more acne than skin! God, I know I’m kind of a slut, but I do have some standards. And not just about looks, about personality too. I mean, Jesus Christ, that bloke’s duller than Jelpax.”

As Mortimus took a swig of his soda, Theta burst out laughing uncontrollably. He wasn’t even entirely certain what he was laughing at, but for some reason, his little prank had humored him so greatly that he couldn’t stop himself once he’d started. Mortimus was clearly not amused, however, and responded by pouring the rest of his soda on Theta’s head.

Startled by the sudden waterfall of fizzy, sticky liquid on his head, Theta leapt to his feet, frantically brushing at his hair to get rid of as much of the drink as he could. He took a step back to avoid being struck again, glaring at Mortimus in part because of how hard his friend was laughing.

“What the hell, Mort?!” he exclaimed, running his hands over his wet, sticky face. “My prank was a bit harsh, yeah, but that was way too fucking far! I’m going to smell like… whatever this shit is for a week!”

“Yeah, well you deserve it for forcing me to picture sex with Zakle.” Mortimus shuddered, his expression suddenly twisting into one of disgust. “But I suppose it was a decent joke and it’s better than if you’d decided to suggest Koschei. That would’ve just been fucking weird.”

“What?” Theta choked on the nothing in his mouth. “Why the hell would I suggest Koschei?”

“Because you fancy him, obviously.”

“I what?! I do not! He’s my best friend, Mort, but I in no way fancy him.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” said Mortimus, sitting up to swing his legs over the side of the fence. “I didn’t think you were like, in love or anything but you’ve very definitely got a boy crush on him. Not that I blame you, of course. He is pretty hot. Bit of a douchebag, but I guess I can’t say much about that since my roommate is Magnus.”

“To be fair, you’re not best friends with him like I am with Kos,” Theta pointed out, clearly all too eager to get away from the previous topic. “In fact, you’re not really friends with him at all, yeah? Kind of like you’re not friends with me anymore.”

Mortimus gasped dramatically. “I’m not friends with you anymore?”

“No, I’m disowning you as a friend because of that soda stunt. And don’t expect to be allowed into the Deca meeting next week because I’m going to get them all to kick you out too. If they don’t kick me out first thanks to the smell of this fruity soda shit.”

“You’re welcome for that. And you know, Magnus isn’t that bad. Yeah, he’s a bit of a dick, but he cares a lot more than you think. Well, probably not about you yourself but I bet he’d beat up someone for you just the same.”

“That’s just because he likes beating people up.” When Mortimus frowned, Theta only shrugged. “Prove me wrong.”

“I can’t right now but I’ll do it sometime in the future. Probably. Now shut up, we still have one more kind of candy to try.”

Mortimus reached over to the last of the bags they hadn’t opened, his brow furrowing when he pulled the tie out from around it, revealing the candy beneath. He immediately lurched back a bit, surprised by the odd smell that radiated from the clear pouch.

“The rest of the stuff we ate so far was fruity, yeah?” Mortimus turned to look at Theta, who only nodded in response. He frowned, confused by what he found in the last bag they’d bought. “That’s odd. This doesn’t smell like fruit at all. Actually, I’m really not sure what it is. Do you recognize this?”

Theta took the bag from him when he held it out, reaching up to place it under his nose. “Huh. It smells a bit familiar, like I might have smelled it somewhere once or twice before? But I don’t know for certain what it is. Maybe if we taste it we’ll be able to figure it out.”

“All right.”

They both took a piece of the dark green candy, popping the squares into their mouths. Mortimus chewed quickly at first, then slowed down, savoring the flavor of the bizarre candy. Theta, on the other hand, chewed it slowly from the start and almost immediately spit it out onto the ground; his taste buds quivering from the odd taste.

“Did you figure out what it is?” he asked. “Because I’m starting to think it might just be a bag of rat poison.”

“I don’t know for sure,” answered Mortimus, “but suddenly I feel really fucking floaty. Not to jump to conclusions, but I’m pretty sure we came across drugs for real. Edibles, probably. Yeah, so you’re not totally against the idea of illegal substances, right?”

“I’m pretty against the idea but I’ve chilled out since you first approached me about it this afternoon. Still not entirely thrilled about getting suspended or expelled over it, though.”

“Well, then we better dispose of this, yeah? Come on.”

He hopped off the fence, glancing around for the guards before he ran back towards the dorms; Theta trailing just behind him.

//

The next day, once most of the disasters had already passed, Koschei headed into his home economics class. He wore a bright smile on his face, confident that he’d done enough to pass with a more than decent grade. However, when he handed the completed needlepoint over to his professor, she only made a strange face.

“Are you certain this is the work you want to turn in, Koschei?” she asked, looking back and forth between him and the needlepoint. He nodded, and she opened and closed her mouth twice before checking again. “You didn’t accidentally bring your first attempt?”

“No.” Koschei frowned and shook his head. “I mean, I have that one right here if you want to see it but that’s not the one that I wanted to—”

“Okay, that’s all right, then. Go take your seat, please, and I’ll have this grade to you by the end of the week.”

“Thanks a lot, miss. It was a lot of fun to do.”

Koschei smiled at her and wandered over to his seat, blissfully unaware of the fact that he’d completely botched his homework.

//

“So?”

Drax bit his lip as he walked out of the classroom, meeting up with Jelpax and Ushas who were waiting for him in the corridor. Ushas looked somewhat annoyed, while Jelpax was just staring at him expectantly, dying to hear how well he’d done after hours and hours of studying.

“I got an eighty-three,” Drax announced, holding up the paper to show them.

Ushas’s eyes went wide in shock, her jaw dropping clean as she hustled to snatch the paper out of Drax’s hands, confirming that it was not forged. Beside her, Jelpax rushed to Drax’s side, wrapping his arms around him in a tight embrace.

“That’s the highest score you’ve ever gotten in this class,” he said, pulling away. “How the hell did you do it?”

“I guess I just got over a roadblock,” Drax answered. He smiled slightly, as if thinking about something in particular that he’d addressed, but he didn’t say what it was. “Thanks for all your help with the studying, guys. I think I’m really making progress now. Not that I’ll remember any of this in the morning, but it is what it is, yeah?”

He clapped Jelpax on the shoulder and reached around to take his paper back from Ushas, then began to wander off down the hallway. Ushas turned and went in the opposite direction, while Jelpax decided to run after his friend; walking quickly to make up for the distance between them.

“Drax, did something happen?” he asked, his tone only mildly concerned. “Not that I think anything bad happened, it’s just that you’ve never gotten such a high grade on this stuff before and I was wondering if there’s anything I should be doing different when we’re working together in the future, or…?”

“No, actually it had nothing to do with studying.” Drax seemed to realize his mistake almost immediately and took it back, an odd look on his face. “Not that studying didn’t help, of course, it’s just that I feel a lot better because I kind of worked through something that was bothering me. It’s no big deal, though. I’ll probably tell you about it later.”

“Okay. I’m here to talk whenever you want.”

Despite his hinting, Drax only smiled and continued walking in silence; clearly not planning to tell him anything that day.

//

The high from the weed-infested candy did not fade by the Deca’s meeting a few days later, though that was likely because Mortimus continued to eat more of them.

At first he thought the taste was really strange and ate only a piece or two at a time, but after he’d had enough of them, he started to get used to the taste and started snacking on them with every meal. Which, of course, eventually resulted in him consuming enough to be on a somewhat permanent high.

Somehow, he managed to hide this from his professors, but Ushas noticed almost the second he walked through the door; glaring at his bloodshot eyes and the way he stumbled a bit as if he were drunk. She took a deep breath, crossing her arms and shaking her head at him as he crashed into his seat, leaning back as he waited for her inevitable rant.

“Mortimus, do I want to know why exactly you look like you’re stoned?” she asked.

“It’s because he is stoned,” said Magnus, rolling his eyes. “He got some sort of lined candy from the Scendeles and he won’t stop eating it, so I’ve just accepted that I have to let him finish it off. It’ll be gone in a few days though, so don’t worry. It’s not worth the time. Anyone got anything else to talk about?”

“Yeah, how about the fact you let us go buy drugs?” Theta snapped; his eyes narrowed. “You and Vansell made us think that it was just going to be a bunch of garbage, but they were actually selling illegal drugs! Vansell, you told Mortimus to go shop there knowing that they were going to give him drugs! What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I don’t know, I suppose I have a different sense of humor than you.” Vansell shrugged casually, leaning back in his seat. “Seemed like it would be funny to me. I just didn’t think that Mortimus would be stupid enough to actually buy them, let alone eat them himself.”

“Wow, that’s rude.” Mortimus shook his head, sighing softly. “You know that I’m a dumbass. How could I not be stupid enough to actually eat them myself? Mate, I’d probably smoke a joint if someone gave it to me and said it was candy.”

“You’re not that stupid.”

“I am that stupid. I am ridiculously stupid. Have you never met me before? I’m Mortimus by the way. Most people know me as the Academy idiot. Ow!”

It was Drax who eventually launched a rubber band at the back of his head, tired of listening to his half-stoned babbling, but no one else bothered to comment on his aggressive means of shutting their friend up. If that was what needed to be done to get Mortimus to be quiet for once, they wouldn’t mind turning a blind eye.

“Anyway,” said Millennia, spinning in her seat to look at Koschei, “you still haven’t told me what grade you got on your needlepoint. I’m guessing that’s not because you got such a good grade that you don’t want to make me jealous?”

“No, it’s for exactly that reason.” Koschei rolled his eyes, but something about his body language was just off, as if he were not telling the entire truth. “I knew that you would be sad that my needlepoint turned out to be so much better than yours so I decided I would just keep it to myself so you wouldn’t feel so useless. Thanks again for your efforts, though.”

“I didn’t realize that twenty-one percent is a good score.” When everyone whipped around to look at him—Koschei the only angry of the bunch—Theta only shrugged. “What? I saw your grade, Kos. I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t fibbing to our friends. You know that Millennia does her very best when she’s trying to help you.”

“She does her best when she’s trying to help any of us.” Rallon reached over and gave her shoulder a squeeze, then turned back to the others and sighed. “Some people are just too far beyond help for her to do anything. I suppose Koschei is one of those. Unless you were exaggerating when you said he couldn’t read the instructions?”

“Unfortunately, I was not.” Millennia shook her head. “His final image looked like someone tried to do the whole project within the span of five minutes. And you know that I’m not mean, I’m just being honest. The whole thing was an absolute disaster. Sorry, Koschei.”

“I’m not, it’s not your fault.” He still hadn’t moved his gaze from where Theta sat, his eyes narrowed with rage. “It’s Theta’s fault for telling everyone that I failed so miserably. Thanks for that, mate, because I was thinking I might be able to get away with this for once.”

“You actually thought I would let you get away with it?” Theta snorted, unable to contain his laughter. “Clearly, you don’t know me as well as you thought you did. I’ll screw over anyone if I think it’ll be funny enough. No, wait, that’s Vansell.”

Vansell rolled his eyes, giving Theta a look before he spoke. “You’re an absolute dumbass, Theta Sigma. You knew full well what a black market was and in fact, Mortimus was pissed when he thought they sold almost nothing but candy. So, if you really didn’t want to buy illegal things, then maybe you shouldn’t have gone with him in the first place.”

“It’s true,” said Mortimus, staring straight ahead; his head bobbing back and forth slightly. “Only an idiot wouldn’t know what the black market is and based on your reaction when I told you what I was planning to do, it’s pretty clear you knew exactly what it was and what I was asking you to do.”

“Obviously I didn’t. You know that I’m a troublemaker but I’m not bad enough to ever think about breaking the law like that! We could have gotten expelled or suspended or—I pointed that out the other day, didn’t I?” He groaned. “Okay, well, I guess I’m never getting out of this one then, am I?”

Mortimus only shook his head. There was nothing he could possibly do to place the blame on anyone but himself.

(Not that Vansell and Mortimus weren’t equally guilty, but Theta would’ve preferred to be entirely innocent–even if he knew that was basically impossible.)

Chapter Text

“Don’t move.”

Theta closed his locker slowly, turning to look at Koschei. He was staring down the corridor, looking almost alarmed as he watched a group of girls several feet away. At first, Theta thought it was ridiculous at first, as he couldn’t figure out what he was looking at. Then he realized that Koschei wasn’t just looking at the girls; the girls were looking at them.

“Why are they staring at us?” asked Theta, tugging on Koschei’s shoulder to turn him away. If these girls were planning something against them, it wasn’t a good idea to let them know their targets were onto them. “Do I have something on my shoe?”

“What? No.” Koschei glanced down at Theta’s feet reflexively but shook his head immediately after. “Why would there be anything on your shoe? And if there was something on your shoe, why the hell would anyone care?”

“I don’t know, I thought there might be toilet paper stuck to it or something. That seems like something I’d get stared at for, yeah? But I suppose it doesn’t explain why they’re staring at you too. God, this is fucking bizarre. Should we go talk to them?”

“No!” He realized quickly how loud he was and lowered his voice again. “No, definitely not. Not until we know what they want with us. If this is some kind of conspiracy then we need to nip it in the bud. Millennia!”

Millennia had just turned the corner into that corridor when he spoke, and nearly dropped her things due to how startled she was from the call. It took her a moment to gather her composure but once she did, she headed straight over to where they were standing, glancing briefly in the direction of Koschei’s gaze before she turned to them.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”

Koschei shook his head frantically. “No, those girls over there—no, don’t look—they keep staring at us and giggling. I don’t know why. I think they’re probably planning something to destroy us, you know what I mean? Couldn’t tell you why, but we piss off a lot of people, so…”

“Oh, for god’s sake. They’re not plotting against you, Koschei. They just think you’re cute.”

Theta chose the wrong time to take a sip of his soda and gagged when Millennia made the reveal. He fell into a complete coughing fit, saved only by Koschei clapping him on the back several times. Eventually, he managed to gather himself and took a deep breath before he spoke.

“What?!” he gaped, still short of breath. “There is no way they think we’re cute. No girl has ever thought I was cute ever.”

“Yes, they have, I’ve heard them talk about it before.” Millennia rolled her eyes, crossing her arms against her chest. “If it makes you feel any better they talk about Drax too, so it’s not just you two.”

“Drax?” Koschei blinked several times, as if he were stunned by the news. “At least with us, they’ve got a slimmer of a chance. Drax wouldn’t be caught dead on a date if… if someone was threatening to kill him dead!”

“Maybe he just hasn’t found the right girl yet. You never know, with all these girls thinking you’re cute as hell, you might have a chance. It wouldn’t kill you to try talking to them for a minute, you know.”

“Obviously. Theta, come on. We have flirting to do.”

Theta didn’t get a chance to protest before Koschei strode off the hallway; his swagger and flirt already dialed up to high.

//

“Vansell?”

Mortimus knocked on the door a few times before he poked his head in but didn’t slide in before he noted that Vansell was sitting at his desk; headphones in and blocking out the sound of everything. He walked over to the desk, then tapped his friend on the shoulder, stifling his laugh when Vansell nearly jumped out of his skin.

“What do you want?” he demanded, immediately annoyed just thanks to the way they’d met. “And if it’s about any of your ridiculous dates or delusions, you can just fuck off right now.”

“I actually needed to talk to you about a school thing,” said Mortimus awkwardly. He chewed on his thumbnail, waiting for Vansell to respond, but going on when he did not. “See, I’ve been kind of botching maths this semester and Professor Grollan said that you’re really good and you might be able to help me.”

“That’s nice, but I’m not a tutor and honestly, maths is far from my best subject.” Vansell spun around in his chair, turning to face Mortimus, who was standing about a foot away; his dark gray sweater falling over his black jeans which were unevenly tucked into his boots. “Not that I don’t have solid grades in it, it’s just—”

“No, no, it’s not about how good you are at maths, it’s about how good you are at focusing and retaining information. I guess I really struggle with that and he said you do a good job of it, so…”

“So, you’re asking me to help you learn how to focus?” He made a face. “That’s not something you can really learn, Mort. It’s just something you sit down and do. You don’t have to take lessons; you just have to start doing it. So sorry, but I don’t think there’s anything I can do for you.”

“Please, Van, I got nothing left.” Mortimus’s tone sounded completely serious, as if he were almost upset at the idea of being rejected. “I try, I really try, but I can’t do it. And I’ve tried to take notes to remember things better but then I can’t read what I wrote, and I end up learning nothing. It was my maths professor who said to ask you, but my grades are plummeting in all of them and I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t fail. Please.”

“Okay, meet me in study hall tomorrow afternoon and we’ll work on it, yeah?” Vansell hated how quickly he cracked, but he couldn’t sit by and watch one of his friends suffer when he had a chance to help them. “Just don’t expect too much of me. I can tell you what I do but I can’t promise I can do anything that’ll change yourself.”

“Thank you, seriously. I am massively in your debt.”

Mortimus smiled at him before he headed out of the room, leaving Vansell alone to wonder whether he’d made the right decision.

//

“Where have you two idiots been?”

Koschei smirked when Magnus asked the question, sliding into his seat at the dinner table beside Theta. Where they’d been, of course, was flaunting their newfound famousness. Koschei wasn’t quite sure if he wanted to tell Magnus quite yet, debating whether he should get a few girlfriends before he started bragging.

“We were out talking to girls,” said Theta, making the decision for him. “Millennia told us today that they think we’re cute and she was right. All I have to do is say something vaguely romantic and they think I’m charming as hell. It’s actually pretty impressive. Don’t think you could get them, though. She told us they all think you’re a dick.”

“That’s not the word I used,” Millennia corrected him, “but he’s right, they don’t really like you. It’s only because it’s a bit hard to get to know you, though. I’m sure if you weren’t so rude, they—”

“Stop, I don’t care if they like me.” Magnus shook his head, an odd expression on his face. “And honestly, if they’re into Theta and Koschei then I’m especially not interested because they obviously have no taste. It’s almost as bad as if they were interested in Drax.”

“Well, actually—”

It was Drax who spit out his drink when Millennia started to correct Magnus, telling him that Drax was, in fact, one of the three boys that the group of girls often talked about. He opened his mouth to say something then snapped it shut again; repeating the motion several times before he finally managed to get out his words.

“They like me?” he gaped. He looked around his friends at the table, his gaze lingering on Jelpax and Millennia. “Why would they like me? I’m skinny and awkward and I’m failing like every class and—”

“You’re ridiculously gay,” Magnus added. When his friends inevitably gave him a look, he only rolled his eyes. “What? Even if he’s not it he’s a fucking walking stereotype. How the hell would a girl ever think she had a chance with him?”

“Maybe because I’m not gay,” said Drax, his tone far more hostile than it needed to be. “Just because you think that stereotypes instantly define who a person is doesn’t mean that everyone else does. Maybe they recognize that I’m—”

For a split second it sounded like he would finish the sentence with ‘straight’, but he cut himself off before he did. Instead, he mumbled something about not caring and threw a French fry at Magnus’s face, only crossing his arms stubbornly when it smacked into his nose.

“Anyway,” Koschei started awkwardly, “we were thinking about hitting up some girls after classes if you want to come. Might be fun, you know. Don’t even have to pick any but it’s been pretty entertaining playing the field.”

Drax shook his head, glancing over at Jelpax beside him before he spoke. “No thanks, I’ve actually got plans with Jelpax already and we were planning on… not doing that, so…”

“It’s fine if you want to go,” said Jelpax. “Our only plans were sitting around, and I know how you like to fuck with people. It’s no big deal if you want to go mess with the girls for a few hours.”

“Yeah, just ‘cos you don’t want to go on a date with them doesn’t mean it’s going to kill you to prank them,” Theta told him. “Seriously, I know you’ve been weird about this stuff before but we’re not really doing anything, we’re just flirting them up like we’re going to. And who knows, maybe you will find someone you like! You’ll never know if you don’t come.”

“I—” Drax cut himself off, swinging his legs over the bench. He grabbed his bag from the floor, swinging it over his shoulder as he hurried to gather his things. “I’m really not interested in this, like, at all, but thanks for trying to include me. I’ll talk to you lot in the morning, I guess.”

Though Jelpax really wanted to, they all knew better than to chase after him when he was in a mood and instead left him to diffuse, hoping that he would be more relaxed the next time they saw him.

//

If they were responsible in the least, Theta and Koschei probably would have stopped pushing their newfound fame after they spent an hour messing with the girls that first day. However, they were enjoying the attention way too much and couldn’t stop themselves from continuing with the action.

Koschei was far better at talking to the girls than Theta was, and Theta was partially sure that was because he was more interested in the idea of actually pursuing one of the girls. Not that Theta wasn’t, of course, it was just that he didn’t really think it was the right time for him to be getting into a relationship. Probably.

Most of the time they spent with the girls consisted of Koschei flexing and the girls giggling. For Theta, it got a bit repetitive, until he started smiling himself and the girls all swarmed him for his “adorable face”. It was true, he had to admit. He had one of the most adorable faces of anyone ever. Not that he would describe himself as adorable, but he was certainly good looking.

“You’re both so cute,” said one of the girls, twisting a lock of hair around her finger. “I can’t believe neither of you are taken.”

“Yeah, well, just waiting for the right person.” Koschei flashed a smile at her, his bright white teeth shining in the light. “Maybe that could be one of you if you play your cards right.”

Theta frowned. They were flirting with girls, not selling a new skimmer. It seemed kind of weird to use that particular phrasing given the context, but he didn’t say anything. If he decided to address it at all, he would rather say something around Koschei privately, not in front of all the girls.

“You would really date one of us?” another girl giggled, biting down on her lip. “But you’re so hot. And Theta is adorable. Almost as much as Drax. You know him too, right?”

“Yeah, but he’s not really looking to date right now,” said Koschei, trying to change the subject as quickly as possible. “Let’s keep talking about how hot I am, yeah? Look at these biceps. Yeah, I worked out once in primary school.”

The fact that the girls all ‘oohed’ and ‘ahhed’ as if that were some sort of accomplishment made Theta throw up in his mouth a little. Primary school was literally decades ago. Koschei had done nothing in years to work on his figure and yet somehow he was supposed to have impressive biceps? Sure, Theta thought he was hot, but that didn’t mean he actually was.

“Wow,” one of the girls breathed. “I can’t believe you’re even talking to us. You’re so cool.”

Koschei smirked. “I know.”

Beside him, Theta sighed and slapped his forehead. Though it was fun at the beginning, he was already growing tired of the repeated, generic compliments. If this had any chance of becoming fun again, he would have to find something different to do with the girls.

And, he realized, he had just the idea.

//

Before they even started the tutoring, Vansell wanted to know how bad Mortimus’s memory and lack of attention truly was. He knew that testing his friend would be no easy feat but to even attempt to think up a way to figure it out without launching straight into the tutoring was beyond him.

So, though he knew that it would likely fail, Vansell decided to just start teaching Mortimus about focus and see if anything happened. It did, of course, and it was every bit as dreadful as he was expecting but not nearly easy enough to manage as he was hoping for.

When Mortimus’s focus slipped, it slipped far. One second he was nodding along, asking questions about the things that Vansell was telling him, and the next he was staring off into space; mumbling something about a completely irrelevant subject.

“Mortimus, I’m trying to help you focus,” said Vansell, snapping a hand in front of his face. Maybe it was a bit too much, but he was already getting annoyed and he needed to find a more effective way to get Mortimus back into the zone. “Look, you’re the one who asked me for help and I’m doing my best but if you’re not even going to try—”

“Sorry!” Mortimus snapped back to attention rather quickly and suddenly, the look on his face clearly embarrassed. “I was just thinking about something someone else told me. I’m not trying to ignore you, I swear. I was just working out things in my own mind. Probably. Can you repeat that last part?”

“The last part was that you’re an idiot and I can’t figure out why you’re not listening.”

“It’s because I’m bored. I’m really, dreadfully bored of this and I know that I shouldn’t be, but this is just no way to spend a nice afternoon, you know?”

“No, I don’t know.” Vansell rolled his eyes. “If you want to appreciate the weather then we can go sit over by the window but it’s really not that great outside. Now, I’m trying to figure out what to do with you, so if you wouldn’t mind answering a few questions? That is, if you’re able to since you’ve ignored most of my introduction.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay.” Somehow, Mortimus seemed even less interested than before, which was kind of ridiculous considering how desperate he seemed upon initially asking for help. “What are your questions, then?”

Vansell reached down to his backpack, which sat on the floor beside the bench they were sat at, then pulled out his notebook and flipped it open to the page he’d written his list on. With any luck, he’d be able to use it to assess what Mortimus’s weak points were and just how badly he truly wanted to learn.

“All right, first question…”

//

“I’m actually a bit surprised that you didn’t want to go for it,” Jelpax mused, not once tearing his gaze away from his book. “Not that I expected you to go out with any of them or anything, but Theta and Koschei dropped a whole lot of potential prank victims right into your lap and you didn’t take it.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Clearly not as interested in the conversation as his friend, Drax only rolled his eyes. He was sitting upside down in the library chair beside him, just a few feet from where Magnus lounged on a couch, reading something about construction. “Sorry to disappoint you, but I suppose ruining people’s days isn’t all I enjoy doing anymore.”

“Wait, hold up.” Jelpax dropped his book suddenly, whipping around to look at Drax. “Who are you and what the hell have you done to my best friend? The Drax I know would never just stop enjoying fucking with people. That’s pretty much his favorite activity, aside from breaking my shit so he can tinker with it.”

“I don’t break it just to tinker with it, you dick. I tinker with it and then accidentally break it and claim that I found it broken and I’d like to fix it for you. Don’t act like you don’t know that’s what I do because it’s pretty fucking obvious. Especially if you’ve known me for as long as you have.”

“Oh, for the love of god,” said Magnus exasperatedly. “Would it kill you two to stop bickering for a few minutes? Some of us are actually trying to get some work done, you know. If you want to gossip about girls then you’d be better off speaking somewhere that people won’t be trying to focus.”

“But that place doesn’t exist,” Drax argued. “Not if you’re trying to Jelpax. He’s got his nose in a book basically every second of every day which means he’s always focusing. It’s honestly a bit ridiculous. Do you even want to spend time with us, Pax?”

“With you?” He hesitated before nodding. “Yes, I think I do. People in general? No, absolutely not. I have absolutely no interest in speaking to people on a daily basis. If I could, I’d probably only come out of my room once a week.”

“Well, shit, I didn’t realize you hated us all that much. Maybe I should go hang out with those girls.”

“Yes!” All of them whipped around to look when Millennia spoke up, each equally confused by her sudden appearance. She plopped down at the table beside Jelpax then turned to look at Drax, an eager expression on her face. “I know you’re really shy and you don’t want to talk to the girls, but I think you just need a bit of a confidence boost.”

“No, I don’t need a confidence boost.” Drax almost laughed before his expression suddenly turned deadly serious as he shook his head, finally flipping himself back into a regular seated position. “I’m not avoiding speaking to them because I’m shy, Mil. I’m not doing it because I don’t want to.”

“Because you’re gay,” Magnus added, barely looking away from his homework. He only shrugged when all eyes turned to him. “I’m just filling in the blanks.”

“Nobody asked you to invent information. If you want to keep being a dick then you can make rude comments but inventing things about people is just fucking wrong.”

“I’m not really making anything up, I’m just making an educated guess based on the last few decades of knowing you. And you haven’t been remarkably bothered in the past by my comments so I’m not really sure why you’ve gotten so fucking sensitive about it the last few years.”

“I haven’t gotten more sensitive about it, I’ve just realized that I don’t have to listen to you being an asshole all the time,” Drax snapped. He noticed Millennia looking uncomfortable beside him but didn’t bother commenting on it. If she didn’t like the tension, she could leave. “Now just shut up, yeah? This is none of your fucking business.”

Thankfully, Magnus finally took the hint and didn’t say another word about it after that. Millennia, however, was not deterred by Drax’s sudden attitude and resumed her own, more positive pestering.

“Anyway,” she went on, trying to push past the moment, “I’m not saying you have to jump into anything, but if you just spoke to the girls for a bit you might find someone you fancy. Not even for like, a long-term thing, but just a friendship. Just something a little different to get out of your comfort zone.”

“I’ve already done that. I have other friends outside the Deca, you know.” Drax sighed, pushing his hands through his hair. His fingers began to tap rapidly against the armrest when he set them down, his hands shaking ever so slightly. “I just don’t ever talk to them because they’re not Prydonians or they’re far too nosey or they’re just fucking boring. I have no limits to my comfort zone when it comes to social affairs, Mil. I’m one of the biggest fucking loudmouths in the history of the Academy.”

Millennia nodded. She wanted to argue, but she had nothing to say to that. So, instead, she just let him resume his casual bantering with Jelpax, hoping that she might one day find a way to help him recognize the way he shielded himself.

//

Morally, Theta knew what he was doing was completely wrong. But emotionally, it was far too much fun to keep the girls working at his beck and call all day and night. Or at least, for the last hour. He and Koschei had gotten a surprising amount of stuff out of them considering they were obviously asking for too much.

“Can you get me another drink, dear?” asked Koschei, holding out his empty soda can to one of the girls. She nodded eagerly before running off, leaving Koschei to smile into the air, lounging in his seat. They were sitting outside, of course, tanning with the classiest sunglasses on. “Damn, Theta, this might have been the greatest idea you’ve ever had.”

“God, I hope not.” Theta sighed, placing his own soda onto the collapsible table between their loungers. “I know that this seems great now but if we look back and the best thing I did during our time in the Academy was trick a bunch of younger girls into being our slaves, that’ll just be sad.”

“Younger girls? That makes it sound really bad. They’re only one year beneath us. And who cares about being a little bad sometimes? I think being evil is fun every once in a while. And it’s not like we haven’t done anything evil before. Yeah, this is the first time we’ve been really bad in degrading sort of way—at least, that I can remember—but we’re definitely done more harmful things. At least these girls want to do this. Oh, shut up, they’re coming back.”

Theta only sighed when the girl returned with Koschei’s soda, her friend going back to babble at Theta though he was too busy watching Koschei to bother listening. He didn’t care too much about speaking to the girls at all, though he was having a decent time letting them do a whole bunch of stuff for him. Still, even though it seemed like a good idea at the time, he suddenly felt like he shouldn’t have done such a thing.

He told himself that it was only because he didn’t want to take advantage of the poor girls, but something in him couldn’t help but feel like there was something else. A pang of jealousy as he watched the beautiful brunette sit beside Koschei on his lounger, giggling along with all his jokes despite how unfunny they actually were.

Not that he would ever be jealous of someone spending time with Koschei, of course. Just because they were best friends didn’t mean they had to spend every minute together, and they were allowed to invite other people to hang out with them every once in a while.

But still, as they sat there, being fawned over by a couple of gorgeous, perfectly nice girls, Theta couldn’t help but feel a pang of jealousy in his chest. Spending time with the girls was fun, but nothing was better than quality time with his best friend.

Nothing.

//

“So, you think if I take notes I’ll be able to remember better?”

Vansell nodded. He couldn’t believe that Mortimus hadn’t been taking notes already, and in fact, had spent a full minute gaping over the fact that he did not. How the hell did he learn anything without taking notes? It was no wonder that he had an issue retaining information if he never properly learned it in the first place.

“Yes, absolutely.” He nodded quickly, hoping that his enthusiasm would be more encouraging to his friend. Vansell flipped to a different page in his notebook, searching for some of his own notes to show Mortimus. “It’s nothing fancy, see? You just kind of write down the most important things that your professor is saying, or the things you think you’ll need to reference again later.”

“Right.” Something on Mortimus’s face didn’t seem to agree with the ‘simple’ concept, but he didn’t argue. “So, you want me to start taking notes? You think that’s going to fix the problem?”

“I absolutely believe that’s going to fix the problem. Honestly, I’m guessing that’s pretty much the entire source of your issue here. Most people retain information far better once they’ve written it out with their own hand which is something you haven’t been doing and would explain why you’re having such a hard time remembering everything.”

“Okay, but I don’t think that’s as simple as you think it is.”

“Why not?” Vansell frowned, leaning back slightly as he crossed his arms. “I know it’s a bit weird to start doing if you’ve never done it before but it’s really not all that difficult.”

“It’s not that I think it’s weird,” said Mortimus. He hesitated before he went on. “It’s what I told you yesterday. I guess you didn’t hear when I said, but I can’t write for shit. I’ve tried taking notes, but I can’t read them the next day. And I know you’re going to suggest writing slower or something, but it doesn’t work. My brain just doesn’t—it doesn’t click like that.”

“I don’t understand what you mean. You’re bad at writing?”

“Yeah, yep. Absolutely shit. Here, Magnus put it into better words than me. Well, maybe not, but he’s a hell of a lot more convincing. And trustworthy too.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and tapped a few things, scrolling once or twice before he handed it over to Vansell. “Don’t tell him I showed you this, he’d probably get really pissed.”

Vansell frowned when he took the phone, looking down at the messages on the screen. The first one in the conversation contained a picture of a note Mortimus left on what Vansell presumed to be their door and was followed by the caption and two other messages which were what Mortimus must have been referring to.

MAGNUS: I hope this wasn’t important because I have no idea what it says.

MAGNUS: And I know you don’t want to do anything about your shitty spelling + handwriting but this isn’t me teasing you, you dumbass. This is a serious issue and the longer you put this off the worse it’s going to get.

MAGNUS: Please for the love of god go get a tutor or I’m going to fucking drag you there myself. I don’t even know how the hell you made it this far without fixing that shit.

It wasn’t until he scrolled to read the rest of the third message that Vansell realized the message from four hours later was related to the same topic. He glanced over at Mortimus before he scrolled further, silently asking his friend whether it was okay. Mortimus only nodded for him to proceed, so he did.

MAGNUS: Sorry if I was too harsh earlier, Mort. Noticed you weren’t at lunch, hope it’s not because of me. I wasn’t going off because I was pissed, I was doing it because I was worried. I know how upset this shit makes you and I want you to get the tutoring, so it won’t fuck you up anymore.

“So, as you can see,” Mortimus started, as he reached out to take his phone back, “I’m not just making this up. That’s about as much proof as you need, yeah? Now, let’s think of some other ways to approach this.”

Vansell shook his head. “No. Mortimus, I can’t help you with this. You need a serious tutor.”

“No, I don’t. Magnus is just exaggerating. It’s bad enough that notes don’t help me but it’s not bad enough that I really need to talk to anyone about it. I just need to find another way to remember things. Surely there’s got to be something else out there?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t want to just ignore your—”

“Okay, well, if you’re not going to help me then I’m just going to go.” Mortimus gathered his things up quickly and dramatically before he rose from his seat. “Good day, Vansell.”

“Mort—”

“I said good day!”

He strode out of the study hall then, leaving Vansell alone to wonder what to do next.

//

Drax didn’t think it was possible to make it clearer that he had no interest in speaking with the girls which was why he was so stunned when Millennia showed up in front of him after dinner with one of them at her side. The girl wasn’t awful to look at and seemed friendly all things considered, but Drax still didn’t want to talk to her and tried to make it obvious with his expression.

Unfortunately, Millennia did not take the hint and instead moved closer to him on the outdoor steps, smiling all too brightly as she gestured to introduce the girl she was presumably friends with.

“Hey, Drax,” she said cheerily. “This is my friend Erlia. We work together on the paper.”

“Hi!” Erlia was almost blushing as she held out her hand to shake Drax’s. He let go after they’d barely held hands for a second. “I can’t believe we’ve never actually spoken before. We’ve been in the same science class for years now. I’m sure you’ve noticed me in there.”

“Uh, not really.” Drax shook his head, unsure of whether the expression on his face was more apologetic or uncomfortable. “It’s nothing personal, I just don’t pay attention to people I don’t have to talk to. And my best friend is in that class, so I generally just pair up with him for group work.”

“That’s okay, Millennia’s brought us together now. You know, I actually wanted to go on a while back, but you were busy or something, so it never happened. I’m really glad we could meet now, though.”

“Yeah, right.” He started packing up his things, suddenly no longer feeling the urge to do his reading outdoors. Locked away in his dorm room was definitely better than the Academy’s back steps. “Well, it was nice meeting you but I’m actually abstaining from social interaction starting in about thirty seconds, so I’ve really got to go now.”

He barely stood up when Millennia stepped onto the stairs beneath him, a slightly upset, slightly annoyed look on her face. She crossed her arms sternly, giving him a look which stopped Drax from turning and running away.

“Okay, I can see you’re not interested,” Millennia started, “but it’s kind of rude to lie and blow us off like that. I’m not asking you to spend the entire evening with us, I just wanted to introduce you to my friend. Is that really such a bad thing?”

“No, it’s not that I don’t want to talk to you, I just—”

“He’s supposed to be studying with me.” Shockingly, it was not one of Drax’s closest friends such as Jelpax or Theta who came to his aid, but rather Magnus. He was leaning back against the doorway at the top of the steps, a no-nonsense look in his eyes as he nodded towards the building. “Come on now, dumbass. You’re already twenty minutes late.”

It was probably the first time in his life that Drax was grateful to be called a dumbass. Not just because he was happy for the excuse to get away, but because the excuse only existed because Magnus was being a good friend for once. (Unless he actually was supposed to study and had somehow forgotten, of course, which would be a whole other issue.)

Drax only nodded and gestured towards Magnus before he followed him into the building, ignoring Millennia’s calls for him to come back and breathing a sigh of relief once he was finally freed from the uncomfortable conversation.

//

Theta was fine going along with whatever Koschei wanted to do at first and in fact, thought he had somewhat of a responsibility to do so. After all, it was his idea to turn their fans into personal servants anyway. He just didn’t expect Koschei to so widely embrace the girls’ affections.

It wasn’t until Koschei invited them to come back to the dorms for a smoothie when Theta finally hit his limit and yanked his best friend aside, desperate to knock some sense into him. Koschei was alarmed when he was pulled away from the girls, looking back desperately as if worried they would leave if he didn’t return in time.

“Theta, what are you doing?” he demanded. “I was just about to get them to do the cleaning for us! I had a whole plan to get them talking and offering to help me make the smoothies and then wham! Kitchen’s clean.”

“One, that’s really awful.” Theta shook his head slowly, almost disgusted by the idea. “Two, why do you need them to clean it? It’s a community kitchen. The janitors will clean it up tonight, not that they’ll be thanking you for that shit you pulled with the eggs this morning. And three, can we stop messing with them now? It’s not really fun anymore.”

“What do you mean it’s not fun anymore? This is absolutely fun. Far more fun than you making fun of me for that incident with the eggs.” He rolled his eyes. One little egg-splosion was not grounds for so much mocking. “Now stop whining and get back to work with me. We’ve only got so long until these girls realize we’re not interested in them.”

Theta’s jaw practically hit the ground when Koschei spun back on his heel. After all the flirting, giggling, and sweet talking the girls, he thought for certain that Koschei was interested in at least one of them. But if what he said was true, then he was actually just deriving some sick pleasure from tricking the girls into being his servants for the day.

Somehow, Theta couldn’t decide whether that was demented or attractive.

He blinked out of his distracted state and ran over to catch up with Koschei, who was already wrapping his arms around the girls again as they resumed their strode down the corridor towards the dormitory kitchen. Theta didn’t bother trying to take one of the girls, knowing that they probably liked Koschei better anyway.

“Do either of you know how to make a smoothie?” asked Koschei casually. “I do, obviously, but I have a bit of a bad track record with culinary arts, so I thought if you’d like to show me how to do it the right way…”

Theta threw up in his mouth a little at the way the girls giggled. Sure, Koschei was hot, but he wasn’t ‘giggle because he’s a fucking idiot’ hot. At least, not if you didn’t see it with your own eyes.

Trying his best to leave everything behind him, Theta sighed and followed his friend down the hall. Another hour couldn’t hurt, right?

//

Vansell rarely smiled and it was because of that fact that he knew he must have looked absolutely awful when Rallon came home that evening. He slid open the door like usual, then frowned when he closed it, dropping his bag onto the table to the left of him.

“You good, mate?” he asked, heading over to his desk on the other side of the room.

Instead of answering immediately, Vansell only nodded, finally removing his elbows from the desk and running his hands over his face before he dragged them through his black hair. “Yeah, I’m just thinking about something. Got a decision of sorts to make.”

“Well, what kind of decision is it?” Rallon sounded almost cheery, and it was annoying more than it was uplifting. He clearly didn’t understand that it wasn’t a good kind of decision, if those were to exist. “I don’t know if I can help you with it, but—”

“No.” Vansell shook his head, sighing deeply. “I shouldn’t even tell you about it honestly, it’s not my business to tell. But just as a hypothetical, if you knew something was really bothering one of your friends—not just any friend, but a Deca friend—would you do anything about it?”

“I guess it depends on what and who it is.” He seemed to realize that they were in a serious situation and finally walked over to Vansell, sitting on his bed a few feet away from the desk. “Like, I usually don’t say anything to Drax because I know he’d rather talk to Jelpax, but I always talk to Millennia. Not just because she’s my girlfriend, but—”

“What about Mortimus? Not that I’m saying it is Mortimus, but if it was.”

“Okay, uh, I don’t know a whole lot about this, but Millennia does and from what she says, he doesn’t have a lot of direct support. He doesn’t talk to his family and his roommate is Magnus so that’s pretty much a dead end and he doesn’t really have anyone else he’s like, really close to. So, in that case, I think I might do something because there’s not much of a chance he’s going to do anything himself.”

“Shit, that’s what I was worried about.” Vansell groaned and rubbed one hand against his forehead before he shoved back his chair. “All right, I’m going to go talk to him. Maybe I can do something without going behind his back.”

Rallon said nothing else before Vansell left, knowing that there was nothing more he could do to help. Vansell knew the same and asked nothing more, not even thinking too much as he walked down the hall to Mortimus’s dorm. He knocked on the door a minute later, nearly jumping out of his skin when Mortimus opened it almost immediately.

“You knew I was going to come, didn’t you?”

“Little bit.” Mortimus shrugged, biting down on his bottom lip. “And I kind of figure I know what you want too, but I don’t really want to talk about it, so…”

“I know you don’t want to talk about it,” Vansell started, “but you’re struggling a lot and you need help, mate. You can talk to me or you can talk to Magnus, but you need to do something about this.”

“Yeah, I know, and I’m going to. Just let me deal with this myself, yeah? I’m not a child.”

“Can we just talk about this for a minute? Please?”

He breathed out a deep sigh of relief when Mortimus nodded, stepping aside for make space for Vansell to join him in the room before he slid the door shut, blocking the rest of the world from hearing their conversation.

//

“Thanks again for saving my ass back there,” said Drax, dragging his feet onto the couch beside him. The student lounge was nearly empty at that hour, but the snack bar was still open and that’s what they really came for. “I think I’ve run out of ways to repeat myself.”

“I mean, if you just told them the truth then you wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore.” Magnus shrugged casually, taking another spoonful of his yogurt parfait before he went on. “Only reason Millennia keeps pushing you is ‘cos she thinks you’re shy. If you just told her you’re gay—”

“I’m not gay.” His tone was flat and vaguely hostile; his lips forming a thin line as his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

“Okay, god, I know. I’m just messing with you. But you know, it does kind of make me wonder why you’re so fucking defensive when I’m always teasing you about other shit too. I mean, god, I pick on you for your mood swings more than anything else, but you don’t shout at me about that.”

“Because everyone knows I have mood swings, but they don’t know if you’re being serious or not when you call me gay and I don’t want people to get the wrong impression, all right? It’s not the same thing.”

“Drax, it doesn’t even matter.” Magnus rolled his eyes, sticking his spoon back into the cup as he leaned forward in his seat. “I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this. There’s like, nobody who’s actually going to give a shit if you are. I know our society is politically fucked up but it’s not discriminatory on a small scale like that. Almost nobody will bat an eye.”

“But some people will.” He sounded almost upset and insistent as he spoke, but it wasn’t entirely clear as to why. “Yeah, most people are accepting but there are still some who believe in the traditional first regeneration values and there are people who think it’s wrong to have a preference at all. And yeah, most people don’t agree with those beliefs but some of us still uphold them.”

“‘Us’?” He frowned. “Are you saying you’re one of those people?”

Drax hesitated for the longest time before he finally spoke again. “We don’t choose who our parents are.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying right now. Are you seriously closeted?”

“No. I’m not gay.”

“Mate, if you’ve got all this shit going on then all you have to do is say something.” Suddenly, Magnus felt guilty about his years of teasing, realizing that he’d gone too far. “If it’s true and you want me to stop making jokes about it then just tell you want me to stop and I’ll do it.”

“No, I’m not—” Drax took a deep breath, running his hands over his face before he finally spoke again, his lip trembling slightly. “I’d like you to stop please but it’s not for the reasons you think. I just don’t want people assuming things, okay? I’m not— I can’t deal with that.”

“Okay. So, you’re not? Just to be clear?”

“No, I’m not, and if I was I wouldn’t fucking tell you. Jesus Christ, I can’t trust you with anything. You got the slightest hint that I might be gay, and you immediately outed me to the entirety of the Deca. You probably don’t even remember it but that alone cost you my trust and most of my respect.”

Magnus opened his mouth to speak but snapped it shut again. He had no idea that Drax felt that way about what he’d considered to be nothing more than some simple teasing, and suddenly he wondered whether this was what people meant when they told him he went too far. Maybe he really was the massive dick they were always making him out to be.

“All right, I get it, I crossed a line.” He sighed, leaning his elbows onto his knees in front of him. “But you have to understand that I had no idea. Nobody believed a word I said, it was just my usual banter. I make stupid comments like that. It’s not meant to hurt anyone.”

“Well, that’s pretty funny because it actually hurts pretty much everyone and there’s absolutely no way you couldn’t have realized what you were doing. We talk about it all the time, Magnus. You’re a fucking dick.”

He nodded. So, it was exactly what he expected. All the comments over the years were not, in fact, meant to be taken as a joke. He was being painted as a dick not just because most people thought he was but because his best friends believed his was too.

Obviously, Magnus should have expected that. It wasn’t like he treated any of them particularly well and honestly he was one of the most likely to dump any of them for personal gain. But he’d done plenty of good things over the years too and a part of him just assumed those would outweigh his awful nature and lack of a censor.

“I’m sorry,” said Magnus eventually. He’d never properly apologized before, so he wasn’t sure how sincere he sounded but he truly meant his words. “I know that a lot of people harass you already and you really don’t need me adding to that, so I’ll back off a bit, yeah?”

“If you say so.” Drax shrugged, staring down at the coffee table in front of them. “Don’t really believe you’re going to stop or anything since you’re so fucking set in your ways. Nothing will stop you from saying what you’re thinking now but I would appreciate it if you’d lay off just a little bit. Mocking stupid shit that I do is one thing but you’re crossing a line when you attack personal things about me. Or anyone else, for that matter.”

“Yeah, I know, and I’ve pushed that line a lot—sometimes intentionally—but you have to understand that in this case, at least, I didn’t realize that this was true. Or at least that it matters to you so much. So, in the future, just tell me, yeah? I’m not going to care if you want me to stop but I’m not going to know if you don’t tell me.”

“Can’t you just stop messing with me at all?”

“Now you’re asking me to change my entire personality and I think that might be pushing it a bit, but I’ll stop with the personal jabs. But I will warn you that if you start putting cherry bombs in the toilets again, I won’t be able to contain myself.”

Magnus thanked all the gods that Drax laughed when he said that. He might have been a dick but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how to make his friends smile.

//

It wasn’t until the smoothies were nearly finished when Theta realized that something strange was going on.

The girls were giggling extra, whispering to each other far more than they had been during the rest of the day. One they even shoved Koschei out of the way to slip a “secret ingredient” into the desserts. It looked like a simple mixture of sugar, but Theta wasn’t so sure and pulled his own maneuver to get Koschei away from the girls for a minute.

Same as before, Koschei was remarkably annoyed when Theta pulled him out into the hallway. He didn’t get a chance to complain this time, though, as Theta began to babble before he could even open his mouth.

“I think those girls are trying to poison us,” said Theta urgently, his eyes wide and alarmed. “That secret ingredient was like, really weird. It didn’t look like it was any kind of good ingredient, it looked like it was something that could probably kill us. Or at least drug us. I don’t want to drink those smoothies.”

“Would you stop being such a weirdo?” Koschei slapped him over the head. “These girls are not trying to kill us, Theta. I know that you’re done messing with them and everything but I’m not so I’m going to go drink those delicious smelling smoothies and I am going to enjoy them.”

Theta slammed a hand in front of the doorway before he could go back into the room, blocking his path. Koschei narrowed his eyes, crossing his arms as he took a step back. He was not in the mood to deal with Theta’s shenanigans, especially when he was in the middle of partaking in shenanigans himself.

“I won’t let you do this,” Theta told him, his tone ridiculously serious considering he was referring to drinking a smoothie. “I won’t be the reason that you die. I don’t know what these girls are planning but I won’t let them—”

“For the love of god, Theta, they’re not trying to kill us!”

He rolled his eyes and stormed back into the room, forcing Theta to follow behind him if he wanted any chance at saving his friend from the inevitable doom. He barely managed to catch Koschei before he took a taste of the freshly poured smoothie, knocking the pitcher clean out of his hand and sending it flying to the floor.

Theta knew that it was stupid but his first thought upon seeing the counter, the floor, and the girl covered in smoothie was that the janitor was not going to be happy to have to clean that up at the same time as the remains of Koschei’s egg-splosion. His second thought, however, was the terrified realization that he may not have been completely correct in his assumptions and he could have just covered an innocent girl and an innocent floor in smoothies for absolutely no reason.

“What the hell?!” the girl covered in smoothie screamed, waving her arms in a motion which made the excess smoothie splat all over the floor. “Why did you do that?! We spent so much time on these!”

“You were trying to poison Koschei!” Theta exclaimed, not holding back in his accusations. “I saw you pouring that stuff into his drink and I was not about to let him die by your hand.”

“It’s not poison, oh my god!” The other girl looked shocked, shaking her head. “It was just a special kind of sugar. We would never poison you. At least, not before you started accusing us of being murderers!”

“Wait, wait, wait, so you don’t like us anymore?” Koschei glared at Theta when he asked the question, clearly angry at his best friend for ruining their plans. “Just because this dumbass decided to throw out your smoothies doesn’t mean that we suck that much.”

“It kind of does though. You guys suck. We’re out of here.”

“Yeah,” her friend agreed. “And suck on this too, you morons.”

She slathered a smoothie covered arm in each of their faces, forcing them to taste the berry desserts that they’d prepared. Surprisingly, it wasn’t as awful as Theta had expected and he tasted his sleeve a bit more than he probably should have. Once he was finished, he turned to look at Koschei, who had yet to stop glaring at him.

“Are you going to acknowledge the fact that you’re a fucking idiot now?”

Theta hesitated. “No. No, I don’t think I will.”

//

“So, you think that if I just tell my professor what’s really happening he’ll cut me a little slack?”

Vansell nodded. “In fact, I think that if you tell your professor what’s really going on he’ll feel sympathetic and probably do his best to get you some help. I know it seems hard, Mort, but this is really the best thing for you to do right now.”

“But I don’t want to talk to anyone about it.” Mortimus swallowed hard, staring down at his hands. He was sitting on his bed cross-legged, while Vansell watched him with his legs dangling off Magnus’s. “You don’t know what it’s like to be me, Van. I talk bullshit all the time so I’m kind of like the boy who cried wolf now. Nobody believes anything I say when it comes to stuff like this.”

“Yeah, so the solution is to start telling the truth more. If you just admit that you need help, things will get easier. I promise.”

Despite his sincere tone, Mortimus did not immediately accept the advice and instead continued to stare downward, barely even blinking as he thought about what his friend was saying. They were far from close though they were both part of the Deca, and Mortimus wasn’t sure whether he trusted Vansell enough to make such a decision for him.

Still, something about what he said made sense, and since Magnus had brought it up so many times before, Mortimus actually decided to consider the idea. Not that he was already sold on it and ready to commit to such a difficult course of action, but it might not be the worst thing in the world.

Right?

//

“…I just can’t believe you thought they were going to poison you!” said Millennia, repeating herself for the umpteenth time. “I know that you’re terrible with women but oh, my god! If they were evil, I would have warned you. They just wanted to spend time with you, why would they do something so awful?”

“I don’t know!” Theta threw his hands up in defense, trying hard not to look around at the rest of their friends. It was not fun to start off the meeting by telling everyone that he’d accused two random students of attempting to poison him and Koschei, and it was even less fun to have to argue his side. “They were adding some weird secret ingredient and it looked like cocaine or something. I couldn’t trust it!”

“It was sugar, Theta,” Koschei told him exasperatedly. “They told us. It just makes it extra flavorful. Yeah, it was in a weird kind of bag, but that’s because it was a weird kind of sugar! I think we would have noticed if we got stoned or whatever after we were forced to taste those drinks.”

“But you don’t know for sure. Maybe it was a small enough amount in the tiny taste we took that we couldn’t tell. You just can’t trust anything. Especially not these random women who were basically stalking us.”

“They weren’t stalking us. They talked about us a bit because they liked us, but we approached them first so there’s really no reason to act like they’re the ones who did something wrong. If anything, it was us. We knew we weren’t going to get with any of them and we kept leading them on anyway. Not to mention your little ordeal at the end.”

Theta rolled his eyes, making a mocking gesture with his hands rather than actually addressing the situation at hand. Luckily for him, Millennia spoke up again before he had to come up with something else to say.

“Speaking of being a jerk to girls,” she said, “I really didn’t like how you just ran out on me and Erlia the other day, Drax. I know that she made things a bit weird when she mentioned the date, but it was not my intention to set you up, I swear. I just wanted to introduce you to my friend, and you were so rude about it.”

“In my defense, I didn’t mean to run out,” Drax told her. “Like Magnus said, I was supposed to be working with him. It was nothing personal, mostly, I just didn’t have the time.”

Before Millennia could say anything else, Magnus spoke up. “Yeah, it’s some stupid project we were assigned to do. I could have done it without him but there’s no point in suffering alone, is there? And it’s a lot more entertaining if I can make fun of this dumbass, isn’t it?”

“Are you kidding?” Drax rolled his eyes but it was Jelpax who responded, his arms crossed from the seat in front of him. “I don’t know what project you’re supposedly working on but there’s no reason for you to be calling Drax a dumbass while you’re doing it.”

“It’s fine,” his best friend assured him, his chin resting on his palm. “You know he’s just fucking with us.”

“You mean like Theta and Koschei were doing to those poor girls?” Ushas surprised everyone when she spoke, as she’d been quiet up to that point; allowing her friends to run the meeting for once. “Don’t try to deny it because I saw the way they were hanging on you and an idiot could tell what you were doing.”

“Wait, wait, what are you talking about?” Millennia waved her hands around almost frantically, the look on her face begging for an explanation. Her dark brow was furrowed in concern, clearly unhappy about what the boys may have been up to. “What were they doing to the girls?”

“Oh, nothing.” She shrugged, shaking her head casually as if it were truly not a big deal. “It looked like they were exploiting them to use as their slaves, but I can’t be certain since I wasn’t a part of it. It did look a lot like they were working for them, at least.”

“It was Theta’s idea!” said Koschei quickly, pointing over to his best friend. Theta gasped in shock, one hand clapping over his face as Koschei continued to explain the situation. “See, he didn’t really want to get with any of the girls but he thought it would be a wasted opportunity to not do something with them so he decided we should just pick two and get them to do stuff for us for a day and clearly it was a bad idea because it did not end well at all.”

“But that wasn’t because of my plan!” Theta squeaked. “It was because of me calling them out as attempted murderers, sure, but it was not because of my original plan. There was nothing truly wrong with my original plan.”

“The fact that you think there was nothing wrong with a plan you made shows just how poor of a plan it was,” Ushas told him. “I mean, honestly, when has one of your plans ever gone right?”

“Well, there was that one time that— okay, no. But what about that time where we— oh, wait, no, that one really backfired. I’m sure there’s something in there that was good though, right? I had to have thought up a decent plan at some point. Come on, help me out here, Kos. No? Drax?”

“Sorry, mate, but you’ve never thought up a foolproof plan,” said Drax, shrugging awkwardly. Beside Theta, Koschei nodded along; agreeing that despite the numerous amount of plans he’d made, none of them were actually successful. “Yeah, you’ve helped with a few that went over well, but you’ve never actually thought of any yourself.”

“No, no, no, I’m certain that I’ve come up with at least one good plan.” Theta furrowed his brow, placing one hand on his chin as he started to think harder. “I just know that I’m not stupid enough to only think of idiotic things. Surely there’s something? I just have to look back far enough. What about that time when…”

Unfortunately, Theta did not manage to think of anything before they ended the meeting fifteen minutes later, but it was not for lack of trying.

Chapter Text

The only thing that you should be concerned about upon walking in to receive your test scores should be what number is stamped upon them. There should be nothing else to consider, just a straightforward number which tells you exactly how well you did or did not do.

With that knowledge, it is not difficult to deduce why Magnus was so pissed when he got his grades back and discovered that he did not receive a number, but a word. A word with dots between each letter as if it were meant to stand for something though it was not a common acronym. A word which was so rude that it should never have been used in an academic context, and which made Magnus’s boil blood.

And that word was, of course, D.U.M.B.A.S.S.

Furious at what was written on his grade, Magnus stood right up from his seat and stomped over to his professor, shoving another student out of the way to ask him what exactly he was thinking handing out a grade like that. But he stopped when he reached the desk, frowning as he realized that the man standing there was not, in fact, Professor Grollan. No, the professor himself was nowhere to be seen. In his place was only the professor’s assistant for that class, who had handed out the papers.

“Where the hell is Professor Grollan?” he demanded, his glare far harsher than it needed to be. “Class starts in like two minutes.”

“He’s ill today,” the assistant explained. “A substitute was meant to be sent in but we’re not really sure where she is yet. If you need to speak with her it’d be best to just wait after class and she’ll—”

“No, I need to talk to Professor Grollan. A sub won’t know what this is about. Fuck.”

Knowing that there was nothing more he could do until Professor Grollan returned to work, Magnus retreated back to his desk, sighing loudly as he stuffed his stupid grade into his folder. He was going to figure out what it meant—even if it cost him the class.

//

“Hey, I need your help!”

Mortimus hadn’t even sat at the lunch table yet when he spoke, sliding down in between Millennia and Rallon, shoving him out of the way. Ushas made a face from across the table but said nothing, not bothering to get involved in the business if she didn’t have to.

“Sorry, but did you just shove me away from my girlfriend?” said Rallon, his tone more confused than upset.

“Yes, I did.” Mortimus nodded, whipping around to look at him and ignoring when his hair slapped Rallon in the face. “Apologies for my abrupt entrance but this is absolutely urgent. It’s rather time sensitive too so I need to figure this out as quickly as possible.”

“I think that was the most redundancy I’ve ever heard in two sentences,” mused Ushas. “In fact, that might just be one of the most useless things that has ever come out of your stupid mouth.”

“Gee, thanks.” He rolled his eyes, turning back to Millennia quickly. “Anyway, I really, really need your help. See, I went on this field trip for my psych class this morning and the place lost power for a minute and while it happened someone snogged me and it was the best bloody snog of my life.”

“Okay?” Millennia shrugged, shaking her head slightly to exaggerate her confusion. “It sounds like you’ve already made up your mind on whether you like them or not so I’m not really sure what you think you need my help with.”

“Well, the problem is that I have no idea who I snogged. And considering they snogged me so randomly, I’m terrified that there are only two possibilities of what kind of person this might be and neither one of them is particularly good.”

“What do you think those two possibilities are?” asked Rallon, an odd look appearing on his face as he realized he was being openly interested.

“Obviously one is that they’ve fancied me for a while and saw this as an opportunity to get it on even without my permission. Which frankly is pretty wrong, but it was really great, so I don’t care. And the other is that it’s someone’s partner and they thought they were snogging someone else which would be very, very awkward and in that case I’d likely just want to forget that it happened. And them too, after they’ve realized that they snogged a stranger. In fact, they’ve probably already realized and are hoping whoever they’ve snogged won’t seek them out.”

“Honestly, honey,” Millennia started, “it sounds like you’ve already thought all this through. If you really think that they won’t want to meet you, then—”

“No, but I don’t know for sure,” Mortimus said quickly. “See, there are the two possibilities and I’ll never know which one is true if I don’t figure out who I snogged. So please, please just help me figure it out. Please?”

“I can’t, Mortimus. It just doesn’t seem like there’s any way this will end well.”

“But Mil, what if this is the love of my life? What if this was the person I was meant to be with? I know it seems ridiculous now but if you find out that this is my soulmate then you’re going to regret not helping me forever.”

“Okay, sorry to interrupt again,” Ushas cut in, her tone not apologetic in the least, “but how in the hell are you going to know whether this person was meant to be your soulmate if you don’t even know who it was?”

“That’s my point exactly!” Mortimus looked at her for only a second before whipping back to look at Millennia. “Please, just try. If it turns out to be someone who’s taken or hates me, we can just forget the whole thing and I won’t even speak with them. I promise.”

“All right, all right, fine.” She sighed deeply. “Okay, so first things first. Was it a boy or a girl?”

“It, was, uh, you know, a, uh…” Every person around the table gave him a look and in response, he threw his hands up in the air, shaking his head dramatically. “I don’t know, okay? Gender means nothing to me! Can we just narrow this down some other way?”

“Not really. I mean, obviously we’ll have to figure out who was on the field trip with you, but once we do that we’re at a loss unless you’ve got some other traits you can define about them.”

“Uh… good kisser?”

Millennia took a deep breath as she looked around to Rallon, who gave her a sympathetic look. No matter what they did, this was not going to be an easy task.

//

“Kos, please, don’t do this.”

“Why?” Koschei sorted through a few things on his desk before deciding what to stuff into his backpack, smiling approvingly as he did so. “I know you think this is stupid, Thete, but I truly believe I’m going to make history today.”

“Yes, you are.” Theta nodded slowly, not being subtle with the judging expression he wore. “You’re going to make history as the stupidest student to have ever set foot in this Academy.”

“You are seriously overreacting to this. Yeah, I’m probably going to get in trouble for the rest of my life but it’s going to be worth it. I promise you, when this day is over you’ll regret deciding not to attempt this with me.”

“You think I’m going to regret not trying to get kicked out of detention? Kos, I don’t even regret not getting the initial detention. I mean, the very idea of what you’re trying to do is just fucking stupid. Not that you yourself are fucking stupid, though at this point I might consider calling you that.”

“Whatever.” Koschei rolled his eyes as he finished stuffing his backpack; strategically using his homework to cover up the contraband. “You’re clearly jealous because you didn’t come up with it first and now you’re just taking it out on me because you know that you can’t come up with any decent ideas on your own.”

“As if.”

Theta blew a raspberry, crossing his arms as he strode back over to his bed and flopped down. A part of him hoped that Koschei would come over and try to make him feel better, but unfortunately, Koschei only gave him one last smug smile and a raise of his eyebrows before he strode off; determined to be the first student to get kicked out of detention.

//

“Jelpax!”

Magnus practically slammed the door open, not bothering to knock before he strode into the dorm room. And, of course, it was the one time he wasn’t just sitting around reading, completely free to be interrupted. No, he was sitting on his bed, his brow furrowed as he typed away frantically at his phone.

“Jelpax,” Magnus repeated, when his friend failed to respond. “What are you doing? I need your help like, right now. This is urgent.”

“Are you kidding?” he snapped. “I don’t care what it is, it needs to wait. I’m in the middle of something right now and before you go thinking you’re more important, it’s to do with Drax, so—”

“You have got to be fucking shitting me right now. He’s not even here. You can’t possibly be spending so much time cleaning up his shit that you can’t be bothered to help me for a few minutes. I just have a couple of questions, surely it won’t completely tear you away from whatever this situation is?”

“He skipped out on his exam.” It was then that Magnus realized Jelpax did not sound concerned, but angry. “Now he’s not answering me, and I have a feeling he’s out doing some stupid shit that’ll get him thrown in detention for three weeks. And why is this my problem, you wonder? Because he’s going to come home fucking whining about how he’ll fail, and he needs to retake the test and I have to help him. It’s bullshit.”

Despite his own rage towards what he’d gotten on his grade, Magnus was suddenly at a loss for words. He rarely saw Jelpax in such an infuriated state regarding his best friend and it was almost impossible to know how to deal with it. Especially since he had no idea whether there was something else going on or Jelpax was simply fed up with covering Drax’s ass four times a week.

“Okay, well, it sounds like you need a break from that,” said Magnus eventually, hoping that Jelpax would agree, “so check this out. I got my maths exam back today and this is the grade I got. What the hell does this mean?”

“Well, I’m guessing it means you’re a dumbass.” Jelpax barely looked at the grade before he shoved the paper back towards his friend, clearly not in the mood to deal with the situation. “Have you spoken to Professor Grollan about it?”

“No, wasn’t there when I got my exam back.”

“All right, in that case, I think you should wait and speak to him about it tomorrow. Until you do that, everything you think about this is going to be mindless speculation and it’s probably just going to make you panic. Now can you please leave me alone?”

Magnus didn’t bother responding before he strode out of the room, determined to find a faster way to get his answer.

//

A small part of Rallon thought everything might be over after lunch but, as always, Mortimus showed up at just the right time to prove him wrong.

Rallon was sitting with Millennia at a table during study hall, working on something for their logic class, when Mortimus suddenly bolted into the room. Thankfully, he did not shove between them this time, but slid onto the bench across from them. Moments after sitting down, he slid a piece of paper across the table to Millennia, who furrowed her brow before spinning it around to look at it.

“What is this?” Honestly, with the amount of shenanigans her friends got themselves into, Millennia couldn’t keep track of everything and usually didn’t think much of them until she was thoroughly involved. However, once it clicked, she sighed and nodded, reading through it. “Oh, I see. This is the list of people in your class, yeah?”

“Yes, exactly. I’ve already crossed out the ones who weren’t on the field trip, so now we just have to figure out how to narrow down the people who are left.” Mortimus rolled a pen across the table to her, ignoring Rallon’s confused expressions as his girlfriend was once again stolen away from him. “So, I think we’ll be able to cross off a few more people right off the bat, because I know whoever I snogged was right about the same height as me. Rallon, don’t even think it.”

“What?” He made a face, glancing over to Millennia to see if she understood. Unfortunately, she only shrugged, forcing him to turn back to Mortimus for an answer.

“Well, you’re like seventy-two feet tall so I just kind of figured you’d have some wisecrack to make about my height. Which is barely below average, just so you’re aware. It’s not like I’m fucking Theta.”

“I should hope you’re not doing that; else this search is only going to result in serious heartbreak and disloyalty.”

Mortimus blinked. “Why do you have to make comments like that?”

“I don’t know.” Rallon stared down at the table as Millennia squeezed his shoulder, looking as if he truly had no idea why he did what he did. “I just have no filter, I suppose. Can we get back to this now?”

“Yes, I’m on it.”

Before she did any writing on the page, Millennia read through the list and grabbed the pen in front of her. After a minute, she pulled off the cap and started to scribble out names, presumably because they were a notably different height from her friend.

Once she’d gone through the list twice, Millennia finally spun it back over to Mortimus. He nodded along as he read through it, his brow slightly furrowed as he examined the names that were left.

“So, we’re down to these ones, eh?” Mortimus glanced up at her for just a second before he looked back down, reaching over to take the pen. He scribbled out a few extra names based on what he could feel of the person he encountered, then nodded approvingly. “All right. Looks like we have just a few left now. This’ll be far easier to work with. I’ll go do some poking around and let you know what I find out.”

“You know, you really don’t have to—”

Rallon didn’t get a chance to finish his thought before Mortimus wandered off, far too lost in his own thoughts to even bother stopping to wonder whether his friends cared to be involved.

//

Despite his better judgment, Theta rushed to meet Koschei outside the detention room before he went in.

It didn’t take a genius to realize that there was almost no chance he could talk Koschei out of his plan, but Theta was an eternal optimist and couldn’t be bothered with such statistics. Those statistics included the fact that he got out of class ten minutes before Koschei, of course, though Theta didn’t realize that until he arrived in the corridor; panting and confused as he saw that his best friend had yet to even arrive.

As such, Theta wandered over to the ledge near the window and pulled himself up; his legs dangling over the edge as he stared at the bustling corridor in silence. Most students were rushing back to their dorms or to extracurriculars, but Theta knew that wherever Koschei was, he was on his way to what he expected to be his last ever detention.

The fact that Koschei actually believed he could successfully get himself kicked out of detention was ridiculous but his plan to do so was even worse. Not that Theta bothered to remember it all, of course—it was far too long and far too stupid for him to bother with—but he recalled enough to make a judgment as to whether it was complete and utter crap (which it was).

Though he was somewhat lost in his thoughts, Theta leapt down from the ledge the second he saw Koschei walking up; slightly stumbling as he landed on his feet. He rushed over to meet his best friend, blocking him from entering the room. Koschei gave him a look before crossing his arms, clearly not in the mood to listen to Theta’s advice.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Theta rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to stop you from making a massive mistake, you moron. You know that this isn’t going to end well. It’s never going to turn out the way you’ve planned and we’re all going to be massively fucked. Guaranteed.”

“How are we all going to get fucked by this?” asked Koschei, his face twisting in confusion. “One, it’s only you and me so saying ‘all’ is kind of strange. And two, this has nothing to do with you since you were too chicken, so if I get in massive trouble—which is the plan, by the way—it won’t affect you at all. So just get your knickers out of a twist and shove off, will you?”

He pushed past Theta to get into the classroom, clearly unwilling to give up his ridiculous mission.

//

Even though the offices were meant to have closed several minutes ago, and he knew that his professor was out sick, Magnus decided to push his luck and see if there was anything he could learn by slipping into the teacher’s area.

As to be predicted, there was nobody around. The last professor was leaving as he walked past, so Magnus pretended to be on his phone until she vanished; giving him freedom to slip into the hallway where the professors’ offices were located.

If there was one great thing that came out of knowing Drax, it was the way his skills rubbed off on you. Magnus couldn’t even remember when he’d learned how to pick locks, but he knew it was from watching Drax do it at least twice. On the flip side, he did remember when he’d learned how to read—a skill which came in handy as he looked at the numerous nameplates on the dark doors.

When he finally found the one which belonged to Professor Grollan, Magnus whipped out the bobby pin he’d stuck in his hair—thankfully, he had enough hair that he could hide it so it wasn’t obviously there and it wasn’t looking stupid, though he had to admit it was helpful in keeping his hair out of his face—and stuck it into the lock.

It took a bit of twisting, turning, and pushing before the lock finally clicked. He nodded and stepped back to observe his work, almost surprised that it actually worked. Part of him expected it to backfire on him, since Gallifreyans were usually smarter than to not secure their doors, but he was more than happy when he discovered that it wasn’t. Less work for him, thank god.

Magnus crept into the room, sliding the door shut quietly behind him in case anyone heard. Luckily, there was no light on the door nor a crack beneath it, so he was able to turn the desk lamp on without being fear of getting caught. The inside of the room was surprisingly small, and suddenly, Magnus realized why Professor Grollan didn’t seem to give a shit. Clearly, he was underpaid and underappreciated for the time and effort he put into his classes.

Disregarding any personal issues, Magnus continued on his quest and started sifting through the things on his professor’s desk, hoping he would be able to find something that might explain his grade. A note to self, an old paper with the same grade, a key which revealed what it stood for—anything that could tell him that he was not, in fact, a dumbass.

Unfortunately, he didn’t find anything that revealed the secrets behind his grade. The office was organized well, but there was nothing in there of any interest. It was just papers that had yet to be graded, knick-knacks that belonged in the trash, and family photos that looked like they were from a thousand years ago.

Having realized that he was not going to find anything of interest in the office, Magnus turned to head out of the room, then stopped when he noticed something in the trash bin. Dozens and dozens of crumpled up pieces of paper, all of which had only bits of pencil writing visible on them.

Slowly, Magnus walked over to the bin and pulled out one of the sheets of paper, unfolding it to see what it contained. His eyes went wide as he read over the scribbled words upon it; his jaw dropping near to the floor when he realized what he was looking at.

//

“See, I kind of think it’s Hallee.”

Rallon sighed, throwing his ball up into the air for the umpteenth time and catching it in the same hand before it could smash into his face. Somehow, Mortimus had caught up with him and Millennia again, and followed them into Ushas and Millennia’s room before they could shut him out. Rallon was mildly annoyed by it, but for some reason, Millennia didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered.

“Why do you think it’s Hallee?” she asked, her tone far more interested than it reasonably should be. Suddenly, Rallon wondered if this was the fabled ‘girl talk’ everyone spoke of. “Not that I doubt you, but we do need sufficient evidence before we go confronting anyone.”

“Evidence? Aw, shit.” Mortimus groaned and ran a hand down his face, finally ceasing his spinning around in Millennia’s desk chair. “No, I don’t have any evidence. If I’m being completely honest, I just think that she’s really pretty and I would like it a lot if it was her.”

“That’s the only reason you think it was her? No. I’m not crossing her off yet, but we need to think of something better if we’re going to accuse her of snogging you in the dark. Actually, I was thinking it might be a good idea to start thinking about these people’s personalities. If they’re really shy, they’d be far less likely to snog a stranger, or even their significant other, in the dark.”

“Oh, yes!” He smiled widely and scooted his chair closer to her bed. “I know most of them decently well too, so this shouldn’t be too hard. Let me see the list.”

Mortimus took the list—which was now stuck to a clipboard, as if it were some kind of official document—and began to read it over. He whipped out the pen from behind his ear, wincing when his hair flopped in his eye, and began to scribble out a few of the remaining names. One of them he pondered over for a few seconds, but ultimately decided to cross off for reasons he did not explain.

“All right, I think this is it,” he said, looking down at the three names that were left. “It’s either Stindor, Chimi, or Zasku. Well, that’s nice, I’ve got a wild card here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Rallon, looking over Millennia’s shoulder to see the list despite his supposed disinterest.

“Chimi’s a woman, Zasku’s a man, and Stindor is agender. At this point, it would have been remarkably helpful for me to be more attentive during the snog. Then I could have at least narrowed it down to two.”

“Because two is so much less than three?”

“I mean, it’s two-thirds of the total right now but at least that’s less. Sixty percent if you want it to sound a bit better.” Mortimus shrugged, his tone optimistic as ever as he turned to look back to Millennia. “Anyway, do you think you know any other ways we might be able to narrow this down? I don’t know much about these three, but I would love figure this out tonight, if possible.”

Millennia shook her head, her short blue hair brushing against her neck. “No, I don’t think so. I’ll let you know if I think of anything but right now, I think we’ve pretty much narrowed it down as far as we can. Sorry.”

“That’s all right. I’m sure I can think of something.”

He stood up and strode out of the room then, and Rallon only felt a little bad hoping that he wouldn’t come back.

//

Koschei would be lying if he said he was even a tiny bit worried about what Theta had told him.

Honestly, his only thoughts about Theta’s final warning were those of confusion. He’d thought for certain that Theta would want to join him in his quest to get banned from detention, but clearly there were things that were too far over the line for even Theta to cross.

Still, Koschei was determined to do what he’d set out for. He decided to start small, by doing nothing more than disrupting the rest of the delinquents who were attempting to do their homework. Koschei blew bubbles of gum loudly, ate crisps when he knew he wasn’t allowed, and tapped his fingers against the textbook that he wasn’t even pretending to read.

Somehow, Professor Borusa did not say a word to him. He just continued reading his own book, occasionally glancing up to ensure that the students—minus Koschei, apparently—were doing what they were meant to. The fact that he was being ignored irritated Koschei far more than it reasonably should have and he decided to move onto the next phase of his plan, even though it wasn’t quite the right time for it yet.

Koschei crumbled up a piece of his scratch paper and chucked it at the head of the person in front of him, smiling when the kid reached up to rub the back of his head. He continued throwing more balls at the kid, and other kids around him, until finally, one whipped around to look at him angrily.

“What are you doing?” he snapped, his voice barely lowered though they were told to be silent.

In response, Koschei said nothing but only looked alarmed, placing a finger over his mouth and shrugging before he nodded to the “please remain silent” sign on the wall beside him. The boy who’d shouted at him gripped his hands into tight fists, clearly not amused by the way he chose to get out of the situation. He opened his mouth to speak again, but snapped it shut again when Borusa gave him a threatening look.

Was he seriously letting Koschei get away with this?

Irritated by the lack of attention he was getting, Koschei reached into his bag to begin the next part of his plan. He’d thought he would be able to get Borusa at least mildly pissed off before he truly started, but clearly it was not going to plan.

As he rummaged through his bag, the door swung open. Koschei didn’t bother to see who’d walked into the room but froze when he heard Borusa address the latecomer. Suddenly, he felt a true wedge had been shoved into his plans and wasn’t certain whether he’d be able to achieve his ambitions.

“You’re late, Torvic.”

In response, the dark-haired student only flipped off his professor, ignoring his warnings about getting another week’s worth of punishment. He slid into the seat beside Koschei, dropping his bag onto the floor loudly as if he couldn’t care less about the items held within it.

At first, Torvic didn’t seem to notice nor care that one of his most favorite victims was seated beside him, but once Koschei resumed rummaging in his bag, the bully suddenly turned to him, a sinister smirk on his stupid face.

“Too stupid to realize you’ve already got your book out?” he whispered, starting mild with his comments. “I knew you were stupid but Jesus Christ, this is a whole new level.”

“Yeah, and I thought you were good at insults, but this is a whole new low.” Koschei rolled his eyes, trying his best to stay strong against his worst enemy. “Now fuck off, yeah? Some of us just want to get out of here.”

Torvic raised an eyebrow as he leaned closer to Koschei, peering into the bag beside his desk. “Really? ‘Cos people who want to get out of here don’t usually bring in firecrackers with them.”

It was that statement which finally made Borusa whip his head around to look at them. His eyes went wide, a look of pure rage appearing on his previously blank face. Rather than speaking loudly and interrupting the few other students who were sprinkled in the room, Borusa stood up and walked straight over to where Koschei was sat, lowering his voice when he spoke.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper and yet more aggressive than Koschei had ever heard it. “You could’ve burned the room down if you set one of those off.”

“Lucky for us that I wasn’t intending to do that then,” Koschei mumbled, crossing his arms as he looked away to hide his lie. “I’m just trying to study, sir. I didn’t mean to cause such a disruption.”

Koschei wasn’t quite ready to abandon his original plan yet, but if he was going to go through with it, he needed Borusa to get back to his desk and stop paying attention to him so he could do something else ridiculously reckless. There was no point in attempting to set off firecrackers if Borusa was just going to take his lighter before he could.

Thankfully, Borusa nodded and took that apology as sufficient enough. He uttered some final warning before heading back over to his desk, leaving Koschei to resume his deeds in silence; hoping that Torvic wouldn’t utterly ruin his plans.

//

It wasn’t until the dining hall opened for supper when Magnus finally got his next lead.

Technically the hall was open and serving food for around three hours, so not many students came right when it opened since they had evening classes, extracurriculars, and other activities to do. Magnus, however, was so busy fuming about his grade that he’d used all his energy and was starving by the time it opened.

He sat himself down at the Deca’s usual table, barely acknowledging Jelpax and Vansell, who were already seated there. They weren’t talking about anything, just sitting in silence as Vansell ate and Jelpax scrolled through his phone, and Magnus couldn’t help but wonder why they still hung out with the rest of the Deca in the first place. The others would have been shouting and chattering like crazy had they been there already. Not that it was Magnus’s scene either, but at least he tried to engage, even if his comments were generally negative.

“You both just going to sit there and avoid all social interaction?” asked Magnus, dropping his bag onto the floor beside him. “I’m not complaining, but you know that this won’t last long.”

“Yeah, that’s why we’ve come early,” said Jelpax, rolling his eyes. “I especially don’t feel like dealing with anyone right now, so I want to just get this over with as quickly as possible.”

“It’s funny you say that,” Vansell commented, “considering you haven’t even touched your food yet. You’ve been on your phone since you sat down. If you really want to get out of here, you’d think you would set it down for a moment and actually eat something.”

“I’m going to, I’m just—”

“Jel, you can keep messaging him but it’s not going to make him answer.” Magnus was not so caring in his tone, but mostly firm and somewhat annoyed. “At least, I’m assuming that’s what you’re still pissed about, since you can’t seem to fucking separate yourself from him.”

“Sorry, can we not talk about my shit right now?” Jelpax snapped. “I know you think it’s fine for us to get all up in each other’s business since we’re friends but sometimes I just don’t want to talk about my stuff, all right? Now talk about something else, please.”

Magnus nearly commented on the fact that Jelpax was still using polite words such as “sorry” and “please” when he was meant to be shouting at them but decided to hold his tongue. And thank god he did that, because it turned out saving the space for Vansell to talk was exactly what he needed to do.

“Fine, then,” started Vansell, sighing as he rolled his eyes. “So, you know Professor Grollan’s out of town this week, yeah? So, I’ve been trying to get a hold of him, since I’ve got this—”

“Professor Grollan is out of town?” Magnus’s jaw dropped, his brow furrowing in confusion. There was no way that was possible, was it? That’s not what he was told. “His TA told me that he was ill today.”

“No, he’s left for the week. You didn’t hear?”

“All I heard is that his stupid TA is a fucking liar. Enjoy your dinner, I’ll be back probably never.”

It was because of his passive-aggressive tone that neither Jelpax nor Vansell bothered to respond before stood up, disappearing into the crowd of hungry students.

//

Obviously, Mortimus’s next course of action was to locate the people he suspected of being his mystery snog.

It wasn’t hard, thankfully, since they were likely at the optional lecture he’d decided not to attend (not because he didn’t feel like it, but because he already learned all the information on his own time and figured it would be somewhat of a drag). He headed straight for the lecture hall after leaving Millennia’s place and followed the rest of the crowd into the room.

Mortimus was wildly observant, as everyone knew, and it didn’t take him long to locate his first target; Chimi. She was sitting in the front row, next to the only open seat left there. Mortimus had to shove a few people out of the way to steal the seat, but it was worth it for the chance to meet whoever he might have snogged.

Except that it wasn’t, because the moment he saw Chimi’s sweater—or rather, the sizable chest that it was covering—he realized that there was no was no possible chance she was the person he’d snogged. Nope, whoever it was had at least a somewhat flat chest, which meant that this woman, who’d he apparently never truly looked at before, could possibly be them.

So, he stood up and gave someone else the seat, hurrying to find whoever was next. He managed to spot Stindor in the crowd, laughing and talking to some of zir’s friends. Mortimus had to shove through the crowd again to get over to zir, but when he finally made it, he was just in time to see Stindor separating from the group. He slid into the seat beside where Stindor was headed, putting a large smile on his face.

“Hi,” he said, his voice friendly. “Need a seat?”

“Yeah, thanks.” Stindor nodded. “I was just…”

Mortimus didn’t bother to listen to the rest of what zir said. As soon as zir opened zir’s mouth, he knew that it wasn’t the person he was looking for. Nope, because whoever Mortimus had snogged most definitely did not have a tongue piercing. If there was anything he felt it was not a tongue piercing.

Though he knew it was rude, Mortimus pushed his way out of the row, ignoring Stindor when zir tried to ask why he was leaving. If both Stindor and Chimi had been ruled out, that mean that there was only one person left who could be his mystery snog, and he was not going to rest until he found them.

He was not going to rest until he found Zasku.

Unfortunately, Mortimus did a stroll all around the room and was unable to locate him anywhere. From the looks of it, Mortimus wasn’t the only one who’d decided not to attend the lecture, and of course, it was the one person who he most wanted to find.

Knowing that there was nothing more he could do in the lecture hall and not wanting to waste time listening to his professor drone on about things he already knew, Mortimus strode back out into the corridor; hoping he would be able to find Zasku before his feelings faded completely.

//

Though he would never admit to what it was, something was holding Koschei back from continuing his mission. It wasn’t hard to guess, of course, since he’d been entirely on track until Torvic strode into the room, but he still wouldn’t tell a soul what happened. It was no one’s business but his own and even if Theta wanted to know why he’d failed; he’d say it was for the reasons that Theta expected.

Koschei glanced over at Torvic several times as he sat there, trying to decide whether he would be able to go through with his plan. Eventually, he made up his mind and told himself that he was not going to be stopped just because of a stupid bully. So, instead of cracking under the pressure and fear of being made a fool of, Koschei reached into his bag to continue with his chaos. He pulled out the smallest of his firecrackers, then reached for his lighter and froze. It wasn’t in the pocket where he normally kept it. In fact, it didn’t appear to be inside his bag at all.

He dropped his head onto his desk, ignoring the strange feeling as the pages of his textbook rubbed against his forehead. Great, so not only was he far from in the proper mindset, he had no possible way to start the next phase of the plan. Koschei groaned and ran his hands over his face, trying to find a way to repair the prank.

Finally, he concluded that all he could do was get to his locker. He always had a spare lighter in there, so if he could get to it, he would be able to continue with his plans. Thankfully, Borusa was allowed to let them out of the room for toilet breaks, so Koschei decided to go ahead and ask for a hall pass. He got it easily, and headed out of the room quickly, promising to be back within a few minutes.

At first, it seemed like everything was going to work out okay. He got to his locker and back in record time, but when he was heading back into the detention room, he froze in his place. The corridor was not empty around there, but instead, Torvic was standing right outside the door; just out of Borusa’s line of sight and leaning back against the lockers nearest to the detention room. Koschei froze in his place, swallowing hard as he realized they were completely on their own.

“What are you doing out here, Torvic?” asked Koschei, trying to fight up the nerve to shove past him into the room. “You know that detention is supposed to take place inside of the room, not outside of it, yeah?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” he said, his tone flat. He’d been looking down at his feet but turned his dark eyes to look at Koschei when he spoke. “And based on which direction you’ve just come from; I suppose I was right in thinking that you weren’t actually going to the restroom. So, you want to tell me what you’re planning, or…?”

Koschei made the mistake of shaking his head. When he did, Torvic practically launched at him, grabbing him by the throat with one hand and using the other to point a multi-functional pocketknife at him. He shoved Koschei back into the lockers before he spoke, their faces barely an inch away when he spoke.

“What the hell is in your hand?” he demanded; his tone far calmer than Koschei expected it to be. “Open your fist, cockshit.”

Despite the rage in his attacker’s tone, Koschei did not budge at the use of his “special” nickname. It was a terrible pun at best and he wasn’t the least bit interested in pretending to get upset over something he’d gotten used to years in the past. Instead, he only stood his ground; refusing to move even when Torvic challenged his stare.

“Ah, so you want to do this the hard way,” Torvic mused, a sinister smile creeping up his lips. He released his grip on Koschei and took a step back, only to punch him in the face seconds after backing off. “Now drop it or I’ll fucking make you.”

Koschei reached up to wipe the blood off the corner of his lip before he met Torvic’s gaze, grimacing as finally opened his fist; revealing the small, silver lighter he held within it. He stood there for several seconds, his hand shaking badly, before Torvic finally snapped the lighter out of his hand, laughing darkly.

“Planning to set off some of those firecrackers, were you?” He sounded amused when he spoke, almost smiling despite the circumstances. “I hope it wasn’t because you were trying to get away from me. I’d hate to upset you.”

Despite what he said, Torvic flicked the lighter’s flame into Koschei’s hair before he strode back into the room, leaving his victim patting desperately at his singed edges. He sighed deeply, running his hands over his face before he went back to his detention. He was in a bad place, yeah, but it would only get worse if he ditched his punishment completely.

(Not to mention the mocking he’d have to endure if he ran away from his plan.)

//

It was upon slamming open the door to the Prydonian Paper’s workspace when Magnus realized that he was probably approaching the situation with far more hostility than he needed to. He was quite angry at the TA, of course, and he had good reason to be anyone caught lying to Magnus was bound to meet a horrible fate—or six minutes—and he was not about to let this punk get away with it.

Still, he was being a tad over the top with his reaction. He didn’t even know why the boy had lied to him yet. For all he knew, it was because he’d been told to, or forced to, or because he was covering his professor’s arse when he was breaking the rules or something. But the truth of the matter was that none of that would change Magnus’s mind on what he thought about the situation, so he didn’t bother thinking about it. It wasn’t worth his time.

Nollo—the boy Magnus was hunting—practically fell out of his seat when the door smashed into its adjacent wall. Magnus stomped over to him immediately, ignoring the few other students who lingered around as he reached down to grab the boy by the collar. He yanked him to his feet before letting go; taking a step back as he crossed his arms against his chest.

“Why did you lie to me about Professor Grollan?” he demanded.

Terrified by the sheer level of aggression he was approached with, Nollo did not respond immediately. He swallowed hard, his eyes wide with fear as he tried to get the courage to answer the question. When he finally did, his voice came out weak, though it was clear he was doing his best to sound confident.

“I didn’t lie to you,” said Nollo, clearing his throat awkwardly. His arms flapped around at his sides, moving as if he had no idea what to do with them in such an uncomfortable state. “I’ve never lied to you. Why would I lie to you?”

“That’s what I just asked you, you fucking idiot.” Magnus rolled his eyes, barely shaking his head in disgust. “Now, if you were doing it to cover your own ass, I’ll cut you some slack. But I’m guessing this is about something to do with me and if that’s the case, I’m thinking it’s best for you to tell me the truth before I get any angrier about this.”

“Are you threatening me?” he gaped. “I have half a mind to tell the Headmaster!”

“Yeah, and the other half appears to have fallen out of your head or you wouldn’t have been stupid enough to lie to me in the first place. Now tell me why you did it before I do something that even you wouldn’t dare repeat to the Headmaster.”

“Threatening me more isn’t going to do anything but—” Nollo cut himself off, seeming to realize that he wasn’t in a place to be adequately countering Magnus’s attacks. “Okay, I lied because I knew what you were going to ask him about, okay? I knew why you were pissed, and I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t let you speak to him about it.”

“And why is that?” asked Magnus, his gaze narrowing.

The boy hesitated, taking a deep breath before he finally provided the answer. “Because I’m the one who gave you that grade, all right? It was me! Professor Grollan’s out for a bit and since I’m his TA he wanted me to grade the assignments for him. I saw that you were in there and I can’t stand you for reasons I’d rather not delve into, so I gave you that grade as a kind of revenge. I’m sorry, okay? Just please leave me alone. I don’t want to fight with you.”

“If you didn’t want to fight with me then why the hell did you do it in the first place? Clearly you know me well enough to hate me, so why the hell do you think I would ever let you get away with this?”

“I—I really don’t know. Just please don’t hurt me. I won’t ever do anything to you again. Just please, please, please don’t do anything to me. Please.”

Magnus opened his mouth to speak again but cut himself off as he realized just how terrified the boy seemed to be of him. It was almost funny, seeing how frightened this kid was when Magnus had little to no idea who he even was. As such, he decided that there was a first time for everything, and this might be the time he let something go.

“I’ll let you off the hook this time but if you ever fuck with me again—”

“I won’t, I swear! And I’ll update your grade to be perfect. If Professor Grollan questions it, I’ll just tell him that you’ve studied very, very hard.”

“Perfect.” Magnus smiled and began to walk away, then stopped and turned back to Nollo. “But next time I need a favor, it’s going to be you I come to and god forbid you refuse my request.”

He finally left the room once Nollo nodded anxiously, clearly willing to do whatever it took to save his own ass.

//

Rallon thought for certain that he and Millennia wouldn’t be found in their place on the grounds, but unfortunately, Mortimus was one step ahead of them and still managed to track down the couple despite Rallon’s attempts to hide them behind a tree.

He sighed loudly as he plopped onto their blanket, either not noticing or not caring that he’d interrupted their evening picnic. Rallon opened his mouth to protest the interruption, but Millennia spoke before he could, and to his dismay, sounded more positive and inviting in her choice of words.

“I’m guessing by the tone of that sigh that you didn’t manage to find your mystery snog?”

“No.” Mortimus shook his head. “I went to a psych lecture to speak with the rest of our suspects but as soon as I saw Stindor and Chimi, I knew it wasn’t them. That means Zasku is the only one left and he’s nowhere to be seen and honestly, I can’t remember what he looks like well enough to make a call without seeing him again. To be honest, I’m starting to think that whoever snogged me wasn’t even from this Academy. There’s just no one left here to consider.”

“I understand.” Millennia nodded, sighing softly. “It’s going to be okay, though, sweetie. I know you’re having a hard time thinking about this right now, but this isn’t the worst thing in the world. There’s someone out there for you and whether this was your person or not, you’ll find them someday.”

“I don’t know.” He groaned dramatically, causing Rallon to internally roll his eyes. All he wanted was a peaceful evening with his girlfriend, was that really so much to ask? “I just feel like this was my shot, you know? You don’t understand since you weren’t the one snogging them, but I felt something really, really special. A connection like I’ve never had before. Probably something like when you and Rallon snog, but like, way sexier. No offense, Rallon.”

It was only because Mortimus directed the comment to Rallon alone that he did, in fact, take offense. He tried not to let it get to him, though—it wasn’t like he wanted Mortimus to be attracted to him, he just didn’t feel like having one of the biggest sluts in the school find him to be somewhat unlikable.

“Seriously, Mortimus, you’re going to get over this person.” Millennia gave his shoulder a squeeze, to which her friend only rolled his eyes. “You don’t even know what their name, so you can’t possibly be that hung up on them. Just give it a few days and you’ll find someone new to—”

“Wait, hold on a second.”

Mortimus stood up suddenly, his brow furrowing as he looked into the distance. Stepping out of the dorm was a group of students that neither Rallon nor Millennia recognized as more than faces in the hall, but Mortimus seemed entranced by them. One dark-haired boy laughed as he broke off from the group, waving before he headed in the opposite direction.

His mouth open just slightly, Mortimus began to walk over to him, not once looking back to his friends who were calling to him in confusion. After a few seconds of silence, he locked eyes with the boy, who stopped in his tracks when he saw Mortimus standing at the edge of the woods.

His hair was shaved in the back and he had just the slightest stubble on his chin. He had deep, dark blue eyes that were easy to get lost in, and a nose more perfect than Mortimus had ever seen. His lips were a soft pink and curled upward just slightly; when he moved, he moved with such grace and in a way that was unmistakable.

Though he knew that he was likely doing more than just jumping the gun, Mortimus did not hesitate before continuing his stride across the grounds. The boy moved to walk towards him too, and when they finally met, only a second of raw, sexual tension passed between them before Mortimus suddenly reached onto the back of the other boy’s head and pulled their lips together.

Thankfully, Zasku seemed to be perfectly fine with Mortimus launching straight into the action the way he did. Their lips moved in perfect motion and every doubt Mortimus had about finding his mystery snogger faded away. He still didn’t know why Zasku had snogged him in that pitch-black room, but he knew with absolute certainty that it was him who did it. Everything about their snog was perfect and just like it was all those days ago. It was absolutely amazing.

Behind them, still sitting on their blanket near the trees, Millennia and Rallon did not think it was so amazing. At least, Rallon didn’t. Millennia looked almost touched as she watched the pair kiss, but Rallon was just confused. As far as he knew, the two hadn’t said a word to each other, and suddenly they were trying to swallow each other’s tongues? It was just bizarre. Quite the opposite of how he and Millennia’s relationship had begun.

Mortimus didn’t care, though. It was perfect for him and whoever thought it wrong could go to hell.

//

Koschei finally decided to cut off his plan after Torvic near broke his cheekbone. He decided that it would be better to just stop what he was doing and try to get through the rest of detention without irritating anyone further. Not because he wanted to avoid getting in trouble with Borusa, but because he didn’t want to have another run-in with Torvic if there was any chance of avoiding it.

However, doing what he was meant to, and studying was not as simple as it initially seemed. Koschei was extremely anxious after his meeting with Torvic and his face was throbbing badly, leading him to be nothing but distracted as he went about his reading. He tapped his fingers against the table repeatedly, his leg bouncing quickly as he tried his hardest to read the words on the page in front of him.

Though Koschei was no longer intending to pursue his ambitions of becoming the first student to be forcibly removed from detention, fate was apparently still rooting for him to succeed. Borusa didn’t visibly react to Koschei’s uncomfortable movements at first, keeping it all in his mind and trying his best not to shout at the boy, but at a certain point, it became too much to handle and he cracked.

“Koschei Oakdown,” he said, dragging his head up from his work. “You’ve done your time. Now get the hell out. That tapping and snapping is driving me insane.”

Stunned by his professor’s sudden outburst, Koschei’s jaw dropped. Somehow, even though he’d given up on all his plans and did his best to be a model student, he was still naturally annoying enough to get himself kicked from compulsory detention.

Regardless of his shock and numerous questions as to what exactly he was doing that was so annoying Borusa couldn’t just ignore him, Koschei smirked and headed out of the room; subtly flipping off Torvic on his way to the door. It wasn’t the perfect revenge, but it was enough to help him sleep that night.

//

“I’m not asking you to repeat every bit of what happened, I just want to know who did this to you.”

It was about the forty-seventh time Theta had asked Koschei to tell him what happened to his face, which was why he still wasn’t expecting an answer. Koschei was very clearly against telling him the truth and continued spewing lies about it, which was sending his best friend into a rage.

“I told you, it was me,” he repeated. “I hit myself in the face with my locker door. And yes, I am aware of just how stupid that sounds. Do you really think I would make something like that up? It’s just embarrassing.”

“Not more than getting kicked out of detention,” said Theta. “How in the hell did you think that was going to be impressive?”

“I never said that I thought it was going to be impressive, I just thought it would be fun to set a record. Just because it’s a record for something immoral doesn’t mean it’s stupid or embarrassing.”

“Yeah, not like skipping out on your exam.” Jelpax’s tone was bitter, his glare practically burning through the back of Drax’s head. “That’s just a bloody brilliant idea, isn’t it? I always thought you had to attend your exams regardless of whether you wanted to, but I suppose they’re optional these days.”

“I didn’t do it because I didn’t feel like it, okay?” Drax snapped, whipping around to look at him. “I did it because I knew I was going to fail, and I figured it would be better for me to just cut class than to show up and make a complete fool of myself.”

“It would have been better to show up, you moron. There is absolutely no excuse for just skipping out on an exam like that. Not unless someone is seriously hurt, which it’s fairly obvious no one was.”

This time, Drax only rolled his eyes in response. He shifted back to face the front, crossing his arms against his chest and not bothering to say a word to his friend. Bothered by the awkward silence, Magnus decided to break it, more than eager to discuss the fact that he’d basically destroyed someone who dared to cross him.

It was somewhere around the fourth time he described the fear on Nollo’s face when Mortimus finally decided to cut him off, no longer willing to listen to the awful story. Besides, he had a far more interesting story to tell and it was one chronicling how he had finally, finally managed to get himself into a relationship.

“…and it was all because of a snog. Can you believe it?” Mortimus said for the umpteenth time. “And you know the funniest thing is that he actually did it because he thought I was cute. Me, cute. Can’t you believe it? For a bit I was like, wow that’s kind of wrong that he just snogged me like that, but I got over it. He’s really hot too.”

“I know,” said Magnus exasperatedly. “You’ve said that about a thousand times since last night. I know you’re excited about this but god fucking dammit how many times do you have to repeat yourself? He can’t possibly be so hot that you have to say it seventy-two thousand times.”

“No, you’re wrong. He’s exactly that hot and I’m going to keep saying that. He doesn’t even think I’m creepy. You know how most people say I’m too creepy? He’s a psych major too so he understands my passion and he doesn’t care. He’s just so amazing. I couldn’t have asked for a better boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Or anyone. I’ll introduce you all to him at breakfast if you’d like. I’m sure he would be thrilled to meet you.”

“I think if you want him to like you,” started Vansell, “it’s a good idea to keep him far away from us. Particularly Drax and Magnus, who are basically repellent to anyone who wants to be friends with a single one of us.”

“Excuse me?” Drax’s jaw dropped as he turned to look at Vansell, his already angered expression deepening even more. “I understand why nobody likes Magnus but why the hell wouldn’t they like me?”

“Because you’re always dragging everyone into your bullshit situations. I know you think everyone loves pranking people and fucking everyone over but that’s not as true as you seem to believe.”

“No, I don’t understand though. Why wouldn’t you want to be part of my schemes? I never drag people into the dangerous ones. I mean, yeah, I do drag in some of you lot occasionally but not all the time. I only invite newcomers to partake in my plans! It’s not compulsory!”

Despite the fact that they had many other topics they could have discussed, the entire focus of the meeting suddenly shifted to how exactly Drax—and the other members of the Deca—were repelling any possible friends they may have made outside of their little clique.

It was quite a stupid conversation and there were a few hurt feelings along the way, but nobody tried to stop it. It was far too fun recounting the many times they’d scared away outsiders.

Plus, it wasn’t like they needed anyone else in their group anyway. Regardless of what they might said, they were perfectly fine on their own.

Chapter Text

If there was any single person who should have known what was happening that day, it would have been Ushas. But, for once, she seemed to be just as clueless as each of her friends. Which was, of course, highly concerning considering that meant not a single one of them knew where the professors were.

Since waking up that morning, not one member of the Deca had seen a single adult. And, despite their efforts to find one, there was no obvious answer as to where they went. The halls were simply bare; a few other confused students wandering around before retreating into their dorms to wait out the strange event.

Drax was the first one to want to take advantage of the adults’ absence. He was far from the type of person to let opportunity pass him by and with the entire Academy seemingly unsupervised, there were endless possibilities as to what he might be able to do. Jelpax, of course, was strongly against this, and was not afraid to make it known.

“I know you think this is funny,” he started, “but if you do this, you are going to get in so much fucking trouble.”

“Do you think I’m stupid?” Drax rolled his eyes, aggressively pulling his comb through his hair one last time before he dropped it onto his desk. “I’ve done this a thousand times before, Pax. There is absolutely nothing about getting into trouble that scares nor surprises me. Been there, done that, willing to do it all again.”

Jelpax groaned. He cared deeply about his best friend, but he knew better than anyone that the boy was a complete idiot. In fact, that was part of what he loved about him. Even if he was absolutely intolerable sometimes. Thankfully, Jelpax did not have to tear out his stern voice, as he was not alone on his side this time.

“Jel’s right, Drax,” said Ushas, crossing her arms. She was standing near their door, still hanging around from when Drax had called her in, begging to know whether she understood why the adults had all gone missing. “If you do this and they come back to a fucked up, destroyed school, this is going to have momentous repercussions.”

“Fucked up school? Momentous repercussions?” Drax nodded thoughtfully. “Sounds like something I want to get my hands on. Sorry, kids, but there’s no way I’m turning this down. It’s far too great an opportunity.”

He pushed past Ushas to leave the room, Jelpax stumbling over his chair to catch up before Drax was gone. Reluctantly, Ushas sighed and followed them out. She could go back into her room and do homework, but it seemed like more fun to watch her friends and their chaos.

//

“Wait, they’re gone?”

Theta’s tone was not just one of shock, but one which was immeasurably thoughtful. He’d already been standing up, but when he heard the news, he began pacing back and forth across his room; one hand on his chin as he began to run through all the possibilities of how he might spend his day.

“Yeah, that’s what they’re saying,” Koschei confirmed. “I’m not really sure what’s going on—I don’t think anyone is—but there are no professors anywhere. Even the lunch lady and the Headmaster are gone. It’s really quite strange.”

“Okay, yeah, whatever, but you see our opportunity here, right?” When his roommate inevitably shook his head, Theta went on. “This is the perfect opportunity for revenge. There is no one around. Nobody can stop us from our schemes. We don’t even have to watch our backs.”

“Wait, wait, wait, what are you suggesting?”

“I’m suggesting we fuck up Borusa’s office.” Koschei’s eyes went wide as an evil grin spread up Theta’s face. “He’s not going to come back to stop us, especially not if we’re quick. We can get in there and do anything we want to it. It’s fucking perfect. You have no idea how much damage we can cause.”

“Correction, I know exactly how much damage we can cause.” He sighed deeply and pushed his hands through his hair. “I know you think you’re some sort of genius, Thete, but I have, in fact, done all of this stuff with you too. You’re not any more experienced than I am.”

“Yes, I know, that’s why I’m telling you my idea. I need help to think up the best course of action! There are so many possibilities as to what we could do, and I can’t possibly think up the best thing on my own. Thoughts? Ideas? Anything? We have minutes to figure this out before we need to launch into action.”

“Are you sure it’s smart to be rushing into this? Not that I don’t want to do it, but we have no idea when Borusa will be back. If he walks in while we’re doing this—”

“Well, then let’s get on it right now!”

“Theta, wait!”

Unfortunately, Theta did not wait. He headed straight out the door, not bothering to stop for any of Koschei’s following pleads.

//

“So, this is strange.”

Millennia nodded, looking up to meet Rallon’s eyes before she glanced over at Magnus beside them. “I’ve spoken to a few others, but it looks like there are no professors anywhere. It’s really bizarre. I’ve tried asking around, but nobody knows where they’ve gone.”

“Do you think they’ve gone for an event or something?” asked Rallon. His arms were crossed against his chest, his dark brow raised in confusion. “I know we’ve had days off for political gatherings and the such, so there’s always a decent explanation like that, right?”

“Except we didn’t get a notice for it,” said Magnus, glancing over to his left at the windows on the other side of the corridor. “They’ve always given us notice before. They haven’t just vanished right before history is meant to start. It’s not strange for them to be gone for a day but it’s downright bizarre for them to vanish without warning.”

“Yeah, I know.” Vansell nodded, his gaze also shifting briefly to the same place Magnus’s had gone. “At this point it looks like they’re not going to show up again though, so we might as well take the day off. Any ideas as to what we could do?”

“We could try—” Rallon cut himself off, looking towards—you guessed it—the same place as the others with an odd look before he went on. “We could pop out of the Academy for a bit. Not anywhere off the grounds, but just over to the city. We’re allowed out before five so since we’ve got nothing to do in the afternoon anyway…”

“Oh, yes!” Millennia smiled and reached out to grab his hand, pulling him in for a quick kiss on the cheek before releasing him at her side; their hands still entwined. “You are a genius, Rallon. We should go shopping. I’ve been needing some new shirts anyway and this is a brilliant time to do it.”

“Great, okay, so you can do that,” said Vansell, his tone clearly disinterested, “and Magnus and I will find something more entertaining for us to do.”

“No!” Rallon protested faster than he meant to, and Millennia looked at him, alarmed. He hesitated for a moment, trying to find a way to cover his reaction. “I just think it would be so much more fun if we did this together. It would be a great time to hang out as a group, don’t you think? Let’s do this together. Please.”

His last word was pleading in a way that made Vansell snort. “I’m sorry, but I’m really not interested in it, and I’m sure you’re not either, right, Magnus?”

“Nope.” Magnus shook his head. “Not at all. Shopping is really not my thing. You two are great fun and all but I’d rather just stay here and find something else to do. I’m sure there’s something more up my alley, like—oh, Jesus fucking Christ. Mortimus! Would it kill you to observe the rules of public decency?”

To the left of them and on the far side of the hall, Mortimus was sat upon the window ledge. In front of him stood his new boyfriend Zasku, who was also failing to uphold the laws of public decency. Mortimus had his legs wrapped around Zasku, who had his hands on his boyfriend’s thighs as he leaned forward to snog him.

When Magnus shouted at him, Mortimus rolled his eyes and placed a hand on Zasku’s chest to push him away, pecking him on the lips once more before he leaned around the boy to see his roommate, who was crossing his arms against his chest sternly. Clearly, Magnus was not as accepting of new love as some of Mortimus’s other friends.

“I thought you were happy for me,” said Mortimus bitterly, once he finally locked eyes with Magnus.

“Yeah, I’m happy that you’ve found someone else to talk at,” Magnus told him. “That doesn’t mean I want to see you attempting to devour each other’s tonsils.”

“You are so homophobic.”

“I’m not homophobic. I’d say the same thing to Rallon if he was out here trying to swallow Millennia’s tongue. But thankfully I don’t have to, since he’s too shy and too courteous to try anything with her in front of other people.”

“It is common courtesy.” Rallon shrugged awkwardly, clearly trying to distance himself from the comment about his shyness. “I mean, you don’t—you don’t want to do that in front of people, right, Mil?”

Millennia shook her head quickly. “No, that’s definitely something I’d prefer to keep private.”

“Fuck, if you want to judge us, just say so.” Mortimus rolled his eyes. “It’s pretty obvious you don’t like our life choices but there’s no reason for you to be indirecting us. Now if you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my snogging now. You might not like it, but it feels damn good on this side.”

Mortimus reached forward to snog Zasku again, but he took a step back, preventing their lips from meeting. “I don’t know,” said Zasku, a sheepish expression on his face. “I don’t want to make your friends uncomfortable.”

“No, it’s fine. Pretty much all I ever do is make people uncomfortable. That’s kind of my thing.”

Again, he tried to reach out to Zasku, but the boy stepped away from him before they could start anything again. Mortimus’s entire face fell, his eyes widening in a level of concern that was far too much for the mundane scenario they were currently in.

“Please don’t be mad at me,” said Mortimus, his voice shaking slightly. “I’m not saying I do it intentionally or anything, I just have a habit of saying and doing weird things. But it’s not bad! I’m just really odd. Please don’t hate me.”

Zasku sighed deeply. “I don’t hate you; I just think we should respect people’s boundaries.”

“All right, then I guess you’ll have to teach me how to do that.”

Clearly oblivious to his new boyfriend’s ways, Zasku chuckled. It was Magnus who eventually burst his bubble, a deadly serious expression on his face.

“He’s not kidding.”

Mortimus only shook his head in agreement as Zasku frowned, clearly concerned as to what he’d gotten himself into.

//

Drax whistled casually as he shuffled across the floor; moving purely on his knees to keep his hands free for the task at hand. He held the spool in one hand, the other doing the work of adjusting and sticking the thread to the wall. Behind him stood Ushas and Jelpax, hanging back a few feet so they wouldn’t look to be involved should anyone walk by. Just because Drax was their friend didn’t mean they wanted to get in trouble for his schemes.

“Are you seriously going to do that to every doorway in this corridor?” asked Jelpax, glancing around to make sure no one else was coming.

“Obviously.” Drax rolled his eyes, only briefly looking back to his friends before resuming his work. “I’m not just going to do half of the professors’ offices. If I’m going to prank one of them, I’m going to prank them all. Now shut up and help me with this.”

He turned around to hold out a second spool of silver thread, but before his friends could even protest taking it, the sound of footsteps interrupted their moment. Jelpax immediately turned to look disinterested, but when Ushas rolled her eyes and stepped out to speak with whoever was walking up to them, he turned to look as well.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Coming down the corridor was none other than Theta and Koschei, the latter of which who had asked the question. Koschei stared at Drax with a bizarre expression on his face, not at all understanding what his friend was doing on the floor, nor why he was taping strings to everything.

“I’m taping near invisible threads to the office entrances so our professors will trip when they try to walk in,” he answered, his eyes narrowed slightly. “What the hell are you doing?”

“We’re going to go fuck up Borusa’s office, obviously,” answered Theta, crossing his arms firmly. “Unless you’ve already blocked his off.”

“Blocked it off? I haven’t blocked off anything. All I’m doing is placing strings here, so they’ll trip over themselves and break their noses. Not that I want them to break their noses, of course. I’m just playing an innocent little prank. Nothing could possibly go wrong here. Nothing harmful, at least.”

“This is exactly the kind of thing that turns out harmful,” Ushas argued, rolling her eyes. “Look at what you’re doing, you idiot. You just said that they’ll break their noses and then you said that it won’t cause any harm. That’s not possible. There’s no way that it can be both things at once.”

“Can’t it?” Drax made a face, his tone almost thoughtful as he considered the potential repercussions of his actions. “I suppose it could go either way, couldn’t it? I don’t really think it would be the worst thing in the world if one professor broke their nose. Especially not if they’re one that I particularly dislike.”

“Drax, I swear to god—”

“You know, I really don’t think this is our problem,” said Koschei, cutting off Jelpax before he could finish his thought. “Let’s just get out of here, yeah? Don’t try to prank us or pull any shit on Borusa’s office. That’s our turf. You’re free to do whatever you want to everyone else, though.”

Drax nearly opened his mouth to argue, to declare that he’d gotten there first and that meant it was his territory and he could prank whoever he wanted, but Theta and Koschei wandered off before he could. Oh well, it wouldn’t be the worst thing to spare a single office.

//

Somehow, Millennia managed to drag all her friends to the shops with her.

They still weren’t entirely certain how she’d convinced them all, but it definitely had something to do with the fact that Rallon was pleading too. He was begging them for a different reason, of course—he needed some company from people who were just as uninterested in shopping as he was.

Vansell and Magnus were only barely dragged along, though Mortimus was surprisingly interested in the actual activity. He talked to Millennia nearly the whole way there about where they might go first and continued babbling about the things he needed to get. Zasku hadn’t come, thankfully, so there was no snogging, but Magnus found that the chit chat was almost equally annoying.

The group had to take a shuttle into the city, and it was upon stepping out of it—or rather, when Mortimus stepped out of it—when Magnus noticed the first oddity. Somehow, Mortimus managed to trip over his own two feet as he stepped out of the shuttle, and Magnus barely managed to grab his arm before he fell flat on his nose.

Rather than being grateful when his roommate saved his ass, Mortimus yanked away in an almost aggressive move, as if he were desperate to get away. He rubbed his arm where Magnus had grabbed it, wincing slightly like he was in pain though Magnus had barely touched him.

“You all right, Mort?”

He nodded quickly, an unreadable expression on his face. “Yeah, sorry. I just wasn’t expecting it. I don’t normally trip over myself like that. Not that I’m not clumsy, we all know I’m the kind of person to drop on my own face.”

Despite the humor in his tone, Magnus remained skeptical about why he’d truly reacted that way. He had a small hunch as to what it was and if it was truly the cause of what he thought it was, then he had reason to be concerned and it was not something he was likely to let go of—no matter how annoying he thought Mortimus to be.

Regardless of the odd event, the group headed off towards the shops anyway. It was only seconds before Millennia and Mortimus resumed their chatter, with Rallon commenting only when Millennia pushed him to. Vansell and Magnus intentionally hung a few feet behind them, not remarkably interested in getting involved in the dull discussions which caused Rallon to look back at them longingly.

After a few minutes of aimless wandering, Millennia finally led her friends into a shoe store which made Vansell and Magnus want to vomit just from the scent of it. Unfortunately for them, Millennia and Mortimus were both clearly interested in poking around and Rallon was somewhat stuck to his girlfriend—quite literally, as she was latched onto his wrist—which basically forced them to go inside the shop.

Millennia tried on shoes carelessly, Rallon complimenting her on every single pair (even when he didn’t look to see what she was wearing). Vansell spent most of the time on his phone, just ignoring everything and mumbling about how he should have stayed home, while Magnus watched his roommate closely. Mortimus was trying on shoes that Millennia showed him but refused to put on anything taller than his ankle. In itself it wasn’t an odd thing, but knowing Mortimus, it was strange to see him refuse such a simple suggestion in the same way over and over.

Eventually, Millennia decided she’d had her fill of shoe shopping and purchased a pair of sandals, while Mortimus got boots (with far too much of a heel for Magnus’s taste), and Rallon fell asleep on one of the benches. Vansell kicked him up before Millennia could notice, thankfully, so he managed to avoid a reaming.

“You ready to ditch them yet?” asked Vansell, glancing over at their friends who were still checking out. His arms were crossed against his chest as he stood over Rallon, who was blinking to clear the sleep and boredom from his vision. “Don’t worry about hurting Millennia’s feelings, you know she’ll understand.”

“Understand that I’ve ditched her to spend the day with a couple of assholes?” Rallon shook his head, ignoring the looks he got from his friends at the use of the last word. “I really don’t think that would go over well.”

“Don’t know until you try it.”

“What? No, wait!”

Magnus and Vansell didn’t give Rallon a chance to protest before they dragged him out of the store; ignoring looks from passersby as they hurried to get out before Mortimus, and Millennia noticed that they were gone.

//

Once they made it past Drax, Theta and Koschei headed into Borusa’s office and unloaded their gear. Upon leaving the dorms they still weren’t entirely certain what direction they were going to go in with their tricks, but they knew they only had a small window to work in, so they grabbed their things and decided to plot on the way.

Luckily, by the time they actually made it into Borusa’s office, they had a game plan in place. It wasn’t necessarily a good one, nor thought out particularly well, but it was enough to get them started and gave them something to do while they thought up the revisions.

“All right, you got the bubble wrap?” asked Theta.

“Right here.” Koschei pulled a tube of bubble wrap out of his bag, already walking behind Borusa’s desk to get started on his task. He rolled the desk chair out of the way, then got onto his knees and began to unroll the bubble wrap. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Absolutely.” Theta nodded eagerly, whipping out his greasy lotion as he moved toward the window. He popped the window open first, then dipped his fingers in the lotion and reached in to make a strategic smudge on the inside of the window. “We could have gone for the obvious, but I think that the subtle annoyances will be far more entertaining. Plus, a huge catastrophe would have been clear sabotage while this won’t stick out to him as anything more than a failure on the cleaning crew’s part.”

“You don’t think he’s going to notice that I’ve hidden bubble wrap under his chair?”

“No. All he’ll notice is that awful sound that the floor is making every time he moves. Borusa’s not smart enough to actually lift up the rug to see what’s under there. Just like he won’t be smart enough to try cleaning the inside of this window. Now grab his clock, I want everything set one minute off. No, better, ten minutes off.”

Koschei rolled his eyes as he went to grab the nearest clock. He tapped the buttons to switch the time, wincing each time it clicked. Though he wasn’t paying attention initially, Theta turned around after finishing his own task and frowned when he realized that Koschei appeared to be almost in pain.

“You okay, Kos?”

“Uh, yeah.” Koschei nodded quickly, his eyes still focused on what he was doing. “I just have a bit of a headache right now. The clicking is sort of bugging me but it’s not a big deal. What did you want me to do next?”

“Take painkillers,” said Theta firmly, as if it had been part of the plan all along. “I can’t have you ruining my plans when you’re in such pain you can barely even listen to the clicking of the clock.”

“Painkillers won’t do anything, Thete. It’s not a headache, it’s the fucking drums.”

Theta froze. He wasn’t quite certain what he was supposed to say, knowing that when the drums were particularly bothering Koschei there was almost nothing he could do. He could be reassuring and friendly, but no amount of painkillers could dull the thudding and no amount of talking could distract Koschei from the sound.

“Oh.” Theta bit his lip, looking to his friend with a clear longing in his eyes. He wanted to help, but all he could do was resume his work. “Well, you don’t have to help me with this if you don’t want to. You can always head back to the dorms and lie down if it hurts too much.”

“And let you take all of the credit?” Koschei scoffed and shook his head. “As if.”

Theta let himself smile before he went over to Borusa’s bookshelf, ready to reverse the entire order of the alphabet.

//

After he’d finished taping threads to the bottoms of every doorway, Drax wasn’t entirely certain what to do next. He knew that he wanted to accomplish as much as he could in one day, but he hadn’t thought ahead to what exactly he wanted to do, nor the best order to accomplish it in.

Normally he would have been able to think up his next course of action right on the spot, but that day was not normal and there were two things determined to stop him from going any further. Or rather, two people who were sick of his actions and wanted him to keep his nose clean for a day. Not that there was any chance of them stopping him.

“Drax, please.” Jelpax was nearly begging by that point, wishing he could have spent the day off differently and regretting the fact that he was so loyal to his stupid friend. “You know that nothing good is going to come out of this so why do you keep doing it? How many times are you going to have to get in trouble before you finally accept defeat?”

“Sorry, but I think you’re going to have to get me a dictionary,” said Drax, rummaging through his bag as he tried to decide what to do next. “You use a lot of strange words sometimes but this ‘defeat’ is truly foreign. I’m afraid I just have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yeah, you see, Christ, Jel,” Ushas muttered, shaking her head. “Even I knew that you were using a stupid ass argument! In what universe did you think that he was going to listen to you because you threatened him with trouble? The dumbass was born in trouble and he’s going to keep getting into it until he’s fucking dead.”

“True, so, how much you want to bet I’ll get killed because I’ve gotten into trouble?” When Jelpax gaped at him in shock, Drax only rolled his eyes. “What? You have to admit I’m pretty fucking stupid, Pax. And if I’m going to die, I might as well profit off it.”

“You can’t use money if you’re dead, Drax.”

He frowned. “I’ll regenerate.”

“No, you won’t,” Ushas argued, “because I’m talking about all your lives. For the rest of time you will continue to get into trouble until no version of you is present in this universe any longer. Does that make more sense?”

“I suppose so, but I still think I’ll hold my bet just in case. I mean, there’s a very, very good chance I’m going to die because I’ve chosen to do something stupid and I’m not going to lose that chance. Now shut up so I can find my lighter. I’ve got things to do.”

“Lighter?” Jelpax’s eyes went wide, clearly alarmed by the possibilities of what he might be planning. “Drax, if you’re going to set off firecrackers or something—”

“No, that would be stupid.” Drax scoffed and shook his head. “They wouldn’t be back in time to see them. No, I’m just lighting some awful smelling candles in my least favorite professors’ offices.”

Jelpax opened his mouth to comment on the stupidity and sheer pettiness of his plan but decided against it. Like Ushas had said, there was no point in trying to change his mind.

//

“This is a bad idea, this is a very, very bad idea.”

Rallon had repeated himself about seventy-nine times since Magnus and Vansell dragged him out of the shoe store. They quickly retreated far enough away that Millennia and Mortimus would not be able to find them, ensuring that they would be able to enjoy themselves without being ambushed.

They’d also, as Rallon noticed later, taken his phone so he was unable to call Millennia to tell her what happened. Instead, he was just being dragged around to more places that he had little interest in entering, without even the company of his girlfriend to keep him sane.

Thankfully, Magnus and Vansell weren’t the worst people to be stuck with. Sure, they were extremely negative and spent most of the time making fun of people and criticizing the merchandise they passed by, but they weren’t trying to prank anyone or destroy anything which was calm enough for Rallon to accept for the day.

“Yes, you’ve said that about a thousand times now,” said Vansell, flipping through a rack of horribly gimmicky shirts. “Magnus, would you like to get one of these flower shirts? I think they’re quite in style at the moment.”

“No, that’s all right.” Magnus shook his head, his own eyes fixed on a rack of hair ties and scrunchies. He picked up a neon pink one and showed it to Vansell. “I don’t think it would match my new scrunchy very well.”

“Is this seriously how we’re going to spend the entire day?” asked Rallon, looking back and forth between them. “We could’ve spent the time with our other friends but now we’re just wandering around, mocking everything we can get our hands on. This is really not a good way to spend the day off.”

“Oh, you’re just bitter because they don’t make these shirts in extra tall.” When his roommate only rolled his eyes, Vansell moved on from the comment. “Okay, but seriously, Rallon. You didn’t really want to spend the whole day with those two, did you? I mean, I know you’re saying it’s a bad idea now, but you were sleeping in the shoe store. Seriously.”

“Okay, I know, but that doesn’t mean that I wanted to ditch Millennia. I’m sure things would have picked up once we got out of the store. Just because our first stop was a bit dull doesn’t mean that the entire trip would have been.”

“If you think that’s true then clearly you’re more lovestruck than we thought,” said Magnus, his tone flat. “Now shut up and start mocking things with us. You’re not going to have any fun if you spend the whole day sulking. Come on, let’s find you something stupid to wear.”

Rallon opened his mouth to argue, but it was too late. Magnus and Vansell were already dragging him out the door and towards the tourist shop across the walkway.

//

Every time Theta finished with another prank, he stopped to look around the room, just to make sure that they hadn’t done so many subtle things that they’d become noticeable. Luckily, they managed to keep everything hidden enough that it was not able to be seen, even when they added up enough things to turn his entire office into one whopping trap.

Koschei’s headache hadn’t gone away while they worked, and in fact, it seemed to get even worse as time went on. Theta offered to take on all the more intricate tasks since those seemed to be the most painful for him, but it still wasn’t enough to stop his friend from wincing painfully every few minutes. Every time Koschei winced Theta did too, though he tried to keep it subtle. There was no reason Koschei needed to know that Theta was feeling sympathy pains.

Though he would never admit to it and honestly wasn’t entirely ready to accept it for himself, Theta had been infatuated with Koschei for a significant amount of time. It wasn’t necessarily a romantic infatuation—though he’d had a few dreams that were willing to argue otherwise—but it was something that could not go unnoticed and especially on the occasion that Koschei took his shirt off, Theta found himself unable to look away.

“Theta?” Confused by the way his friend had suddenly zoned out, Koschei found himself repeating Theta’s name for the ninth or tenth time. “Theta. Why are you staring at me like that?”

“Hm?” Theta blinked several times, fighting his way back to reality. “Sorry, I was just thinking about something. I didn’t mean to zone out on you like that. I was just thinking of what great scheme we might be able to end this with.”

“Yeah? And what did you come up with?”

“I don’t know. I was just thinking you could take your shirt off.” His eyes went wide when he spoke, clearly alarmed when Koschei’s own brow furrowed in confusion. “I mean, uh, we can make him take his shirt off. Because we’ll spill something on it. Or throw something at it. Or something.”

“That’s a terrible idea.” Koschei shook his head, looking almost disgusted by the thought. “Jesus, Theta, I thought you were getting better at this. I mean, I know you still struggle with the balance of going too far and not going far enough but this is just juvenile.”

“I know, that’s why I was thinking so hard about it,” Theta said quickly, trying his best to cover up for the lie he’d told. “Now, are you going to help me think of something better or just stand there mocking me? Because I do have a reputation to uphold, you know.”

“Yes, I know. We all know. It’s my reputation too and I am not going to let you ruin it. Did you have any other plans you were thinking about whilst you were so deep in thought you couldn’t hear me saying your name?”

Theta hesitated before he spoke again. He knew he had nothing else to say, but he was too deep into the fib to back out now. So, instead of admitting the truth flat out, he decided to roll with his falsehoods and started babbling on about other bullshit ideas he’d supposedly had.

//

“Do you really think I’m stupid?”

Jelpax declined to comment but regretted it when it opened the opportunity for Ushas to speak first. She nodded slowly, the look in her eyes deadly serious as she answered what was hardly a sincere question.

“Absolutely,” she answered, her tone entirely diplomatic. “To be quite honest, you’re probably one of the stupidest people I’ve ever met. Not just in school but in life. You have no regard for consequences, you have no study ethic, and frankly, the way you choose to approach situations is nothing short of delusional.”

If it wasn’t obvious already that Drax had been joking when he asked the question, it became entirely apparent when he looked to her with one of the most bewildered expressions Jelpax had ever seen. His eyebrows were raised, his eyes widened as if he were almost shocked by the honesty of her statement.

“You know that I was just saying that as a joke, right?” he said, giving her a look. “I was just making a comment because I was holding a screwdriver so close to the outlet.”

“Yes, but you gave me an opportunity to speak my truth, so I took it.” Ushas shrugged, the expression on her own face almost opposite to the one Drax wore. She was completely confident in what she said and could not fathom why Drax was surprised by her comments. “I don’t understand why you’re surprised about it. I take every chance to knock on you.”

“I know, but I thought based on my tone and the fact that I was doing something so terribly ridiculous, you’d have the common sense to realize that I was joking.”

“Clearly I knew that you were joking, I just saw an opportunity and I took it. Don’t act so surprised.”

Drax opened his mouth to speak again but ended up snapping it shut again and shaking his head. He dropped his tools back into his bag and stood up, stepping out of Professor Hinnera’s office and rejoining his friends in the hall. He looked back and forth between them for a moment before settling his gaze on Jelpax, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

“I think I’m just about done being a moron for today so it’s time we leave Ushas, yeah?”

He didn’t give his roommate a chance to respond before he latched onto his wrist, dragging him down the hallway behind him. They lost Ushas in a matter of minutes and Drax all but threw Jelpax around a corner; narrowly avoiding slamming him into the lockers when he did so.

“Drax, what the hell are you doing?” asked Jelpax, yanking away from him as soon as he got the chance. “I know you’re in this mood of fucking people over, but you didn’t have to drag me into it.”

“No, I know, but I needed to get away from Ushas. Do you know which locker is hers?” Drax didn’t wait for an answer before he started peeking into the small openings on the doors, trying to see what was inside them.

“I’m not entirely certain but I have a feeling I should figure it out before you do so that I can stop you from doing whatever the hell it is you’re doing.”

“I’m getting revenge on her obviously.” He rolled his eyes, continuing his awkward attempts to identify her locker. “It’s long overdue and I have a prime opportunity to do it right now so, like her, I shouldn’t waste it. We just have to make sure she doesn’t see it tonight because I want to be there when this blows up in her face tomorrow.”

“Blows up?” Jelpax gaped, his eyes going wide. “No, no, no. Drax, what are you planning? I know you have a lot of grudges against her but if you’re going to do something that’ll actually hurt her, please don’t. Please, please, do not hurt your friend. It’s not going to turn out as well as you think.”

“Bold of you to assume I think of her as my friend. Ah, finally!”

Without another word, Drax performed a maneuver so slick that Jelpax wasn’t even able to follow his movements before the door to Ushas’s locker suddenly swung open. Drax glanced at his roommate and flashed a grin before he whipped out his bag again, already preparing to set whatever trap he wanted to get her with.

Jelpax didn’t bother arguing. He knew that once Drax set his mind on something—especially a prank—there was no stopping him.

//

It would be far more than a white lie to say that Rallon was uncomfortable with what they were doing.

Not only because they were wandering around in a crowd of a thousand strangers who’d apparently never learned what personal space was, but because he knew that their friends were bound to find them eventually and once they did, they would get the shouting of a lifetime. One which even the best of kisses would not safe him from.

“I really think we should be going now,” said Rallon, glancing around nervously. “I know you wanted to get some time to ourselves but I don’t think it’s fair to be leaving them for so long. I’m sure they’re worried sick by now. Let’s just go find them and get back to what we were doing.”

Magnus grabbed Rallon’s wrist before he could stand up, stopping him from leaving the dining table (because, of course, they’d grown tired of shopping and went to find something to eat). He nodded for him to sit back down, then pulled away, pushing a lock of hair behind his ear before he spoke.

“Absolutely not,” he told his friend. “We’ve already messaged them with evil laughter multiple times so I’m sure they’re not concerned. Well, except about you, since we’ve sort of implied that we’ve kidnapped you, but it’s no big deal. I doubt Millennia will hold it against us for long.”

“I think you’re underestimating how much she cares about me.”

“I think you’re overestimating how much of a keeper you are.”

They both narrowed their eyes; Rallon crossing his arms as Magnus continued fiddling with his hair. Vansell rolled his eyes, not wanting to deal with their petty arguments. He snapped his fingers a few times to get their attention, raising his eyebrows once they looked over to him. Just for a bit more drama, he sighed exasperatedly before he spoke.

“I know that you’re pissed at us for this, Rallon,” said Vansell, his tone flat, “but we’re in too deep now. We’ve already ditched them, and it’s too late to go back now. At this point, we just have to keep going on with our day and when it gets time to head back to the Academy, we can face their wrath.”

“Wrath?” Magnus almost laughed, shaking his head slowly. “Van, they have no wrath. Millennia’s probably the nicest person I’ve ever met—even if she can kick ass—and Mortimus couldn’t hurt a fly. If anything, they’ll shout at us a bit and then take us out for smoothies.”

“No. No, you’re underestimating Millennia’s temper.” Rallon glanced over his shoulder, as if his girlfriend was about to walk up and kill him should he say the wrong thing. He leaned in closer to his friends before he spoke, draping his spindly arms across the table. “I know she seems like a sweet little girl, but she won’t take crap from anyone. If you don’t explain what happened to her with this, for example, she’ll probably slice my head right off.”

“You’re not serious.”

“I’m absolutely serious. If you value your lives, we need to go find them right now an apologize before—”

“Rallon!”

His eyes went wide as he swallowed hard; frozen in place as Millennia strode up behind them, Mortimus at her side.

//

Theta flopped down into the chair across from Borusa’s desk, breathing out a sigh of relief. Koschei was sitting in Borusa’s desk chair in front of him, a similarly relieved and exhausted expression on his own face. It took several hours, but they’d finally finished lining the entirety of Borusa’s office with traps.

No matter which way he turned, he would be faced with a minor inconvenience. Uncapped pens, stuck drawers, bumpy carpets—nothing that he could directly attribute to sabotage but what would put him in a constantly irritated mood and keep him on his toes. Basically, it was just a bunch of bullshit that would make them laugh whenever he bitched about it making him late for class.

“Do you think we’ve done enough?” asked Theta, looking around the room at what they’d done.

“Enough?” Koschei snorted, his own gaze moving around the office as well. “My question is whether we’ve done too much. I don’t think too little is an issue here at all, it’s just that we’ve hit a point where it’s become a tad suspicious. Don’t you think he’s going to notice the sheer volume of minor annoyances in here?”

“Not particularly. I know that Borusa seems smart and all but he’s really not that bright. I highly doubt he’ll realize anything is off, honestly. Well, aside from the things we want him to notice it’s off. We just need him to be oblivious for long enough to find everything before he starts to wonder if something fishier was going on.”

“You mean you’re hoping that he disposes of the evidence before anything happens?”

Theta hesitated but eventually nodded. Koschei knew him too well for him to get away with a lie so obvious as that. “Yeah, so long as he discovers these one at a time, we should be home free. It’s not unless it sets of a serious chain reaction that everything goes wrong. Wait. What if he does set off a chain reaction? What if we do get caught because we’ve done too much?”

“Theta, it’s fine,” Koschei insisted. “Yeah, we’re at a slight risk of this blowing up in our faces but I think we’ve done enough to not get caught this time.”

“No. Nope. You were right the first time. We have absolutely done too much. This is going to be way too suspicious. We need to undo some of this stuff before it’s too late. Oh, god, we’re so doomed. We are so, so doomed.”

“Okay, one, calm down because you’re making my fucking headache worse.” Theta frowned, settling down in his chair with his gaze downcast. “And two, we’re not going to get caught. We can remove some of the more obvious things if you’re really nervous about it but there’s no way he could trace this back to us even if he did get suspicious. I really don’t think we’re in any kind of danger right now.”

“Then you’re really kind of stupid because this is one of the most obvious pranks we’ve ever pulled.” Theta leapt out of his chair suddenly, shaking his head with vigorous speed. “Kos, we are the first person he’ll look to for an explanation. There’s no way we can get away with this.”

Koschei opened his mouth to argue, but it was too late. Theta was already running around the room, trying desperately to get everything cleaned up before Borusa came back.

//

“I know you think this is going to blow up in my face, but it’ll work, I promise.”

Jelpax sighed, shifting slightly as he attempted to get comfortable in his seat against the wall. After Drax had finished his little stunt, they wandered a little ways away from Ushas’s locker and sat down, enjoying the silence that the Academy had to offer at that time. Jelpax wasn’t entirely certain when Drax’s head had slid onto his shoulder, but admittedly he didn’t really mind it.

“You can make all the promises you want but it is one hundred percent going to blow up in your face, darling.” Jelpax dragged his knees into a cross-legged position, sighing as he looked to the ceiling above them. “Everyone knows you’ve got issues with Ushas but getting into more fights is not going to help. She’s just going to retaliate, and this is going to turn into an all-out war.”

“You think I don’t know that? Yes, she’s going to retaliate, but I have more important things to worry about than a petty war, babe.” He rolled his eyes when Jelpax turned to look at him, his brow furrowed. “What? You call me darling, but I can’t call you babe?”

“This has gone too far.” Jelpax rubbed his temple with one hand, shaking his head slowly. “We seriously need to find ourselves some new friends before this gets any weirder.”

“Weird?” Drax pouted, sighing dramatically. “I thought you liked me.”

“I do like you. But you’re my best friend, not my boyfriend, and I think we’re blurring the line with that.”

“Am I not good enough to be your boyfriend?”

Jelpax took a deep breath, slowly turning to look at Drax as his roommate finally lifted his head off his shoulder. “We are not having this conversation.”

“Fine.” Drax let out another overdramatic puff of air before sliding away from his friend. “Let’s talk about how I’m going to utterly destroy Ushas if she tries to get at me then, yeah?”

“Jesus Christ, Drax. Please, for the love of god, do not destroy her. If she does anything it’s because you’ve asked for it with that rubber band contraption. And don’t act surprised when she figures out that it was you who did it because it’s pretty fucking obvious since you’re the only one who has such a supply of those things.”

He nodded to Drax’s wrist when he spoke, causing Drax to look down instinctively, gently dragging the sleeve of his shirt further over his hand. Jelpax noticed the gesture, of course, but he made the decision not to comment on it. There was no reason to distress Drax when he was having such a good day so far.

“Anyway, I’ve got some things I need to get done so I suppose I should leave you to whatever other pranks you might be planning for this evening,” said Jelpax awkwardly, starting his slow rise to his feet. He stopped when he was standing on the balls of his feet, still at eye-level with Drax. “Please don’t do anything dangerous or anything that might make it seem like I was involved. I really don’t want to get busted for shit I didn’t do.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Jelpax smiled and placed one hand on the other side of Drax’s head, planting a quick peck on his temple before he stood up. They still weren’t dating and Jelpax was fairly certain they weren’t exactly planning on it ever happening, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t still be close, right?

//

“I can’t believe you abandoned us like that.”

“It’s not my fault!” Rallon told her for what felt like the thousandth time. “Millennia please, you have to believe me. I really didn’t want this to happen. Yeah, I kind of didn’t try super hard to come find you two, but I wasn’t planning to go anywhere in the first place! They dragged me out when I was half asleep!”

“Asleep?!” Millennia gaped, his eyes wide as her jaw dropped in shock. “What do you mean you were half asleep?!”

Rallon opened and closed his mouth several times but no words came out. He rarely had to deal with Millennia’s bad side and as such, he’d yet to learn how to properly calm her down. In fact, he’d never had to do so before since she’d never been particularly mad with him (though she had been upset at some of their other friends in the past), which left him at a complete loss as to what to do. He had no idea how he was meant to defend himself, let alone explain what the hell happened in the first place.

“Sorry, but can you really blame him?” Surprisingly, it was Mortimus who came to his friends’ defense, even if they had ditched him as well. “I mean, I know this was fun for us and all but honestly, I can see how they were all bored out of their brains. Sure, we can be mad at them for not saying anything, but don’t you think it’s kind of silly to hold this against them? It’s not like we even really asked if they wanted to come.”

“We absolutely asked if they wanted to come,” said Millennia. “I suggested it, you were making out with Zasku, and then… oh. I did just kind of drag you along, didn’t I?”

“Well, technically you dragged Rallon along, he dragged Magnus and Vansell along, and I just kind of followed since Zas had other things to do and I didn’t really feel like being alone all day. So really, if you think about it, it was kind of just a big chain reaction that resulted in everyone coming along even though I don’t think those three really wanted to. Right?”

Rallon, Magnus, and Vansell all shook their heads. They hadn’t been intending to admit to how bored they were with the activity, but Mortimus gave them the opening so it would be ridiculous to not be honest. Thankfully, Millennia did not seem upset when they expressed the truth, only sighing softly.

“Okay, I get it,” she told them. “Next time we’ll do more of a vote before I drag you all out to the shops.”

While the others mumbled their thanks, Rallon only let out a sigh of relief. It was an awkward conversation, sure, but at least Millennia wasn’t mad at him.

//

Theta was reaching out the window to remove the miniature wind chimes when they heard the footsteps out in the hall. Koschei was closer to the door and launched into action immediately, while Theta quickly closed the window and tiptoed over to peek out behind him. He didn’t get the chance before Koschei suddenly slammed it shut, however, blocking him from looking into the hall.

“It’s Borusa,” said Koschei, his voice low. He whipped around to look at Theta urgently, an expression of fear clear in his eyes.

“Oh, shit.” Theta swallowed hard, looking around as if their professor would suddenly appear in the room. “We have to get out of here.”

“We can’t, he’s coming straight for us. Our only escape route is jumping out the window and I think we’re a bit too high up for that to be a plausible idea. We have to hide, and fast before he gets in here. Quick, uh, get in the closet!”

He practically shoved Theta into the closet across the room from Borusa’s desk, closing the doors shut behind them as quickly as he could. Koschei clapped a hand over Theta’s mouth, knowing that he wasn’t trustworthy enough to keep silent, then took a deep breath of his own when the door slid open.

Borusa didn’t know they were in there at first, but he did notice the bubble wrap beneath his chair the moment he walked behind his desk. The soft popping beneath his feet startled him, but not as much as the inability to open his desk drawer. He tried several times, just wanting to put something away, but struggled against the jammed drawer.

It was a miracle that Koschei had a hand clapped over Theta’s mouth because his friend couldn’t stop snickering as Borusa struggled with each of their pranks. He went on and on, irritated more and more as he continued to find the things they’d done to his office, and finally, Theta lost it.

He tried everything he could to keep himself from laughing but it was too much. He let out a chuckle first, and then his laughter got too loud and too much for Koschei’s hand to contain. He laughed and laughed and despite his efforts, it was too much for Koschei to silence.

They didn’t last a minute before Borusa yanked open the doors to his closet, glaring at the two boys who had hidden themselves within it.

//

It wasn’t until most of the Academy students were sitting in the dining hall when they finally revealed what happened to the professors. Or rather, revealed that the Headmaster had made an enormous mistake and forgot to announce the fact that they all had to leave for a mandatory vote that afternoon.

“I knew he was somewhat of a fool, but I never could have seen this coming.”

Of course, Ushas was the most shocked by what happened. Normally they were informed about everything that had to do with politics, events, and the works; especially when it came to things that would affect whether their professors would be in attendance. The fact that they hadn’t been informed was simply mind boggling to poor rule-following Ushas.

“Seriously?” Drax made a face, raising an eyebrow as he looked across the table to where she was sitting. “You had to know that he was going to fuck up eventually. He does it on a small scale so often it was almost inevitable.”

“You shut up,” Ushas snapped. The look in her eyes was dark, and she wore almost a scowl on her face despite the simple situation. “I am going to deal with you later but for right now you need to just not talk to me. I am not in the mood to other with more of your bullshit today.”

Most of the people at the table weren’t sure what she was talking about but Drax clearly did, as he only snickered when she threatened him. Thankfully, he didn’t push the issue, clearly realizing that they’d already had enough chaos for one day and it would be better to just relax for a bit.

“Anyway,” said Millennia, “what did you lot all do with your day off? We can’t be the only ones who decided to go off and do things. Though I know none of you thought up the idea to head to the shops since we didn’t see any of you there.”

“You went to the shops?” Koschei made a face. “The perfect time to pull any pranks you want, and you went to the shops?”

“Still better than us,” Theta mumbled. Nobody yet knew what he was referring to, but when they all turned to look at him—Koschei included, though the expression on his face was more pissed off and pleading than anything else—Theta crumbled under the pressure and confessed to what they’d done. “Yeah, so we kind of got busted by Borusa. We’re in detention for like, weeks. A lot of weeks. It might have even been months.”

“What the hell did you do in there?” asked Drax, furrowing his brow. He hadn’t heard a thing from them since their encounter that morning and he was puzzled as to how they’d managed to make things go so wrong. “You know all you had to do was set a few pranks. You didn’t have to destroy everything.”

“We didn’t destroy everything,” said Koschei, rolling his eyes. “Don’t try to accuse us of anything before you know the facts. All we did was cause some minor disturbances in Borusa’s office. Oh, and we were still in there when he got back so he found us hiding in his closet which was pretty awkward, but I doubt he was really mad at us for that.”

“Wasn’t mad at us?” Theta raised his eyebrows, shaking his head slowly. “Kos, he practically dragged us out by our collars. I mean, god, I didn’t even know he could be that horribly aggressive. It was like he wanted to kill us both right there on the spot.”

“When doesn’t he want to kill you both on the spot?” chimed in Magnus, poking at his food on the other end of the table. “Not to say he’s hated you from the first time he saw you, but he’s pretty much hated you from the first time he saw you. He’s not suddenly going to change his mind, especially not if you’re hiding in his fucking closet.”

“Shut up, Magnus. It’s not like you did anything better today.”

“Actually, I did. Instead of partaking in something so petty as pranks, I decided to go for the big guns, and I kidnapped someone. That’s right, I actually kidnapped someone. And in a public place too. Vansell was my accomplice, so don’t think I have no evidence.”

“You’re leaving out the part where it’s me that you kidnapped,” Rallon mumbled, as he stirred his drink aimlessly with one hand. “I’m not exactly difficult to take, especially since you two are my friends. But I suppose if you want to brag about a deed that could send you to jail, you might as well. Still better than Millennia killing us all.”

“What?” Millennia turned to look at him quickly, frowning when his face turned bright red.

“Nothing. I didn’t say anything.”

“Yeah, anyway,” Mortimus interrupted, taking a large gulp of his drink before he slid the glass across the table; forcing Jelpax to catch it or allow it to crash onto the floor, “I had a great day. Those assholes ditched Millennia and myself but that didn’t stop us from doing some badass shopping. Check these out.”

With no regard for the fact that they were sitting at a dining table, Mortimus swung one of his legs onto the top of it, pulling up the leg of his trousers to reveal that he was wearing a shiny new pair of ankle boots. He rolled his ankle around a bit for them to see, though Magnus was fairly certain he was the only one to notice the purple anomaly barely visible on the outside of his left leg. He opted not to say anything but made a mental note not to forget.

“Aren’t they hot?” he asked, finally dropping his leg back onto the floor. “I wanted to show them to Zas, but I haven’t seen him since he got back, and he hasn’t been answering my messages. It’s fine though, I’ll just show him in class tomorrow. Hey, do you know if we’re getting another day off soon? I’d love to do some more shopping to complete the outfit.”

“Yes, we actually do have another day coming up,” said Ushas. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a small planner, flipping through slowly and dramatically before she suddenly slammed it shut. “In about three years from now.”

“Oh, Jesus Christ.” Mortimus groaned loudly and shook his head. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to pull something together with whatever I find on my floor. Or do you think that the Headmaster will forget to send out another notice before then? I wouldn’t mind making something up. Reckon we could scare him into giving us a day off by making him think he’s forgotten to notify the professors of something?”

Honestly, Drax did not reckon they could do that, but it was far too fun an offer for him to turn down.

Chapter Text

“Mortimus?”

Magnus blinked several times to clear the sleep from his eyes, sliding his bare chest out from under the blankets as he sat up to look towards the door. Luckily, it was his roommate entering at ungodly hours of the night and not an intruder, so he wouldn’t have to kill anyone for seeing his bad hair. Not yet, at least.

“Yeah, sorry.” Mortimus slid the door shut quietly, his right hand moving to cradle his left once he turned back around. “I was trying not to wake you, but I forgot you’re always on full alert like a fucking guard dog or something.”

“I’m going to let that one slide because it’s way too late for this,” said Magnus. He pushed himself up into a seated position, yawning deeply before he went on. “Now are you going to tell me where the hell you were all night? Or are you just going to pretend that you’re not getting home at two o’clock in the morning?”

“No, I just was… I don’t know. I was going for a walk or something. Does it really matter?”

“Yes, it really matters. You’ve just interrupted my sleep cycle and I haven’t a clue why. Tell me where you’ve been, or I’ll reconsider my call on beating the shit out of you.”

“Your threats don’t scare me, Magnus. I know you’re just a big fucking teddy bear.”

Mortimus wandered over to his closet and yanked his shirt off, wincing as he threw it to the floor. He took a deep breath before he slid on another one and flopped into bed, leaving Magnus wishing that he could see better in the dark to know what was wrong without having to ask the question. Unfortunately, not all wishes come true and if he wanted to know the answer, he had to say the words.

“What happened to your arm?” When he asked the question Mortimus froze, but he said nothing, prompting Magnus to ask again. “Mate, I know you don’t want to talk about it but if you need me to punch a bitch then I’ll go punch a bitch.”

“No, if you did that you’d have to punch someone you—” Mortimus hesitated, flopping over to his side, and looking to Magnus thoughtfully. “Actually, nope, I take that back. You wouldn’t have to punch anyone and even if you did it would certainly not be someone you like. Now just relax, okay? I’m clumsy as fuck. I just whacked it on a doorway.”

With that, Mortimus turned away from him and yanked his blankets over his head, signaling that he was headed to sleep. Magnus sighed but decided not to pressure him just yet. It was far too late at night to be bothering with his bullshit.

//

“Do you really have to film us the entire time?”

“Yes, I do.” Drax sighed, rolling his eyes as he adjusted the angle of his camera for the umpteenth time. “I know you’re annoyed but I need to practice filming in natural lighting. It’s not as easy as you think. And once we get to the bar I’m sure you’ll be feeling a whole lot better about this.”

Theta and Koschei were initially opposed to joining Drax at the bar again but after much insistence that it would be okay and much less of a disaster than the last time, they finally agreed and followed their friend out to the edge of the city. Luckily, he’d remembered the way from the first time they went, so they were making great time on the way there.

The only problem was, of course, that Drax was again messing about with his camera and wanted to film their adventure. He was apparently considering taking up film making as a full-time hobby, which Jelpax had greatly encouraged (though he later admitted that it was because Drax’s usual hobby and passion, engineering, was often far more dangerous and far noisier).

When they finally arrived at the bar, Drax pushed open the door, holding it as his friends passed through. They wandered straight up to the counter and ordered their drinks (Theta and Koschei requesting softer cocktails and Drax going straight for the tequila), then sat down on the stools, Theta spinning around several times despite stares from the nearby shobogans.

“So,” said Koschei, glancing around the room, “we going to relax and have fun today or get dead wasted like the last time we came?”

“I think it’s probably a better idea to keep everything chill this time.” Drax whipped out a lighter as he spoke, tapping the flame to the end of his cigarette and placing it between his fingers before he went on. “We really don’t need you breaking any more bones because you’re too fucking stupid not to challenge people four times your size.”

“Yeah, ha ha.” He rolled his eyes, reaching out to grab his glass when the bartender slid it over. “Why are you smoking? When did that start?”

“Yeah, you know that’s really bad for your lungs,” Theta added, stirring around his own drink but not actually taking a sip.

“Mm, whatever.” Drax shrugged, clearly not the least bit afraid of whatever consequences might come from his actions, nor fazed by what he was doing though it appeared to be the first time. He took a quick drag on the small stick before he spoke again, his glass in one hand and his cigarette in the other. “Look, we can play games and have fun and shit but no more fucking around, you got it? We need to just be responsible for once. Now look at the camera.”

He positioned himself so that both of his friends were in shot, smiling to the camera once he’d switched it for his drink and turned it to face them. Neither Theta nor Koschei bothered smiling along with them but went along with it anyway.

“Hello, future me and company!” said Drax cheerfully. “I’m currently sitting in the bar where I’ve sneaked out to with my friend Koschei and his lover, Theta.”

Koschei was the first one to say something but only because Theta’s jaw dropped so far he couldn’t even scoop it up in time for him to speak. His hazel eyes went wide as he stared at Drax in shock, unable to form thoughts let alone words to describe how he felt about the comment.

“Theta is not my boyfriend,” Koschei muttered eventually, his eyes narrowed as he took a swig of his drink. “And I don’t quite understand the point of that joke because honestly, I’ve never even heard of someone thinking that. We’re just really close friends.”

“Really close friends? Yeah right.” Drax scoffed and shook his head, taking a drag on his cigarette before he went on. “And for the record, there are absolutely people who think that. Take Rallon and Vansell for example. They’ve been shipping you two for decades now.”

This time Koschei’s jaw dropped too, leaving them all at a loss for words. Drax took this as an opportunity for more vodka, and the others followed his lead. They were going to need a lot of alcohol to make it through that evening.

//

Millennia didn’t know what she was expecting to wake up to—or if she was even expecting anything at all—but it was not the strange smell that she got. The smell which seemed to be some strange combination of metals, one which was more likely to be found within a factory or a lab rather than a random person’s dorm room.

Of course, knowing her roommate as well as she did, Millennia quickly assumed that the scent had something to do with her newest experiment. She’d been working on the plans for it for ages, though she’d yet to reveal what exactly it was, despite Millennia’s repeated prodding.

Unable to resume her slumber thanks to the mysterious scent, Millennia rolled over and pulled herself into a seated position, giving her roommate a look of much annoyance. Unfortunately, Ushas was turned away from her at her desk, so Millennia’s glare really only made it to Ushas’s back which was far less impactful of a gesture.

“Ushas,” she said finally, once she realized that her roommate had yet to notice that she was awake. “What are you doing? It’s not even time for breakfast yet.”

“I know, but I have a lot of work to do on this today and I don’t want to put it off until after classes,” Ushas answered, her gaze never leaving the project as she transferred liquid from once test tube to the next. “Now if you don’t mind, I really need complete silence for this. One wrong drop and I could ruin the entire formula.”

“I would probably care about that a lot more if you actually told me what you’re working on, but I suppose I’m not science-y enough for that, yeah?”

“No, you’re plenty science-y. You’re my best STEM friend. But I just don’t think that my moralistic approach to this project—or rather, my complete disregard for any sort of morals at all—would quite align with the way you prefer to think about life.”

Millennia opened her mouth to speak again, but ultimately decided against it. Yeah, she wanted to know what Ushas was up to, but her roommate knew her just as well as she did. If Ushas said that she didn’t want to know what she was working on, then there was a fairly good chance she didn’t want to know what she was working on.

//

Magnus didn’t say anything to his roommate the following morning, but he kept a close eye on him during their foreign cultures class. He noticed quickly that Mortimus was still cradling his arm, though he didn’t put much pressure on it and when he did, he would snap his hand back rather quickly as if it pained him.

Despite how obvious it was that something strange had happened the night before and aside from his clearly injured arm, Mortimus was acting completely normal, as if nothing had actually happened at all. In fact, Magnus nearly wondered whether the thing the night before had been a dream, but then he realized how tired Mortimus was and knew he hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep.

Though he was known to most as an absolute asshole, Magnus decided not to be the worst person in the world and waited until he and Mortimus were on their own—or at least, in a crowd of random students who did not include any other members of the Deca—before he finally made a comment about the situation. And, of course, Mortimus decided to be defensive because he couldn’t just let anything be simple.

“Nothing happened last night,” he snapped, his tone far too harsh to be telling the truth. “And even if it did, it wouldn’t be any of your business. So just back off, all right? If I have something to tell you then I’ll tell you but none of this is anything you need to know.”

“But there is a ‘this’?” Magnus confirmed, crossing his arms as he raised an eyebrow. “Is it a something? A someone? Both? I’m not trying to interrogate you or bust you, Mort, I just want to make sure that everything is okay.”

“Why? You don’t give a fuck about anyone. It doesn’t have to do with anyone but myself. I told you I’m clumsy and that’s all there is to it. Now leave me alone. I have to get to psych in like five minutes and it’s all the way across campus. I’ll see you later sometime.”

Magnus didn’t get the chance to say another word before Mortimus strode off down the corridor, disappearing out the door on the end of it and leaving Magnus on his own to ponder the situation. A large part of him wanted to do what he was told and just leave it, but unfortunately, he couldn’t. He appeared to be growing a conscience and it was far too powerful for him to simply ignore.

He sighed as he spun on his heel to head to his own next class. Being a good friend was exhausting.

//

“…and to top it all off, he said that you lot ship us too.”

Rallon swallowed hard, turning to look at Vansell beside him. It came as no surprise that Vansell was already looking at him too, his eyebrows slightly raised and a small smirk on his lips as if there was something funny about the situation that Theta and Koschei were not understanding. When neither spoke in a timely manner, Koschei decided to address the situation himself.

“What the hell are you looking at each other like that for?” he snapped, far too impatient to wait for either of them to tell him first. Again, they failed to answer fast enough and Koschei asked again. “What? If you think this is funny, it’s not. It’s not cool to pressure people like that, regardless of how close they might or might not be.”

“It’s fine, Koschei.” Vansell rolled his eyes, shaking his head as if he thought the whole thing was ridiculous. “You know Drax. He was just messing around. It really doesn’t matter that much.”

“I was not joking,” Drax corrected him, practically slamming his drink onto the dining table. Beside him, Jelpax groaned as the liquid splashed across his lunch, but he didn’t bother to say anything. He’d be ignored over the nonsense anyway. “I know that you two ship them. Why would I say that if it wasn’t the truth?”

“Because you lie all the time. Stretching the truth is just one of your things. Not that you have ‘things’ as much as you have ‘ways to piss people off’, but you know what I mean.”

“That is the truth though?” said Rallon, his expression somewhat confused. “I mean, we do ship Theta and Koschei, so how is it lying to say that we don’t?”

Vansell whipped around to look at Rallon so quickly that Koschei thought he might break the sound barrier. The glare in his eyes was intense, and the way his hands gripped onto the edge of the dining table was almost like he was trying desperately to keep himself from losing control. He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment before he finally spoke.

“I thought we’d agreed not to discuss that,” he said finally, his tone flat and his teeth gritted. “That was supposed to be our secret. It’s our inside joke or whatever you want to call it. We don’t tell anyone else about it. What part of that did you not understand?”

“I—I don’t—” Rallon looked around the lunch table, as if he were hoping for one of his friends to help him out, but to no avail. They all just stared at him, clearly at a loss for what to say as well. He swallowed hard and looked down at his hands. “Okay, yeah, I kind of forgot about that. Sorry, Vansell, but I just didn’t think it was that big of a secret! Since they’re involved in it, shouldn’t they know that we’re shipping them? It’s a little weird if they’re not in on the joke, honestly.”

“No, it’s not. It’s normal because it makes no sense to include them in something they’ll actively oppose.”

Theta held his tongue when he realized he probably wouldn’t oppose it and thank god for that because Koschei almost immediately went on a tangent about how utterly wrong the ship was. Clearly, Theta wasn’t the only one who thought the ship was plausible, but he was the only one out of the two who believed it.

(Not that he would ever, ever admit to it, of course.)

//

If things weren’t strange enough that morning, they got even weirder during lunch hour.

Technically only Ushas was on lunch and Millennia had a free period, but they still wound up in their dorm at the same time in the middle of the afternoon. Millennia returned to get a fresh pair of shoes (hers had gotten somewhat mucky during a trek in the woods for her biology class), while Ushas was simply sitting at her desk again; measuring out more chemicals which gave off the same strange, metallic odor.

“Okay, I know you’re not going to tell me,” said Millennia, as she headed over to her closet, “but what the heck are you doing over there? That is not a normal smell. At least, not with what you’re usually doing over there.”

Instead of snapping at her like she was meant to do, Ushas simply sighed and spun her chair around to look at Millennia. She had one eyebrow raised, the look on her face one that was clearly confused and disappointed in something that Millennia had said, though it was unclear what exactly that was.

“Are you implying that I am ever doing something normal?” she asked, her tone almost flat. “I don’t practice simple things, Millennia. I engage in acts of science which are remarkable. Experiments that even the most genius of geniuses have yet to achieve. Things that my peers could never even dream of attempting. And you’re bitter because you think that this is out of the ordinary?”

“I’m not bitter because it’s out of the ordinary,” Millennia clarified, crossing her arms. “I’m bitter because it smells really strange and I’m not too keen on sleeping in here with it tonight. Plus, you normally just tell me what you’re working on and this time you’re being oddly secretive which is really throwing me off.”

“Oh.” She nodded, hesitating before she went on. “Okay, look. The thing is, I wasn’t kidding when I said that this goes against your morals. See, what I’m trying to do here right now is well against everything we’ve ever been taught. It’s something that’s never been achieved before and something that, should I be able to do it, could make me rich in more ways than one.”

“The more you speak about it, the more I’m not sure whether I’d like to be involved. You’re not going to drag me down as an accomplice, are you?”

“Accomplice? No. Not unless things get seriously out of hand and I’m not expecting that to happen anytime soon. Unless I measure this wrong, in which case I could blow the roof off this building. That’s unlikely to happen, though, so it’s probably best that I just tell you what I’m doing here. Which is, by the way, attempting to turn this into gold.”

“What?!”

//

Words could not describe how relieved Magnus was when he heard Zasku asking Mortimus what had happened to his arm.

As to be predicted, Mortimus was no more willing to give Zasku an answer than he was to give one to Magnus, but it did answer the unfortunate question as to whether Zasku was the one who’d inflicted the injuries. Though he was not to fond of the boy, Magnus was happy for Mortimus’s sake that he was not, in fact, the one who’d injured him, but that still left the problem of who was.

Any normal friend would have reported the situation to the Headmaster once they had a suspect, or even just dragged Mortimus in there to explain for himself. But Magnus was no ordinary friend and he was far less interested in talking than he was in punching someone in the face. There were some poor sods who believed he was above that (or simply didn’t care enough to retaliate) but those who truly knew Magnus knew he was willing to hurt anyone who dared touch him or one of his friends.

Out of the same respect he’d had during their class that morning, Magnus did not approach his roommate until Zasku was long gone. He didn’t need to be messing things up in one of Mortimus’s few successful relationships just because he wanted to address something that was absolutely none of Zasku’s business. (Okay, so the situation itself was kind of Zasku’s business, but there was no reason for him to know that Magnus was intending to deck whoever bruised Mortimus’s arm.)

Unfortunately, his respect forced Magnus to wait for so long he nearly fell asleep leaning back against the wall. Because of this, it was not he who approached Mortimus, but Mortimus who approached him; tapping him on the shoulder several times to grab his attention. Magnus blinked several times before he looked to his roommate, whose brow was furrowed.

“Were you sleeping against the lockers?” he asked, his face twisting in confusion.

Magnus shook his head quickly. “No, that would be ridiculous. I was just waiting for you to finish snogging your boyfriend. I mean, Jesus Christ, do you two never come up for air?”

“Okay, one, we weren’t even snogging. And two, why the hell do you care? It’s not like you ever want to hang out with me anyway, so why do you think you have to wait around for me to finish? Contrary to what you might believe, I can, in fact, find my way back to the dorms all on my own, you know.”

“Yes, I’m aware that you’re not entirely an idiot, though I would argue that that fact is up for debate. But I need to talk to you about something and it’s really important, so I didn’t want to talk about it in front of Zasku. Would you rather I tell him all your secrets or interrogate you in front of him?”

“Honestly, I’d rather you not do either of those things at all.” Mortimus’s tone was flat. He awkwardly adjusted his backpack as he looked down at his shoes, swallowing hard before he looked back to Magnus. “Okay, you want to know what happened to my arm? I have no fucking idea.”

Magnus opened his mouth to ask what the hell Mortimus meant by that, but it was too late. Mortimus had already taken a step back, spinning on his heel before he turned and vanished down the corridor.

//

“Why do you have to torture our friends like that?”

Drax lowered his phone, dropping it onto the grass rolling onto his side to look at Jelpax before he considered his answer. It was a joking question obviously, since there was no way that Drax would actually go out of his way to harm someone he called a friend, but he was known to be quite the prankster and no joke was below him.

“I wasn’t torturing them, I was just informing them of a situation,” he said seriously. “Do you really think that I would do that just to be rude? No, I wanted them to know what Vansell and Rallon are shipping them. The involved parties have a right to know, don’t they?”

“Not when it’s meant to be a secret.” Jelpax hadn’t bothered to look at Drax; still lying on his stomach as he stared up at the sky behind his sunglasses. “And I’m more thinking that you told them because you knew it would freak them out than because you wanted them to be aware. Or were you trying to embarrass Rallon and Vansell?”

Drax hesitated for a moment, but only shrugged before flopping back onto his own stomach. He hadn’t been smart enough to wear sunglasses, unfortunately, so the only relief from the suns he had was the shade from the tree that they were sat beneath. A moment of silence passed before Jelpax finally went on, his voice cutting through the chill breeze.

“So, that’s a yes to both, then?”

“It’s a yes to whatever you want it to be,” Drax told him.

“Then I want it to be a yes to giving me an actual answer,” said Jelpax. He turned his head to look at his friend when he failed to get an answer, ignoring as his ginger curls dragged through the dirt and grass beneath them. “Just going to keep avoiding the answer, then?”

“No, I am not going to avoid the answer. I’m simply not answering because I know that you already know the answer and I think it’s pointless to humor you with my words themselves. Now shut up and start thinking about something else because this is a seriously stupid discussion.”

“All right, but I don’t think you’re going to like the other subject I’d like to address.” He sighed and flopped back onto his stomach, pushing his sunglasses further over his eyes before he continued his thought. “I couldn’t help but notice when you came back from the bar last night you had a peculiar smell on your clothes.”

“It’s booze, you moron.” Drax rolled his eyes and reached over to shove Jelpax’s shoulder playfully. “Just because you’ve never smelled it before doesn’t mean it’s strange.”

“I’m not talking about the booze, Drax, and believe me when I say that I have smelled it.” His tone sounded almost sad at the last part, but he didn’t elaborate and Drax didn’t feel like it was the right time to ask him to elaborate. “You smelled of smoke. And I have a gut feeling that it’s not from burning down school property this time.”

“For the last time, it was Rallon who did that. And yeah, okay, you caught me. I might have smoked one tiny cigarette. But it really doesn’t matter. It’s not like it was a whole pack.”

“That doesn’t make it any better, nor does it remove whatever caused you to turn to it in the first place. Unless you’re going to try to claim that you just did it for the hell of it, in which case I’m going to call bullshit on you because I know you far too well to believe that you would do something that stupid because you’re an idiot.”

“Well, you’ve just stated why I would do it,” said Drax, rolling his eyes. “I’m an idiot, which means that I do stupid things. Is that not obvious? Now just relax, okay? It’s not going to kill me to do it once and I had no ulterior motives. So just stop worrying so much. You don’t have to act like the mum friend all the time.”

“Yes, I do. It’s in my nature, you jackass.”

“And it’s also in your nature to be a jackass, isn’t it, you jackass?” Somehow, Drax managed to keep his tone both humorous and pissed off, but Jelpax knew it was nothing but amused. “Now seriously, shut up. I don’t have to explain myself to you just because you’re my best friend.”

“Correction, you have to explain yourself to me for that exact reason.” Jelpax turned to him and smiled, the expression only fading when Drax shoved a hand into his face and shook his own head. “What? I’m just saying.”

“You’re saying that you have some kind of special privileges just because you’ve known me longer than anyone else? Sorry to break it to you, Pax, but you have nothing. I don’t even really like you that much. You’re all right to talk to sometimes but you really make me want to stick a pencil in my eye whenever you start going on about that history bullshit.”

“Wow, okay, just go and break my heart like that. I thought that we were going to be best friends forever and here you are saying that we were never even best friends in the first place. Do the rest of the Deca like me? Do my professors actually like me Does anybody really like me?”

“No, because you’re too damn sarcastic.” Drax sighed, dropping his hands onto his stomach. “Now shut up for real this time, yeah? I need a nap before we have to go back into that hellhole for dinner.”

Jelpax nodded but did not say another word. Drax had a point—they only had a few minutes left before they’d have to head back into the building and face the countless students who seemed to crowd the halls at all hours of the day. At least it was nice outside, even if he was at risk of getting a tan.

//

“I just can’t even fathom it,” Koschei went on, repeating himself for what felt like the thousandth—no ten-thousandth time. “What the hell do they think we have in the way of chemistry? I mean, don’t get me wrong, we’re great friends. The best of friends. But a romantic relationship? Really?”

Theta sighed deeply, shrugging yet again. He’d made the gesture so many times at that point that he felt like his shoulders were about to fall right out of their sockets, but he kept up the cycle. It was far easier to wear his arms down to nothing than admit that he didn’t think a relationship with Koschei would be so bad.

“I know, it just doesn’t make sense with what they know of us,” Theta grumbled, his eyes downcast as he kicked aside yet another piece of trash. “We’re remarkably close friends but it’s all platonic. Even Magnus and Mortimus have more chemistry than us because they could fall into an enemies to lovers trope. You know, I don’t actually agree with that last part.”

Then why did he say it, you wonder? Because everything Theta said was repeating things that Koschei had already said to him at some other point during his rant. He had absolutely no original words to add to the conversation except that he didn’t find the idea of him and Koschei together to be entirely repulsive, and that was not something he was quite ready to admit to yet, so he decided to keep his mouth shut and repeat Koschei instead.

“Okay, yeah, I stretched it a bit there,” Koschei admitted. “But you know what I meant. There’s just nothing with you and me that could possibly fall into any love trope.”

“Except for the best friends to lovers one. Unless that one doesn’t count for some reason?” Theta kept his tone casual, though he was genuinely curious as to the answer.

“I just don’t really feel like that one applies. Not unless they’re making up some whole story in their heads, which I suppose isn’t unlikely. I just don’t think we have any of the romantic chemistry that the people in those tropes usually have. Isn’t one of them generally already pining after the other?”

Theta said nothing, unable to form words due to the sheer irony of the situation. He opened and closed his mouth several times, his hands waving around randomly as he tried to come up with something to say, but to no avail. Koschei’s ignorant comment had completely broken his brain and he had no idea how he was meant to follow it. Luckily, his friend seemed to realize that Theta was out of words and jumped to a conclusion which pretty much saved his ass.

“It’s fine if you don’t know,” he said. “I’m not really into those romance films either. Most of what I know about them comes from Mortimus and Millennia. Can’t really be bothered to watch them myself. I don’t see the fun in them at all. Nobody blows anything up, nobody gets blown up, nobody…”

For the umpteenth time that evening, Theta sighed as he followed Koschei through the doors into the dormitory. Suddenly, he was starting to feel his outlook change on the situation, if only because he couldn’t stand to be with someone who would watch movies only to see people and things blown up.

//

“I know you’ve done some remarkable things in your time and you’re determined to complete something that no one has ever done before, but this is just ridiculous. There is absolutely no way, no matter what you put into that vial, that you will ever be able to turn that liquid into gold. It’s not even hot enough for that. What’s it going to do, immediately change into a solid state?”

Though Millennia was clearly looking to have an actual discussion about what in the hell was going on, Ushas didn’t bother to answer. She just sighed, rolling her eyes as she continued to jot down notes in her journal. She hadn’t been successful so far, but she was getting close to something and she knew it. All she had to do was figure out the correct measurements (and hopefully not blow anything up in the progress).

“Please don’t ignore me, it’s honestly very childish.” Millennia groaned and flopped down onto her bed, dragging the collar of her shirt over her nose to cover the metallic, chemically smell that threatened to take over the room.

“I’m not ignoring you,” Ushas corrected her, “I’m opting to avoid answering your ridiculously ignorant question. I obviously don’t know what the answer is to any of that because it’s all still a work in progress. If I knew what any of those answers were then I wouldn’t have to be doing all this shit in the first place. Now stop distracting me, I only have so much of this left and I really don’t want to waste it through an incorrect measurement.”

“You’re not going to waste it by doing that, you’re going to waste it trying to achieve this in the first place. It’s—”

“Oh, for the love of god.” Growing increasingly tired of the distractions, Ushas spun around, whipping her protective goggles off her face, and allowing them to drop onto her neck before she spoke, her tone exasperated. “Okay, look, I’ll make you a deal. If you stop bitching about what I’m doing and lend me a hand, then I’ll be willing to give you a cut of whatever profit I make from the gold itself and/or selling the rights to the formula. And don’t say no just because you think this is silly because if nothing else, it will definitely be fun.”

“No.” Millennia shook her head quickly, knowing that she was generally the first to fold once an offer of friendship or quality time was made. “Absolutely not. This is ridiculous and illegal and I will have no part in it. Not for anything. And you know, money isn’t everything. It certainly doesn’t mean that much to me.”

“Really?” She made a face. “Then why the hell are you with Rallon?”

“What?”

“Well, he’s going to be a rich lawyer and whatever, right? I guess I kind of assumed that’s why you went for him. You’re far too smart to end up with a ridiculous fool like him just because you like him. You’re not even interested in the same things. If this isn’t about money then what the hell is driving it?”

“Uh, love?” Millennia sat up, crossing her arms as she swung her legs over the bed, turning to face Ushas. “He’s not a fool, he’s shy and he’s funny. He’s also ridiculously kind and caring and I know we don’t have much in common when it comes to our academic interests, but we care a lot about each other and that will overcome anything and everything else.”

“Wow, okay.” Ushas let out a whistle, shaking her head slowly. “Don’t know that I entirely understand this romance thing, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out someday.”

Truthfully, she wasn’t sure if she would, but she refused to let Millennia have the last word on the matter.

//

For a few hours, Magnus actually convinced himself that he was going to let it slide.

He wasn’t really all that close to Mortimus anyway and there wasn’t much he could do to get him to talk once he’d already made up his mind not to. But when he saw him slip off his robes that evening, revealing the deep bruise that was visible on his arm whilst he wore only a t-shirt, something clicked in Magnus’s brain and he wanted more than anything to clock whatever asshole did that to him.

Instead of launching right into the conversation, Magnus tried to get Mortimus to warm up by mildly engaging with his typical rambles. For a moment he thought that Mortimus wouldn’t babble as he generally did before bed, but luckily he did, and for once, Magnus was glad to hear it. It would be a fat softer way to ease him into the conversation.

“…and honestly, I still can’t believe that he had the audacity to speak out of turn,” Mortimus went on. Quite honestly, Magnus had no idea what he was talking about and he hadn’t for a while, but he continued to smile and nod to keep his roommate in good spirits. “Our professor was pissed, of course. Like, why would he do that? But…”

It was hard to keep up the charade for long and before he knew it, Magnus was lying back in his chair, legs propped up on his desk as he tried everything to keep himself from falling asleep right there. He knew that it would take time to bring Mortimus around, but at that point, the urge to punch Mortimus was stronger than the urge to punch his attacker.

However, despite how badly he wanted to say something and stop Mortimus’s incessant rambling, Magnus managed to hold his tongue and made it all the way through the “conversation” (quotation marks because Mortimus did nearly all of the talking himself) without dropping dead or decking his roommate across the face. By the end of it, Magnus was about ready to give himself a reward by not talking to Mortimus anymore, but of course, that was not an option. If he gave up now, he would just have to go through it all again or accept that he would never know the truth.

“Right.” Magnus feigned a laugh to go along with the amused expression on his roommate’s face, allowing it to fall a bit too quickly before he spoke again. “So, at what point during all of that did you decide to lie and say that you had no idea what happened to your arm?”

“Oh, well, that wasn’t a lie.” Somehow, Mortimus sounded almost casual, and Magnus wondered whether he was irritated about something else before. “See, it’s just like all those other bruises I get on my legs and shit, which, by the way, you never comment on just ‘cos they’re not as bad or something. I don’t really know where they come from. Maybe I just sleep weird or something. And don’t say I’m lying again because it’s the truth. It’s weird, but it’s the truth.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. How can you not know where that comes from? And I’m not so inclined to believe that this is just another bruise, by the way, because the ones you usually get are really rather mild. That there is not mild. That’s like, someone hit you in the arm with an iron bar.”

“Now you’re just exaggerating. It’s more like, I tripped and whacked my arm on something. Or banged my arm against something. You know, I’m pretty clumsy. Maybe I just did that and forgot about it. You remember that time I jumped off the roof, right? I do really stupid things. Nobody else was involved in whatever happened and I’m just going to have to ask you to trust me on that.”

Magnus opened his mouth to argue, but slid it shut again when he realized that he had nothing else to say. How was he meant to argue when Mortimus was right? He was pretty stupid, and he had done those things to himself by accident before…

It was settled. He’d need more evidence to come to light before he could form a final opinion on the claims.

//

The last thing Jelpax expected to happen thirty minutes before curfew was for the door to slam open. And once the door was already open, the last person he expected to see was Rallon, and yet, there he was. Standing in all his stupidly tall glory as he glared at Drax; seemingly unaware that Jelpax was even there at all.

“Why did you have to tell them?” he asked, his tone almost desperate. Any assumptions that Jelpax had made about Rallon’s mood vanished when he saw the exasperated look on his friend’s face. “You could have just stayed silent. You could have just made fun of them for something else. But no! You had to tell them about me and Vansell’s game and now no matter what I do, there’s nothing I can do to get rid of it. Have you any idea how embarrassing this is? Have you any idea how much I want to slam my head into a wall right now? Have you any idea—”

“I have no idea but please shut up for a second, yeah?” Drax rubbed his temples dramatically, sighing before he looked up from his seat on the bed. He hadn’t actually been reading the textbook that rested in front of him, but there was no reason for either of his friends to know that. “I can’t even wrap my head around everything you’re saying. You think that it was embarrassing for this to happen? You’re genuinely embarrassed that Theta and Koschei know about you two shipping them.”

“Yes!” Rallon looked almost upset that Drax didn’t believe him, his eyes going wide as his arms waved around frantically to support his point. “I don’t know what you thought you were accomplishing with that, Drax, but this is all going downhill for me. I can’t get them to stop making fun of me. Theta and Koschei won’t stop sending me messages, Vansell won’t stop shouting at me for being the one to tell them in the first place, and all I can think of is the fact that it’s your fault I ended up blurting it out!”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. How is it my fault? Yeah, I told them about it at the bar, but you didn’t have to actually confirm the facts. You could have just denied it like Vansell did. There was seriously no reason for you to tell them the truth and the fact that you did isn’t my problem so don’t go blaming it on me, all right?”

“I have to blame it on you. Who else am I meant to blame it on? I can’t very well blame it on myself, knowing that the only reason I even had it on my brain was because you were talking about it. You told them and that brought it to the attention of everyone and that is how this whole thing started. So, don’t blame me for commenting on something that I thought they already knew. It’s normal for me to think that they knew all the facts when you were acting like you told them everything.”

“Acting like I already told them everything?” Drax made a face. “Mate, I don’t remember saying anything, let alone acting like I told them everything. What the hell would I even tell them? I don’t know anything about this ‘game’ you two play aside from the fact that you ship them, and it seems pretty damn serious whenever I hear about it.”

“Would it kill you two to stop shouting?” asked Jelpax, closing his book shut and placing it onto the bed beside him. The look on his face was nothing less than exhausted and Drax couldn’t tell if it was from dealing with him or staying up too late. “Some of us are trying to read. And I know that you weren’t doing that before, Drax, so don’t you dare tell Rallon that you were trying to do that too.”

“Wow, just sell me out like that, you asshole.” Rather than letting it go, Drax grabbed a pillow from behind it and threw it across the room, not turning back to face Rallon until it made impact with Jelpax’s face. “Okay, let’s just leave this in the past. I fucked up by telling them, you fucked up by telling them, we all fucked up except for Jelpax who really has no place in any of this. So, can we just call it even? This really is nobody’s fault but Theta and Koschei’s for making such a big deal out of it when it’s obviously a joke.”

“Is it, though?” Surprisingly, it was Rallon who said that. “Because I think that Vansell takes it rather seriously and honestly, I think they would make a pretty good couple too.”

“I don’t know why you’ve decided to change the course of the argument like this, but it’s really not helping your case. At all. Like, at all, at all. This is honestly just kind of digging yourself deeper. Do you want me to join them in the league of making fun of you?”

Rallon opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut, shaking his head frantically as he stormed back out of the room. Drax turned to Jelpax as he smirked, only to be greeted by the return of his pillow—which was not so gracefully handed back to him (and, in fact, hit him harder than he’d initially thrown it to Jelpax).

He took a deep breath as he wrapped his arms around the pillow. One throw was nothing. Two throws called for a retaliation. It was time for war.

//

“I know what we have to do.”

Theta groaned when he heard Koschei speak, flopping onto his side only to read what his bedside clock said. Yup, it was ridiculously late at night. An hour when no man should ever be awake. An hour when the only moron stupid enough to still be up and about was Runcible—and apparently Koschei.

At first, Theta had assumed that Koschei was still sitting in his bed. But as his eyes adjusted to the light, he realized that his roommate was not even attempting to sleep, but was actually pacing back and forth across the room as if he would somehow be able to find an answer to whatever problem he was facing. Theta truly had no idea what he was talking about and in his half-asleep haze he found it more difficult than ever to try and decipher what he was referring to, so he waited for his friend to go on before he even bothered to think about an answer.

“We have to start shipping them back,” Koschei said eventually, his tone nothing short of deadly serious.

Theta wasn’t sure whether it was because of the seriousness of his tone or the absurdity of the idea, but something made him burst out laughing with such force that he could not get himself to stop. He laughed and he laughed and no matter what he did, he couldn’t get his mind to calm down. The whole idea of the situation was ridiculous and the fact that he was a part of it was even stupider. Somehow, it seemed even crazier than the shenanigans he usually got himself into.

“Stop laughing at me, Thete,” he snapped. “This isn’t funny. We need a way to get back at them and if you’re not even going to try to suggest your own ideas then you have absolutely no right to mock mine.”

“I’m not mocking it; I just think this whole thing is getting a little out of hand.” Theta dragged himself into a seated position, dragging a hand through his messy hair as he clicked on his bedside lamp. “Look, they’re just fucking with us, yeah? You know that they aren’t going to do much with this. And based on the way he was responding to our messages; I think that we’ve pretty much tortured Rallon as much as we can without breaking him. So, we need to just let this go. We stop talking about it, they stop talking about it, we all just get along again.”

“Just stop talking about it? How? Just because we stop mentioning it doesn’t mean that it just goes away. They’ll still be shipping us and joking about us behind our backs and we’ll be all but powerless to stop it. The thought of it alone makes me livid and you think we can just let it go?”

“Why does it make you livid? I know that you don’t think of us like that—and I don’t either, of course—but comparatively speaking, it’s really not that bad. We could be shipped with some way worse people and you know it, so we might as well just take this before they realize that they can get to us in way worse ways.”

“Huh. Maybe you’re right.” Koschei stopped pacing and scratched the side of his head thoughtfully. “But what if they’ve already thought of that and they’re finding new ships for us right now? Don’t we still need to retaliate?”

“No! We don’t need to retaliate in the first place. God.” Theta sighed and shook his head. He truly didn’t know what his hearts were thinking. “Let’s just forget it. Starting a war isn’t going to make anything better.”

“It’ll make me feel better.”

“That’s not a good enough reason! Now shut up and let me sleep. I know you’re not interested but I personally would like to get at least some rest in before the morning.”

Koschei sighed when Theta dragged the covers over his head. Apparently the conversation was over whether he wanted it to be or not. The questions in his mind didn’t stop, however, and even when he finally climbed into bed, he continued to think up the best form of revenge.

They were not going to get away with this. No way.

//

The only reason Millennia eventually agreed to help Ushas with her experiment was because she thought it seemed like it could be fun. She didn’t get roped into it, she didn’t crack under the pressure that Ushas put on her, she just decided to do it because she had nothing else to do that evening and she thought it might be interesting.

Instead, what she got was a few hours of nothingness and a lot of disastrous smells and textures when they added the wrong—and even the right—amount of chemicals, but Ushas was not deterred no matter how many times they failed to achieve gold. Even she seemed to realize that the idea of actually creating it was almost impossible, and at a certain point, Millennia almost felt that she was doing it for fun too.

That was proven wrong well into the evening (somewhat closer to the morning than night), however, when Ushas threw the safety glasses off her head, sighing deeply. She didn’t say anything at first, only staring down at their most recent failed attempt before glancing up at the clock above their door. Eventually, she turned to Millennia, a dejected expression on her face.

“I’m starting to wonder whether you might have been right after all,” she said. “We’ve done pretty much everything I’ve thought of and then some and I still have no idea how I’m meant to do this. I can’t even believe that it hasn’t worked yet. I mean, I calculated everything. According to all my research, this should have done it. That should have done it. One of these things should have done it and yet we’re stuck here with nothing at all!”

“It’s not nothing,” Millennia reassured her. She was sitting in her own desk chair, which she’d pulled up beside Ushas’s to have a seat while they worked. “You got a lot of practice for chemistry and that’s important for your major. You tried something and you worked on your determination. You spent some time with me which I know doesn’t mean that much to you, but I thought it was nice.”

“Of course, you did, that’s what you always do. You never do things because you want to get something out of it, you do things because you want to spend time with people. What the hell is going on in your brain that makes you such a nice person? I can hardly even fathom it.”

“I am getting something out of it, though. I’m getting to spend quality time with my friends. That might not mean a lot to you but it’s one of the most important things in the world to me. I can’t even explain how important it is for me to spend time with you all. You never know what might happen to us after the Academy so I think we should make the most of the time we have while we’re here.”

Ushas nodded, hesitating before she responded. “I think I get it. I don’t have the same feeling and honestly I wouldn’t mind never seeing half of you idiots after we graduate—that was a joke, don’t tell them I said that—but you’re right about you, at least. You’re my best friend, somehow, and I guess spending time with you isn’t the worst thing, even if we’ve accomplished absolutely nothing.”

“See? Now you’re getting it.” Millennia smiled and clapped a hand on her roommate’s shoulder. “So, how about we just get this stuff cleaned up and try to get a couple hours of sleep before we have to get up for class? I know this didn’t go exactly to plan but it was still fun while it lasted.”

“All right, all right. I’m sure I’ll feel differently about this in the morning but for right now I’ll humor you. But don’t worry about cleaning this up, you just go to sleep. This is my problem. I’ll take care of it myself.”

Millennia opened her mouth to argue but didn’t get a chance before Ushas lifted her rubbish bin and shoved each of their failed attempts into it. She turned to smile at Millennia and in response, the only the Millennia could do was laugh.

//

The Deca’s meeting the following morning was nothing short of eventful, to say the least.

Half of them were sleep deprived from staying up far too late, and the other half were so caught up in their own shenanigans that they couldn’t pay attention to anything that the others tried to speak about. Not that there was much actual discussion, of course. They were all so out of it that they mostly kept babbling at each other, interrupted occasionally by Magnus and Ushas who were not interested in hearing their ridiculous chatter.

“…and like, you all think it’s ridiculous, right?” Koschei went on, looking around the room. “Because this entire thing is fucking ridiculous. There is absolutely no reason that anyone would ever ship us. Seriously. Me and Theta? No way. If we had a show of hands in here, I’m sure that like, none of you aside from Rallon and Vansell would think we could ever be a compatible couple.”

Despite what he said and the fact that he did not actually request a show of hands, everyone except Jelpax raised one. Rather than Koschei shouting at them all, it was Mortimus who spoke first; making a face at the one friend who did not agree that Theta and Koschei would make a good couple.

“Well, it’s just that their lifestyles are so different,” said Jelpax. “They’re aesthetically pleasing together, and they might last a few weeks, but it would never work long-term. They’d probably end up hating each other or something. Not that I think you’d ever truly hate each other but I can definitely see you two becoming rivals.”

“We would never become rivals,” Theta snapped. “Sure, we have some differences—especially when it comes to cleanliness—but we are totally great friends, and nothing could come between us so much that we became rivals. Not unless Koschei became like, an actual murderer or something.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t have to worry about that happening,” Koschei assured him. “I know that I’m a little nuts but if anyone in this room is going to be a murderer, my money’s on Magnus.”

“Mine too,” Mortimus added. “Based on everything, I think he’s most likely to snap.”

“I’m most likely to snap?” Magnus gaped, shaking his head. “I know that I’ve got some anger issues, Mort, but I’m fairly sure it’s you who would snap. You’re basically already insane, you just need something to push you over the edge. And knowing you, I’m not sure it’ll even have to be anything significant. You’ll just fly right over the deep end someday.”

“I can’t say I disagree,” said Ushas, who was sitting in Borusa’s chair at the front of the room. “Not that I think Mortimus is quite as insane as Magnus does but still, you’re right that he could crack any day. Anyone want to place their bets in? We might be able to make a decent dollar off this.”

“Please don’t make dollars based on me losing my mind,” Mortimus groaned. “I know that I do weird things and I also am really bad at keeping track of things but seriously, what are the odds that I’m going to lose my brain in that pile of rubbish I keep by my bed.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” Magnus commented. “You’ve lost stranger things. Though it would be difficult to get your brain out of your head. Still wouldn’t stink as bad as whatever the hell is in there right now, though.”

“Wow, I thought you weren’t going to mention that in front of everyone.”

Magnus only shrugged, not bothering to say anything, which left the opening for Jelpax to finally make the comment that he’d been waiting for. The one that he felt all too bad about making but one that he knew he couldn’t avoid. Not if he wanted to get an honest comment about the situation.

“So, not to be blunt about this,” he started awkwardly, knowing that it was going to be a weird thing to discuss, “but is there anyone else in this room who’s started smoking recently? Because I feel like this should be something we all take a vote on. Unless you’re all okay with getting secondhand smoke, but I would really rather avoid that.”

“Who is this directed at?” asked Ushas, her face twisting in confusion. “You’re clearly not referencing yourself, but you said someone else was smoking. Who the hell are you talking about? Because I would really like to have a shout at them, if you don’t mind.”

“Actually, I do mind,” Drax interrupted. He slowly dragged his legs onto the desk in front of them, dropping one on top of the other before he crossed his arms. “You might all think this is some kind of big, disastrous scandal, but it’s not. It’s not going to kill me or anyone else to do it one time. So just back off, yeah? It’s none of your business anyway. If there’s one thing we should be discussing here this morning it’s the chaos going on with Thoschei over there.”

Koschei gasped when Drax used the ship name, while Vansell cackled and Rallon slid deeper into his chair. Theta only sighed, wishing that they could just leave this uncomfortable fight behind them. It was one thing to have a man crush on your best friend, it was another to have everyone unknowingly mocking you for it at every corner.

“Let’s just calm down, all right?” he said, after Koschei had spent ample time glaring at both Drax and Vansell. “I really don’t want to keep going on about this. I know you all think it’s a big deal but it’s just a joke. Joking is in our nature. So, let’s just forget about it, all right?”

“No!” Koschei shook his head. “I meant what I said last night. I will—”

“That Mortimus and Magnus would be a better couple?” Theta cut him off quickly enough that it shut down the rest of his sentence, turning the argument in another direction. “Yeah, I thought that was a bit over the line, but—”

“He said what?!” Magnus gasped, whipping around to look at him.

It’s safe to say the rest of the meeting was not spent arguing over whether Theta and Koschei would work together.

Chapter Text

“…and that’s why we need to get this sorted out as soon as possible. The whole situation is just ridiculous and if it goes on for any longer then we’re going to—”

Ushas was interrupted when the door slid open, revealing none other than Professor Borusa. Though the Deca had held meetings in his classroom for years, the professor had never actually interrupted them before. Not without reasonable cause, at least, and when that happened, they generally saw it coming. (As in, one of them had done something remarkably disastrous in the last few days and were expecting to be caught at any moment.)

Professor Borusa said nothing at first, simply stepping into the room and looking around at the group of ten students. The look on his face was utterly serious and almost somewhat remorseful, though not one of the students could think of a reason as to why that might be. They just watched him, waiting for the moment that he would finally tell them what exactly he was doing there.

“You’re probably wondering why I’ve interrupted your meeting today,” he began, clearly aware of what he was doing as he switched places with Ushas at the front of the room. “Well, an important matter has been brought to my attention by one of your peers. And that is that you ten are not technically an academic club anymore, which means you don’t technically have the status to be able to host your meetings in my classroom.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Ushas had barely sat down at one of the desks at the front of the room before she was already back on her feet, stopping only a few feet back from where her professor was standing. “Are you saying that you’re not going to let us meet in here anymore? Because that’s unacceptable. We’ve been doing this for decades and we’re not causing any harm, so why would you have to kick us out?”

“I just said, Ushas. Because you’re not an academic group and it’s not technically within the rules for me to allow random cliques to use my meeting to hang out. You’re not studying or working or doing anything of use, you’re just sitting in here and talking. We could use this hour for another group that would be using this for something actually productive.”

“Are you saying that we’re not doing anything productive in here, Professor?” Everyone knew that no good came from Drax formally addressing his professors, and this was no exception. He hadn’t even moved his legs from their place on his desk, unwilling to conform just because there was an authority figure in the room. “Wow. How dare you accuse us of wasting our time. Obviously, we do very productive things in here. If we didn’t, why would we continue to use this room in the first place?”

“Why you are using it is of no concern to me,” Borusa told him, his tone calm but obviously not in the mood to deal with Drax’s bullshit. “All I need to know is that you’re not using it for academic purposes. Now, what I came in here to tell you is that you need to get out of here by your scheduled time today and not come back next week. Understood?”

“Absolutely not.” Magnus leaned forwards in his own seat, his eyes narrowed. “You mean to tell us that what we’ve been doing for decades is suddenly no longer within the rules? This is bullshit. Who’s the person who brought this to your attention and what the fuck was their motivation for it?”

“Watch your tone, Magnus. I know you’re upset but I’m still your professor. I won’t reveal who gave me the information, but they were right to do so. This might be fun for you, but this is not a fair use of Academy property. I’m not banning you from meeting by any means but if you want to do it, you’re going to have to do it somewhere else and that’s that.”

“Professor, please.” It was Millennia who chose to use her manners, of course, hoping that a nicer approach to the situation might help him come around. “What if we did some studying while we’re in here? We can make it so that we’re being productive, I swear. I just don’t take it away from us, it’s so important. This is like, the birthplace of the Deca. You have no idea how much it means to us.”

“And you have no idea how much trouble I could get in for letting you use this with no good reason,” said Borusa, sighing deeply. He crossed his arms against his chest, shrugging lamely. “I know you’re all terribly upset about this but there’s nothing I can do. This is just how it’s going to be. If you want to meet in one of your rooms, that’s fine. On the grounds, that’s fine. But not in here. I expect you out in twenty minutes, and I need my key back by the end of the day.”

Nobody said a word after Borusa left the room. They simply stared in silence, not one able to believe what they’d just heard. Decades of using the same room every week, and suddenly that wasn’t okay anymore? Suddenly their entire routine needed to be remade? Suddenly, the Deca was taking its first step to doom.

“We can’t let this happen,” said Theta, looking around urgently. “I mean, we can’t—there’s no way that we can let this happen, right? We can’t. This is our room. This is where we’ve always held our meetings.”

“Yes, but you heard him,” Jelpax spoke up, “there’s nothing we can do. At this point, we should probably use our last twenty minutes to decide where we’re going to meet next week.”

“No. Absolutely not.” Ushas shook her head quickly, already pacing back and forth across the front of the room. “We’re going to find a way to fix this somehow. I just haven’t figured out what it is yet.”

Thankfully for her, there was no shortage of ideas in the room.

//

Unfortunately, the members of the Deca were not able to come up with a plan that would be able to assure they had their classroom back by the end of the day. That meant that by the time Theta and Koschei were leaving the main building to return to their dormitory, they were both equally dejected and still wracking their brain for ideas. It was during that time of vulnerability when they were taken by surprise.

“Hey. Hey, come here for a second.”

Koschei turned first, confused by the voice that spoke from the shadows. He looked around for a second, not fully understanding the situation until the figure stepped into the light beam from one of the nearby lamps, revealing his signature odd-beat look. Theta waved when he recognized their peer, but Koschei only narrowed his eyes, letting out a scoff.

“What do you want, Dourgonn?” he asked, his tone flat. “We’re kind of on our way back to the dorms right now and in case you didn’t notice, it’s almost curfew, so we’d rather be getting back sooner than later.”

He grabbed onto Theta’s wrist and started to pull him away, but Dourgonn stopped them before they could get away. He was holding something in one hand, which seemed to crinkle each time he moved. Koschei frowned, turning back around to see what he had, but not releasing his grip on Theta; holding onto him as if he were protecting his friend from a villain rather than a quirky student.

“Do you guys want to buy some?” Dourgonn asked them, subtly shoving the plastic bag towards them. Theta’s eyes went wide when he saw it, but Koschei only stared. “I’ve got a great deal going on it right now. All I need is a few pieces of cash. Come on. Any coins on you?”

“No.” Koschei shook his head quickly, stopping Theta before he could speak. “We’re not giving you anything, Dourgonn. We don’t want your drugs. Just go away, all right? You’re such a fucking weirdo.”

“Yeah, okay, but pass on the word to your friends, yeah? At least one of those blokes will want to buy some.”

Theta opened his mouth to argue, but Koschei shook his head and turned around first, dragging Theta behind him in the process. For a moment, Theta thought they were going to just continue on and pretend that nothing happened, but as soon as Dourgonn was out of earshot, Koschei leaned into Theta’s ear and whispered,

“I knew there was a reason I didn’t like them.”

//

“Jeez. I know this is an unfavorable situation, but you didn’t have to get that torn up about it.”

Drax, who was most definitely not thinking about what was happening with their meeting room, rolled his glossy green eyes as he sat down at the dining table. Most of the Deca was already there, including Jelpax, who gave Drax a concerned look as he slid over to give his friend more room.

“Shut up, Magnus,” he snapped, looking away from Drax for only a second before giving him his full attention. “Are you all right? What happened?”

“Nothing, I’m just tired.” Drax was clearly not just tired, but he was also not in the mood to discuss anything, so he left it at the vague answer; cutting Jelpax off with another thought before he could ask another question. “So, anyone thought up any new ideas how to fix this thing?”

“I suggested that we try tying up Professor Borusa and torturing him until he cracks,” said Mortimus, “but Professor Grollan walked by when I said that and I don’t think he realized that it was a joke. I’m pretty sure he’s going to write me up to the psych department for that and hope that my professors over there realize I was just referencing an outdated technique.”

“It’s a fucked-up thing to say either way, but all right.” Ushas sighed, her head resting on her chin. “Not that I can say much with my morals, but that’s a scientist’s life. Now, does anyone have any actual ideas for this? Because we’ve struck a point where we seriously need to come up with something before it’s too late. We only have so long before Borusa replaces us with something else.”

“You don’t think he’s really going to do that, do you?” asked Rallon. His tone was beautifully innocent, and Ushas had to resist from cutting him off right there and then. “I mean, I know he’s not the nicest person in the world, but he’s never truly hated us. At least, not most of us.”

“Why did you look at me when you added that last part?” Drax demanded, raising an eyebrow. “Are you implying that Borusa doesn’t like me?”

“He doesn’t have to imply it, you dumbass,” said Ushas, rolling her eyes. “You’re pretty much Borusa’s least favorite person in the world. Possibly the entire universe. I’m genuinely shocked that you would think his opinion of you is anything higher than utterly loathing.”

“And I’m genuinely shocked that my sarcasm just went over your head yet again. You’re supposed to be so smart and yet somehow, I’m always getting away with these comments. How exactly does that work?”

“She’s book smart, not street smart,” Magnus answered, a mug of black coffee in one hand. “Both good attributes in their own way but not remarkably useful on their own. Though, I suppose you could make a case that they make decent people, since Drax is a street-smart person and Ushas is book smart.”

“You’re saying that we’re decent people? Wow.” Drax placed a hand on his chest, a dramatic smile on his face. “I can’t believe you’ve finally had a change of heart.”

“I’ve had no changes of anything. You’re just taking my words out of context.”

“I’m taking nothing out of context. You’ve just changed the context after the fact. And in my opinion, that’s cheating. Not that I would want to accuse you of cheating, since—”

“Sorry to interrupt,” said Rallon suddenly, sounding genuinely remorseful as he cut off their banter, “but this really isn’t doing anything to help our case. In fact, I don’t even really know how you got from thinking about that to talking about this. We need to think up a plan or else the end of the week is going to come and go and Borusa will have already taken our classroom from us.”

“I hate to say it, but I think he’s right this time.” Vansell nodded, finally looking up from his own mug in front of him. “We only have so much time before Borusa assigns someone else to take our classroom. If we lose it to someone else then it won’t take away our potential completely, but it’ll make it a hell of a lot harder to get anything done.”

“Okay, so what do you propose we do?” asked Ushas, leaning forward onto the table.

Drax smiled. “Well, I think that we could probably convince him fastest if we use force. And obviously, I’m the master of that, so therefore, we should follow my lead.”

“We should absolutely not follow your lead,” Jelpax argued, his tone firm. “You are the absolute worst about this stuff. If you have any kind of plan, I’ll bet my life that it’s going to get us into more trouble than anything else.”

“Yeah, bullshit. Now listen, I really think I’m onto something this time…”

//

Mortimus didn’t make it two steps outside the dining hall before someone grabbed onto his arm, dragging him off to the side of the doorway. He yanked away quickly and looked to see who it was, shocked when he realized that the person attempting to kidnap him was none other than Koschei, Theta at his side.

“What are you two doing?” he demanded, rubbing his arm where Koschei had grabbed it.

“We were waiting for you,” said Koschei. “At least, we hoped you were in there. We had no idea, but we’ve been waiting for ages. Where the hell were you?”

“I was eating breakfast at the same time and same place that I do every morning. And don’t go questioning me when you’re the ones who grabbed me as if I’m some sort of prisoner. What the hell do you want from me? Because I haven’t done anything to you, I swear. Not a thing.”

“No, we don’t think you have.” It was Theta who spoke, his tone far calmer than Koschei’s was before him. “We just need to talk to you about something. You know Dourgonn, right? You’ve talked to them before and you’re in a few classes together.”

“Yeah.” Mortimus nodded slowly, his brow furrowed as he tried to piece together what was happening. “I don’t know they’re very well, though. We’ve worked together on a project or two and I’ve read their article in the paper, but I really don’t know them that well. That’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge.”

“That’s enough. All we need to know is whether you think they’re more likely to be someone to engage in pranks or illegal activity. And if you think that they’re capable of either one—particularly the former—what type of things would you think them most likely to engage in?”

“Well, I didn’t think they were particularly likely to engage in any of that at all. They’re a vegan and a pacifist and pretty much one of the most laid-back people I’ve ever met. Now I’m pretty sure you’ve either caught them doing something or framed them for doing something and either way, I don’t know if I believe it.”

“They tried to sell us drugs last night, Mort.” Koschei’s tone was deadly serious as he crossed his arms, his eyebrows raised slightly as he urged his friend to believe them. “And before you say that you don’t believe me, I’m almost positive that’s what it was. It was hard to see in the dark, but they had leaves in a plastic bag and they looked an awful lot like marijuana.”

“Oh, you mean they were selling weed?” Mortimus hesitated before he went on, seeming to contemplate the situation. Eventually, his look settled, and he nodded once firmly as he answered. “Yeah, I think they would do that. They would definitely do that, actually. Do you think I should buy some? Where were they selling it last night?”

“No!” Of course, it was Theta who shouted. “There is no way we’re going to let you buy weed. You’re already a mess enough without it, can you imagine what you would be like with it on? I mean, Jesus Christ, that would be a mess.”

“Please. There’s no way I can possibly get worse than I already am. Besides, I’ve had edibles before, and it was hardly that bad at all. I just felt a bit loopy. You all saw me on it, they were the ones I got from the Scendeles.”

“Yes, we saw it, and we never need to see you like that again. It was terrible. Now get back to the point, yeah? Because we’re not here to discuss how you act on dope, we’re here to discuss what the hell we’re going to do about the fact that Dourgonn is engaging in illegal activity right here on Academy property.”

“Well, I for one am slightly concerned about it,” said Theta. “I think that this could open the gateway to a thousand other terrible felonies to be committed here on campus, and I really don’t want that to happen. If you’re okay with that, though, we can just ignore it and let them keep going.”

“No, absolutely not.” Koschei shook his head quickly, a look of concern flashing in his eyes. “Whatever we do, we have to stop him. It’s just a matter of deciding the best way to do it.”

“The best way to do it is to buy out all their stock so there’s nothing left to sell,” Mortimus told them, his tone only slightly humorous. “I still have some money left over from my birthday; do you think we should go for it?”

“No!” This time it was Theta who shouted, his eyebrows raised in concern. “Stop talking about buying the weed, we’re not doing that!”

“Why not?! Just because you don’t think it would be a good idea doesn’t mean that nobody does. It’s really fun once you get over the fact that we’re underage and it’s illegal.”

“I’m… not going to even comment on that.”

“Theta?” Mortimus started to run after his friend when Theta suddenly turned to head off down the corridor, effectively shunning their conversation. “Theta, wait! We need to talk about this!”

Koschei only sighed when they disappeared into the crowd. He couldn’t be bothered to follow after them, nor was he particularly interested in pursuing the issue any further.

//

“This is never going to work.”

“You’ve said that about a thousand times now,” Ushas replied, “and at no point have you come up with a solid argument as to why you believe that is the truth. I don’t mind you having an opinion, but you need to at least give me a good reason as to why I should believe you.”

Drax rolled his eyes. “We’re already tried talking to him, Ushas. There’s absolutely no reason for us to try it again. All this talk of a civilized discussion is just ridiculous. What do you think is going to come from this? He’ll reprimand us again? Mock us for the ignorance of our plan?”

“No, the hope is that he’s going to consider our appeal and let us keep the room. It’s only for one hour a week. It’s not a big deal once we put it into perspective. I think your grudge against Borusa is just getting to you on this.”

“Getting to me? All it’s doing is helping me realize that I’m completely correct. I know that you think you’re a genius all the time but I’m the only one with any sense here right now. You know that as well as I do. Now listen, yeah? If you do this, he’s going to—”

Before he could finish his thought, the door to Borusa’s office swung open and the professor himself appeared in the doorway; arms crossed and confused as to why his students were lingering outside his door. He stared at them for a minute, his eyes going back and forth between Drax and Ushas before he nodded for them to enter his office.

Drax and Ushas sat in the seats across from Borusa’s desk, while he slowly and deliberately stared them down before sitting down in his own plush chair. He laced his fingers together and leaned forward on the desk, his eyebrows raised as if he were trying to understand the entire situation without saying a word.

“I’m assuming your lingering outside my office has something to do with what I said this morning?” mused the professor. Neither Drax nor Ushas responded, which didn’t help the case at all. “Avoiding the question isn’t going to help. And again, before you say anything about this, it’s not personal. Nothing about this is personal. It’s just that your clique is not academic and therefore does not deserve the time and the space you’ve been given.”

“Okay, but we can do whatever we need to keep the space,” said Ushas. “Want me to start tutoring them all during the meetings? I’ll do it. Work on homework while we chat? In. Need us to do some projects for you while we’re in there? Absolutely. All we’re asking is to keep our one hour a week. Just one. It’s not that much compared to how much time there is for you to let other groups use the space.

“I understand you want to keep the space, Ushas, but there’s really nothing I can do about this.” Borusa sighed deeply, showing just how much he truly regretted the situation they were in. “We’re not disbanding your clique; we’re just not allowing you to continue using my space as your meeting area. I don’t see why that’s such a big deal. There are plenty of other places you can meet up.”

“Nope.” Drax shook his head quickly, giving the professor a look which said he was more than serious. “We are the worst troublemakers you’ve ever seen in the history of the Academy. There’s no possible way you can say that we’ll do just as well somewhere else. What trouble might we get ourselves into if we try to have our meetings in a public space? Even in our rooms, we’re bound to cause a noise disturbance, and no amount of shouting from you or anyone else will stop that happening.”

“I applaud your attempt, but I really don’t think that’s a good argument. If anything, you’re making me lean towards eliminating your group entirely.”

“You can’t eliminate our group because we’re not official. Isn’t that what this is all about? If we’re not official, then we’re just friends and there’s nothing you can do to stop us from hanging out and causing massive noise disturbances wherever we end up each week. I hope you’re happy with this, sir, because you have doomed yourself to one hell of a fate. Ushas!”

Drax shoved his chair back and stood up, nodding for Ushas to follow him. She glared at him, hating the way he took over the conversation, but didn’t object. He’d left the argument on a memorable note and she didn’t think it necessary to discuss it further yet.

//

“You’re not seriously considering this, right?”

Mortimus shook his head. “Obviously not. I don’t have to consider anything because I’ve already made up my mind. This is happening and there is nothing you can do to stop it. If you don’t like it, you might as well leave right now.”

“I’m not going to leave you here to buy drugs,” said Theta, grabbing Mortimus’s shoulder to pull him back. He gave him a serious glare, which Mortimus unfortunately did not acknowledge. “I know that Koschei’s probably fine with letting you do this—”

“Yes, I am,” Koschei confirmed, to Theta’s utter disappointment.

“—but I am not going to just stand by and let you burn out your last three braincells with weed.”

“I don’t know whether to be grateful that you care or angry at that obvious slight,” Mortimus remarked, narrowing his eyes. “If you think I’m that stupid, you can just say it, you know. Everyone does. All the time. Especially Magnus.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid, Mortimus,” Theta assured him, hoping he came off sincere, “I just don’t think you need to be getting any stupider. And that’s not to say you’re stupid already, just that if you get on these drugs, then you’re going to get stupid. That’s what we need to prevent.”

“So, basically you think I’m stupid and it would be a travesty if I were to get any stupider? Thanks for the vote of confidence, Thete, I feel so much fucking better. But I think I would feel even more better about it if you let me get some weed, so I’m going to head over there and buy that shit.”

With that, Mortimus turned to walk away, disappearing into the shadows of the darkness. Theta nearly went after himself but stopped and retreated into their hiding spot beside the bushes near the stairs leading up to the dormitory. Koschei was still standing where he’d been, arms crossed against his chest as he struggled not to freeze and glared bitterly at his roommate.

“I can’t believe you let him come out here,” said Koschei, shaking his head. He bounced back and forth on his feet, shivering as a gust of wind passed by.

“I didn’t let him come out here!” Theta argued, slapping Koschei across the shoulder. “All I did was follow him out the door. It’s not like I was meant to be babysitting him or anything. And if you’re so concerned about him interacting with Dourgonn then why don’t you get in charge of keeping him in line? I’m not the one who hates—”

“This isn’t about me hating Dourgonn, this is about Mortimus buying fucking drugs! If he gets busted, Borusa is going to think all of us are getting stoned. Do you want him to think that we’re all drug addicts?”

“No, preferably not now that you say that. Actually, I think that would pretty much ruin any chance we have of getting the rights to his classroom back. And Ushas would be really, spectacularly pissed if we fucked up her plans.”

“Thanks for stating the obvious. Now let’s go stop Mortimus from becoming a stoner before it’s too late.”

Koschei nodded to Theta before he slid out of the bushes, tossing the hood of his jacket over his head before he strode over to where they’d seen Dourgonn during their first encounter. They were set up in the same spot that night, with Mortimus standing across from them as he counted the coins in his hand.

For a second, Theta thought they were too late. But then Koschei ran right over to Mortimus and grabbed his hand, ripping the money out of it and therefore stopping him from purchasing the marijuana. Mortimus whipped around to glare at him, his dark hair flipping across his face and getting lose in the shadows as his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped, reaching out to take his coins back. Koschei spun around before he could, passing the cash over to Theta. “That’s my money, you jackass. I worked hard for that!”

“You worked for that?” Theta made a face. “What did you do?”

“I snogged a chick,” Mortimus answered awkwardly, quickly looking away from them. He kept his hand outstretched, waiting for his money to be returned. Unfortunately for him, however, Theta did not return the coins and instead hid them in his fist. “Thete, come on. Me doing a couple drugs isn’t going to kill anyone.”

“Could do.”

Mortimus opened his mouth to respond, then glanced over his shoulder to Dourgonn and held out a finger before running straight at Theta. In response, Theta’s eyes went wide with fear and he turned around to sprint out of there, hustling across the courtyard. Koschei groaned as he debated whether to follow, only coming to the decision to chase after them when he realized that the alternative would be to wait around with Dourgonn.

As it turned out, that might have been a better idea.

//

“…actually, I was thinking I might take a different course next year. Something more fun, you know? All these law classes have just been dragging and dragging and I really need a change of—”

“Shh!” Jelpax sat up quickly, the blankets on his bed getting ruffled as he turned his ear to listen towards the door. Once all was silent, he was able to tell that, sure enough, there were voices on the other side of it. Voices he did not want to hear. “Shit, they found us.”

“Who? What?” Confused, Rallon turned to look at the door behind him, his own eyes going wide as he heard Drax, Millennia, and Ushas talking out in the hallway. He groaned loudly, his shoulders sagging. “Great, so there goes our plan of hiding out until this all blows over.”

Jelpax shrugged, adjusting his plain white shirt as he slid away from his bed frame, crossing his legs as he straightened his back. For a split second, he found himself hoping that the trio outside would walk right past and go somewhere else. But of course, that did not happen, and before he could think twice the door was pushing open to reveal Drax and company on the other side.

When he first walked into the room, Drax was smiling, but he stopped when he saw Rallon sitting in one of the bean bag chairs in the corner. His brow furrowed in confusion as he looked to Jelpax and back again, pointing down at Rallon as if to ask why he was hanging out with Rallon. He didn’t say anything aloud, however, instead shrugging and walking over to Rallon instead.

“I was going to ask Jelpax for help since he’s so damn smart,” he started, glancing back over at Ushas and Millennia, “but I think you might actually be better. You’re a law major, right? You’re hoping to be a lawyer someday.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Rallon answered hesitantly. It was clear from the look on his face that he didn’t want to get involved in the chaos, but there wasn’t much of a choice at that point. “Why?”

“Because we’re looking to build an argument and we need someone’s help with it.” Drax smiled at him, his green eyes lighting up. “We have until tomorrow morning when we’re planning to slip our argument under Borusa’s door. Hopefully, he’ll see it, read it, and change his mind. That gives about, mm, eight hours until we need to deliver it. Do you think you can come up with an argument in that amount of time?”

“Yes, I could, but not about this subject. I hate to say it, but Professor Borusa has made a lot of really good points when it comes to taking away our classroom rights. I mean, he’s really arguing within the rules here. He’s not trying to do us any wrong, you know. He’s just doing his job and I don’t think it would be the worst thing to hold our meetings somewhere else.”

“Yeah. Right. Bullshit. Millennia, break up with him right now.”

Millennia glared at Drax but said nothing until she looked back to Rallon. “Honey, I’m not going to threaten you with a breakup, but please help us. We need this. We can’t lose the classroom, it’s like a piece of Deca history.”

“Deca history?” Jelpax almost laughed, shaking his head slowly. “We haven’t got any history. Nothing worth noting, at least, and even if we did, I doubt it’s anything I’d like to remember. We’re just a bunch of idiots gossiping in shitty desk chairs. There’s nothing historical about that.”

“I think you’re being too critical about the definition of history,” said Drax, crossing his arms. “Just because we’re not a war or a cult doesn’t mean we can’t have history. Like, remember that time when someone else joined the Deca and then we kicked ‘em out? That’s a piece of our history and you can’t erase it no matter how much you’d like to claim it’s not a thing.”

“Don’t ever tell anyone I said this, but I think he’s right, Jel,” Ushas piped up, giving their friend a profoundly serious look. “No matter where we decide to meet after this, it’s never going to have as much significance to us as Borusa’s classroom has. We can’t lose it. But if you want to be responsible for us losing such an important piece of Deca history, then so be it.”

Jelpax took a deep breath, shaking his head and leaving space for Rallon to go on. “I don’t think this is a good idea. Borusa has already refused your offers a few times and I don’t think we’ll be able to change his mind, no matter how much we might want to. I’d really love to keep meeting in the same place but I just… I don’t think it’s plausible.”

“Stop being a quitter! Damn.” Drax shook his head, as if he were disappointed in what his friend was doing. “If you’re going to become a lawyer then you’re going to need to be stronger than this. You’re talking bullshit right now and that’s not going to fly in a real court, mister.”

“Did you just call me ‘mister’?” asked Rallon, making one of the strangest faces in the universe.

“Yeah. So what? It can’t possibly be the worst thing anyone’s ever called you. I mean, not to be a dick but you’re pretty much the most boring person that has ever walked the planet.”

“Hey!” It was not Rallon who spoke up, but Millennia, jabbing a finger at Drax’s chest as she did so. “Don’t you dare talk to my boyfriend like that. He’s plenty interesting, just not when it comes to interacting with loudmouths like you. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Right, Ushas?”

“Sure. I mean, I certainly don’t like talking with idiots and here I am doing exactly that,” said Ushas, shrugging casually. “Not to say that all loudmouths are idiots, but most loudmouths are idiots and I’m really not sorry that I’ve said that. Also, yes, that was an indirect at you, Drax.”

“You must really think I’m an idiot to think I didn’t get that.” Drax shook his head slowly, the look on his face nothing but cold. “Now anyway, we have very a very limited time frame to make this happen so I think we should get to work, yeah?”

Rallon opened his mouth to protest, but he didn’t get the chance. Before he could do anything to stop it, they were already surrounding him, dropping a notebook and pen into his hands.

//

As it turned out, Theta was a lot faster than he looked, and Mortimus did not manage to catch him until he backed himself into a corner near the stairs leading to the Academy. Theta held his hands up in defense as he turned around, revealing that the money was no longer in his palms but hidden somewhere else on his person.

Koschei, lagging just behind the other two, thought for a moment that Mortimus would give up and just ask him to give it back. But, unfortunately, Mortimus was no quitter and instead dove at Theta; shoving him back into the concrete wall as he rummaged through each of his pockets.

Though Theta was quietly screaming and aggressively struggling, Koschei had to admit it was a somewhat humorous sight to behold. Mortimus was on the shorter side of the Deca members and closer to Theta’s height than any of the other boys, which made for a decently even fight and in the dark, made it look a little more like they were making out than fighting over a few coins.

Something in Koschei’s chest pounded with jealousy at the thought but he pushed it away quickly. The feeling was existent but that didn’t mean he had to accept it.

“Goddammit, Theta! Just give me my fucking money back!” When he cried out, Mortimus sounded more like Magnus than he would ever have cared to admit, and he hoped to god that the others didn’t realize it. He took a deep breath, pulling away from Theta when he whimpered; biting down on his lip as he pushed his hands through his dark hair. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have— I’m sorry. I just— I got really caught up in this, I think.”

“Why?” asked Koschei, crossing his arms as he walked up from behind them. He mostly did it because he was still freezing, but the gesture made him seem more defensive too and that wasn’t a bad thing. “They’re drugs. You don’t need drugs. I know you had fun with them that one time, but why the hell would you want to do them again after the fucking headache you got from that?”

“Because I’m stupid, okay?” Mortimus whipped around to look at him, a half-exasperated, half-pissed off expression in his eyes. “Everybody knows that. I don’t care about the aftermath; I just want the high. And if you think I’m smart enough to want it for something more intelligent than that then you might just be stupider than that.”

“Mortimus, nobody thinks you’re—”

“But also, marijuana has a lot of purposes and it’s exceptionally good at shutting up the brain which is why a lot of psych patients use it. Of course, it’s generally prescribed for anxiety issues and I don’t have any of those so I’m definitely not craving it for that. Though, it’s used for pain too. I get a lot of that from things. That can’t be it though. And I’m certainly not addicted. Studies have shown that in order for someone to be classified as an addict, they have to—”

“Hey, Mort, stop.” Koschei walked over to Mortimus and placed his hands on his friend’s shoulders, giving him a serious look when they locked gazes. “You’re doing that thing where you get all stressed and start babbling about psych stuff. I have no idea what you’re talking about but it’s clearly bothering you a lot, so you need to relax, okay?”

Mortimus nodded quickly, but he didn’t appear to be calming down at all. If anything, he got more restless with each movement. “I’m not babbling, for the record, I’m just informing you of some things that you might not know otherwise. I thought you might like to know what the benefits of marijuana are and why I might want them. I wasn’t anticipating the roadblock of not quite knowing for myself, though. Can I have my money back now?”

“No.” Theta took a step away when Mortimus reached out towards him. “I don’t care how much you babble or beg; I’m not letting you buy drugs with this.”

“Yeah, and I’m not letting you give any money to Dourgonn,” Koschei added, glancing back towards where their classmate was still set up shop. “That motherfucker doesn’t deserve a coin.”

“He’s right, but more importantly, you don’t deserve to lose your last braincells to drugs. Now, come on. Let’s go back inside.”

For a split second, Theta thought that Mortimus was going to refuse. But then he nodded, his body language softening as he turned around to follow Koschei back towards the dormitory, and Theta breathed out a sigh of relief. He knew that his friends weren’t his responsibility, but he couldn’t help himself from taking care of them. For some bizarre reason, it was just something he loved to do.

//

Though she knew it was a long shot—or possibly, because she knew it was a long shot—Ushas kept all her fingers crossed that the note she’d written with the others would be enough to convince Borusa to let them keep the classroom. She tried her best to stay calm through the morning, but she knew that Drax had dropped off the note whilst she was resting and the idea that Borusa could be reading it at any moment made her hearts race.

By the time Drax actually slid down at the breakfast table a few seats down from her, Ushas felt like her lungs were about to burst from holding in breath from the anticipation. She looked to him expectantly, but he only shrugged and shook his head before turning back to Jelpax, who was sitting down beside him.

“Why do you look like you’re waiting to hear that your husband’s died?” asked Magnus, raising an eyebrow as he dropped his breakfast onto the table, sitting down across from Ushas.

She rolled her eyes. “I’m waiting for Borusa’s answer to our proposition. A few of us who actually care spent the whole night working on an argument and I want to know if we’re won him over or not.”

“You’re not going to win him over.” He sighed as he poked a fork into his breakfast, not actually eating whatever crap they were serving that morning. “Believe me, I don’t want to lose the classroom any more than you do but he’s playing on a hard angle. There’s nothing we can do to stop him. Not unless you rewrite the Academy rulebook.”

“If that’s what this comes down to then I’m sure we can find a way to make it happen.”

Though there were many comments to be made about Ushas’s claims, none of them got the chance to be voiced before the doors to the dining hall suddenly opened again, and in strode none other than Professor Borusa himself. Ushas stiffened when she realized it was him; adjusting her stance to appear more professional despite the remarkably unprofessional setting. It almost seemed as if Borusa were going to walk right past them, but just in time he came to a halt, stopping at the end of the table nearest Drax and Jelpax as he tossed their note onto the table in front of him.

“Looking pretty serious there, sir,” said Drax, his tone mocking and playful. “I hope you’re not planning to kill one of us.”

“Believe me,” Borusa began flatly, “if I were to kill one of you, I would kill all of you. It’s not worth the revenge to go after only one of your heads. Now, does someone want to explain this note to me?”

“Why, sir? Can’t read it yourself, sir? I’m sure Professor Bappal wouldn’t mind taking you in for some tutoring if you need help figuring out the words, sir.”

“I don’t know what you’re playing at right now, Draxin, but you’re not helping your case right now and I’m fairly certain your friends are trying to kill you with their eyes, so I’d suggest we keep things civil if you don’t want to lose their trust and mine.”

It was clear that Drax wanted to make a comment about the idea they’d had his trust in the first place, but he held his tongue and Ushas was grateful for that. He was still intolerable, but it was nice to know that he wasn’t utterly useless as well.

“All right,” Borusa went on, “since none of you seem particularly keen to explain this, I’m going to tell you the same thing I’ve said the last dozen times we’ve discussed this. It’s nothing personal. I have nothing against you. I am simply upholding the rules that the Academy has put in place. You are not an academic group; you have no rights to my classroom. That’s how this works. I’m sorry that you’re so bothered by this but there’s nothing I can do. I hope you can find somewhere else to hold your meetings.”

He said nothing else before he turned and walked away, leaving the few members of the Deca at the table in utter silence. Drax groaned when he walked away, rubbing his hands over his eyes as Jelpax rubbed his back reassuringly. Ushas glared at Rallon, who threw his hands up in defense immediately; obviously to defend the fact that he was not responsible for the entire letter, though he had been the main voice in the argument.

They spent somewhere around six hours working on that note and still, it didn’t work. It didn’t work and Ushas was absolutely mind-boggled as to why that might be. Rallon had given them incredible things to work off of, Drax gave them witty lines to lighten up the note, and Ushas herself brought the intelligence which was softened by Millennia’s kind words. They did everything they could and somehow, it still wasn’t enough. Somehow, they still failed.

“Well, looks like we’re not going to be keeping the classroom after all,” said Magnus. His tone did not sound the least bit upset nor defeated, and Ushas wanted to clock him for that alone. “You all put up a decent fight, but I suppose the world doesn’t bow down to you after all. Nothing else we can do about this, eh? Time to find somewhere new to meet. I’m thinking… the dumpster.”

“We’re not meeting in the dumpster,” Ushas snapped, whipping her head around to glare at him. “Now shut up and let me think. There has to be some way to fix this and I’m not going to be able to think up anything if you keep saying stupid things in my ear.”

Magnus said nothing else, thankfully, but the way he rolled his eyes pissed Ushas off so bad that she had trouble getting her thoughts back on track after that. Once she did, however, she came up with an idea that was fool proof. Or rather, Borusa-proof.

And no matter what happened, he wouldn’t be able to tell them no again.

//

It was only because the Deca’s group chat was silent that Theta found himself wondering whether Magnus had actually noticed that Mortimus was gone.

They’d gotten themselves into such chaos the night before that Theta made the executive decision to bring Mortimus back to their dorm rather than dragging him back to their own place. Koschei argued the idea, as he wasn’t quite pleased with the idea of a random sleepover, but he couldn’t stop Theta and before he knew it, they were having a surprise party in their room.

Mortimus hadn’t gotten his hands on any drugs but he still didn’t stop babbling the entire evening, and Koschei was starting to wonder whether he’d been smoking pot all along. If not, he considered switching his stance because giving him something to calm him down was looking like a pretty good idea at the moment.

Though the night before was a horrible disaster and he barely got a wink of sleep, the morning following the drug escapades turned out to be rather calm. Theta was sprawled out across his bed, while Mortimus was leaning back against it, half asleep. Koschei hadn’t quite been able to fall into a deep sleep so he was already awake before them and kept an eye on the clock to make sure he woke them up before class. They’d eaten enough snacks the night before to skip breakfast but sleeping through their classes didn’t seem like a smart idea in the least.

Koschei sighed before he dragged himself out of bed, stumbling over to his closet to find his robes. He slid his uniform trousers on, then yanked his shirt over his head and tossed it onto the floor. He reached out to grab his robes, then stopped when he heard a sound behind him. Something like a gasp or a yelp, though he wasn’t sure what exactly it was.

He turned around to see, almost expecting Mortimus making fun of him, but instead found Theta sitting upright on his bed, swallowing hard as he stared straight at Koschei. Not his eyes, of course, which was where Koschei would have thought his gaze should go, but to his pecs. Koschei frowned, glancing over his shoulder as if there were something he was missing behind him.

“Are you staring at my chest?”

Theta shook his head quickly, his eyes still wide and not moving from the place he adamantly denied having looked at. He wet his lips, the expression on his face shock still as his breath seemed to stop. After several more seconds of his gaze not moving, Theta blinked several times; slapping himself in the head as if to break himself from his thoughts.

“Uh, no. Nope. Sorry.” He shook his head again, biting down on his lip when his eyes again drifted to the spot he dare not speak about. “I was actually just thinking about something else and you happened to be standing there. I got lost in thought and, uh, yeah. Sorry. I didn’t mean to stare at you, it was just like when you start thinking and then stare at the wall or the window for a while doing nothing except you were standing there, and—I wasn’t staring at your pecs!”

“I mean, I wouldn’t judge you if you were,” said Koschei, unable to keep the amused smirk off his face. “They are very nice pecs.”

“Yeah,” Theta agreed dreamily, before his eyes suddenly went wide and he shook his head frantically for the third time, threatening to rip his skull right off his neck. “I mean, no! No, they’re not! Stop being so arrogant, Kos. You have remarkably mediocre pecs. Not that I would know anything about what good pecs look like.”

“No, because yours are even more mediocre than mine.”

“You’ve looked at my pecs too? I mean, no! No, that’s not what I meant. I was talking about— you know how you just— goddammit!”

This time, the sound that came from the other side of the bed was doing exactly what Koschei thought was happening the first time. Leaning against the side of Theta’s bed that Koschei couldn’t see, Mortimus was snickering so much that Koschei thought he might explode. He glared at his friend, still not forgiving him for what happened the night before and not in the mood to deal with his mockery.

“What the hell do you think is so funny?” he snapped.

“Nothing.” Mortimus laughed more, waving a hand around as he avoided giving an actual answer. “It’s just… you’re both so gay and so in denial. It’s fucking killing me.”

Though it was Koschei who was initially thrown by Theta’s staring, it was Theta himself who dove off the bed and nearly smothered Mortimus with his pillow.

//

Ushas almost didn’t get everyone on board with her plan but the night before their next meeting was scheduled, she finally got Vansell on board and that alone pleased her enough to make her hopeful. There was still little chance that she would manage to get the classroom back, but if they lost it, Ushas would be damned to do so without a fight.

They arrived in Borusa’s classroom a good thirty minutes early that morning, hoping to beat out any other groups that Borusa might have assigned the room to after they’d been kicked out. Luckily, no one was there when they arrived, and they managed to get into the same seats they sat in on any normal week.

Though most meetings started with everyone babbling about various things, they were all silent that day. Mortimus sleeping against the wall; Drax hanging over Jelpax’s shoulders as he showed him something on his phone; Theta shooting glances Koschei’s way awkwardly; and all the others waiting quietly for their professor’s inevitable arrival.

Ushas was the most stressed of them all, pacing around the front of the room as she awaited Borusa to show up. She glanced down at her watch repeatedly, tapping her foot against the ground quickly whenever she came to a stop. She was hoping beyond anything that things would go well for her and everything would turn out okay, but in all honesty, she had no idea what would happen. Borusa was a tough man and very set in his ways, which left little space for them to negotiate no matter how hard they tried. But she wanted this more than anything and believed that, whatever happened, she would be able to fix the situation they’d unwillingly gotten themselves into.

“Anyone else starting to think he’s not coming?” asked Rallon suddenly, his chin resting on the palm of his hand. He looked utterly bored, and suddenly, Ushas thought he knew what it felt like when he went on his awful law tangents. “Not to be a pessimist, but we’ve been waiting around here for ages and it really doesn’t look like he’s going to show.”

“There was no guarantee he was going to,” said Jelpax, glancing over his shoulder to Drax who had finished showing him whatever was on his phone but had yet to give him his personal space back. “We’re not supposed to be in here after all, so why the hell would he show? It doesn’t even make sense.”

“I don’t know.” Koschei shrugged. “I thought Ushas had a decent idea going there. She thought he’d be popping in to check that we’re not here anymore. Makes sense to me.”

“Makes no sense to me.” Drax shook his head, not looking away from his phone as he continued to scroll through whatever he was looking at. “We’re the biggest fucking rebels in this entire school. He should be expecting us to ignore him. Why wouldn’t he come here if he knows that were already prone to—”

Drax didn’t get the chance to finish this thought before the door to the classroom swung open, revealing none other than Professor Borusa on the other side of it. He looked between the group, the expression on his face hardly surprised but clearly disappointed in the fact that every one of the students had shown up despite orders to do otherwise. He said nothing at first, simply crossing his arms and shaking his head as he looked to the students. He sighed deeply, glancing to those in the back before he nodded for Ushas to join them in their seats.

Once she was sitting down in the desk beside Mortimus at the front, Borusa strode over to the front of the classroom and leaned back against his desk, not once unfolding his crossed arms. He stared out across the entire room, the expression on his face turning to one of absolute exhaustion. Ushas knew that look well, though she also knew that Borusa would never admit to the fact that it was the fact he wore when the Deca became far too much for him to handle.

“Excuse me,” Drax interrupted, sliding his arms out from around Jelpax as he stepped back to his own desk, “but before you say anything, sir, I’d like to interrupt with a quick comment. Because we’ve already discussed this and we’re not going anywhere. Whatever you do. Punish us, exclude us, we’re not fucking moving. Just a bit of information before you start going on about how the classroom isn’t ours anymore because fuck you, it’s been ours for the last several decades and we’re not fucking leaving it.”

“Language, Draxin,” snapped Borusa, glaring at him angrily. “You’re a kid, you shouldn’t be saying things like that. Especially not to authority figures such as myself. You know better than that.”

“Do I?” He crossed his own arms, adjusting his stance to mimic that of his professor’s. “You should really rethink that statement because we’ve known each other for even longer than we’ve had this classroom and if there’s one thing you should’ve learned about me it’s that I am a fucking dumbass. I don’t learn. I get worse and worse. Especially with authority.”

“Drax, stop.” Ushas shot him a look which practically threw daggers into him. “We’re not going to win this by being assholes. I’m sorry for his behavior, Professor, this was not part of our plan. I asked them to all be polite and diplomatic about this. I really didn’t know that he was going to go off at you like that.”

In response, Drax flipped her the finger, clearly expressing the fact that she too should have known him well enough to know what kind of shit he pulls on a daily basis. Ushas only rolled her eyes, not bothering to give him more than that. She turned back to the professor, giving him an expectant look as she waited for his answer.

“Well, officially, I can’t let you keep this classroom,” said Borusa, looking around the room to each member before he went on, “but that doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t have it outside of Academy hours. And unfortunately, this is technically outside of those hours, which means there’s nothing I can do to stop you from coming in but taking your keys. If I did that, I’m guessing Draxin over here would just pick the lock for you to get in, so that’s not exactly a great course of action either, which leaves us with a conundrum.”

Ushas held her tongue for as long as she could before the words burst out. “There’s no conundrum, there’s just the simple fact that you can’t get rid of us. We’re going to stay here before Academy hours and there is absolutely nothing you can do about that. Thank you for your time, Professor, but I think we’ve said all that we needed to. We’ll be getting back to our business now, and you’ll be happy to know that we’re not going to do a lick of productivity whilst we’re in here.”

She all but pushed him out of the room after that, never letting the smile fall from her face, even after the door shut behind him. Once he was gone, Ushas turned back around to the group and did a bow, her smile widening even more.

“And that’s for those of you who said we couldn’t make it happen,” she announced, doing her best to keep the bitterness out of her tone. “Now, does anyone have anything to discuss?”

Nobody said anything right away and because of that, Ushas allowed herself to get her hopes up. She wanted everyone to thank her, praise her for her ingenious plan which got them everything back. For some reason, she felt that this was going to be her glory moment. She saved their meeting room and now, because of her—and the fact that the rules weren’t quite what Borusa thought they were—everything was going to be okay. The Deca would go back to how it was, and everything would be back the way it was meant to be.

She sighed happily when someone raised a hand. She knew that Koschei was one of the few who was nicer to her on occasion and hoped that he would be the one to start the fanfare. Unfortunately, what actually came out of his mouth was not a ‘thank you’, nor a ‘congratulations’, nor any other form of praise. In fact, it was the last thing she’d expected to come out of his mouth, and when he said it, she had no idea how to respond.

“Mortimus tried to buy weed the other day,” he announced, his tone deadly serious.

Ushas slapped her hand against her forehead. She’d achieved her mission of getting things back to normal, but with none of the glory she’d hoped for.

Chapter Text

“Drax, you have to get up.”

Jelpax knew something was wrong when his roommate didn’t respond right away. He hoped that it was nothing, and that the boy had just overslept again, but there was something about the way he lay on his side, completely silent, that made Jelpax more concerned than he normally would be. He tightened his robes and wandered over to Drax’s bed, his brow furrowed in concern.

“Drax, darling, are you all right?” he asked, sitting down on the bed beside him. Drax groaned quietly, nodding but not moving. “That’s not the sound someone who’s good makes.”

“Sorry.” When he spoke, Drax had an affliction to his voice and Jelpax couldn’t decide whether it was caused by being ill or upset. He determined it was both. “I just, I really don’t feel good. At all. I’m just… I feel like fucking shit and I can’t open my eyes without getting dizzy and I’m so fucking anxious I can’t—I can’t even think.”

“Are you okay? You were okay last night, weren’t you? Did something happen?”

“No, I’m just having a bad day. I don’t think I’m going to go to class. I just feel like garbage and I can’t—”

Jelpax stretched his arms out, waving his fingers as a signal for Drax to sit up. For a moment, he thought that his friend was just going to stay down, then he sniffed and dragged himself into a seated position, dropping against Jelpax’s chest and biting down on his lip as his best friend held him reassuringly.

“I don’t know if you’re serious about this being nothing,” said Jelpax, his voice low, “but I’m going to tell our professors that you’re ill, okay? You don’t have to worry about explaining anything. Just rest and I’ll come see you at lunch. Are you going to be all right if I go to class?”

Drax nodded, and Jelpax could feel his tears soaking through his shirt. “Mm. You don’t have to come back during lunch though. I’m all right. I just feel like shit. And don’t worry about the crying ‘cos that’s just—that’s just the anxiety. It’s just really, really bothering me this morning. Fuck.”

“What? Drax, what happened?”

“Nothing, I’m just really dizzy.” He pulled away from Jelpax and flopped back onto his pillows, sighing deeply as he did so. Drax dragged his hands over his face, pushing away the tears as he did so and leaving pink streaks in their place on his flushed cheeks. “I think I’m just going to try and go back to sleep.”

“Okay.” Jelpax nodded and stood up, turning back around after only a second. “But wait, what should I do about our presentation this afternoon? Do you want me to see if I can get it postponed?”

“Presentation?” Though they’d been working on it for two weeks at that point, Drax shook his head, as if he had zero idea what his roommate was talking about. For a split second, Jelpax thought he was being fucked with, but then he realized how utterly confused Drax truly was and he found himself at a loss. “Sorry, nope. I know what you’re talking about. It’s the one for, uh…”

“Foreign affairs,” he finished, his tone filled with concern. “Are you sure you’re all right, darling? We’ve been working on this for weeks. How the hell can you just forget about it?”

“I don’t know, babe,” Drax answered, his tone almost mocking. “My brain is all fucked up right now. Just go to class, okay? I’ll be fine. I’ll talk to you after school. Don’t come back at lunch. It’s not worth the trip.”

Jelpax nodded as he turned to gather his things, but in all honesty, he didn’t think he could stop himself from changing his plans. Even if Drax was only ill, they were still best friends, and he didn’t want to leave him even if it meant he had to make an extra trip across the campus.

//

“That’s it! I’m done with this shit!”

Entirely unprompted, Theta tore off the top part of his robes angrily, leaving him with nothing but the deep red pants and a white t-shirt. His chest was rising and falling with rage, as if something terrible had pissed him off, though nobody had even spoken to him since he sat down at the dining table.

“Thete?” Vansell gave him a look, taking a sip of his drink. “You all right, mate?”

“No, fuck off, Nosebung.” Even though Vansell had done nothing wrong, Theta felt pissed at him and was not in the mood to say anything else to him. “I’m just so fucking tired of these robes. Sure, it’s uniform and we all look professional and whatever but god fucking dammit they itch! I can’t wear them anymore!”

Ushas rolled her eyes. “You’re been wearing them for decades, Theta Sigma, and they’ve been a staple of the Academy for centuries before that. Nothing is going to change the dress code and you taking off your robes isn’t doing anything but giving people an unsavory view of your tiny figure.”

“I’m not tiny!” Theta glanced down at his torso self-consciously. He almost said something else to defend himself but found that he was too mad to do anything but keep bitching. “I’m not wearing this shit anymore, okay? I’m done. This is the start of a boycott. Who’s with me?”

None of the other Deca members at the table—which was most of them, though Koschei, Jelpax, and Drax were missing—moved an inch, and that only pissed Theta off even further. He sighed deeply, trying his best to keep his composure. He knew that getting angrier would do nothing to help the situation, but neither would one single person boycotting the dress code. That would just get him detention.

“Don’t you remember what happened the last time you tried to boycott something?” asked Ushas, one eyebrow raised. “It didn’t exactly go over well, if I recall correctly. Which, I definitely am, considering breakfast was what you boycotted and we’re still sitting here eating that right now.”

“Right. Well anyway—”

“Motherfucker.” Koschei grit his teeth as he sat down at the table, slamming his backpack onto the seat beside him. He said nothing about Theta’s half of a uniform, and Ushas couldn’t help but wonder whether he’d even noticed at all. “I am so fucking done with this shit.”

“Yeah, me too!” His best friend looked to him in solidarity, but Koschei seemed only confused by the fact that Theta was not wearing his robes. “I mean, I’m done with my shit. What shit are you done with?”

“The walking, talking piece of fucking shit that calls itself Runcible. Asshole cut me off in the hall and tried to yell at me for being late. How the hell is that any of his business? Sure, he can call us out when we’re breaking curfew since that’s his job, but this is not his problem! Me being late is nobody’s problem but my own!”

“If that’s true,” said Ushas, grabbing her own bag and slinging it over her shoulder, “then I don’t see a reason to hang around and listen to your shit. I’ll see you losers later.”

With that, she stood up and headed out of the dining hall, leaving the others to hash out their problems on their own.

//

“Am I the only one who is seriously sick of having these guest speakers visit us all the time?”

Vansell’s tone sounded genuinely exhausted, as if he were truly tired of listening to other people though they didn’t even visit that often at all. Magnus nodded in agreement, while Millennia only gave them both a look, not at all agreeing with the sentiment.

“Yeah, and not just the guest speakers either,” said Magnus. “My philosophy professor is Arcalian and I’m sick of dealing with him. Who gave him the right to tell me what to do? I’m a far higher rank than him, so why does he get to have any sort of authority over me?”

“Because he’s older and wiser,” Millennia answered, hoping that she didn’t sound too horribly bitter in her tone. “Just because he’s not a Prydonian doesn’t mean that his achievements are all invalid. He still has valuable knowledge and information to share that—”

“Okay, we get it, god.” Vansell rolled his eyes, crossing his arms as he resumed his stroll down the corridor. He’d only meant to be commenting on the event within their class, but it was clearly about to extend into an entire argument. “All I meant was that we’re the Prydonian Academy. We shouldn’t have professors from other chapters here.”

“Again, you’re just being ignorant. They bring a different culture to our school and I personally think it’s extremely important that we keep them around. They’re able to teach us about all different things and bring a new perspective to our lives and it’s just a privileged to have them—”

“Yeah, no, now you’ve gone too far. We need to be getting rid of them, not encouraging them. Right, Magnus? How much better would your philosophy class be if it were taught by a Prydonian?”

“It might actually be bearable for once,” answered Magnus. “Actually, I think it might be a good idea to take this up with the Headmaster. He might see our point of view on this. Shall we give it a shot?”

Millennia wanted to say ‘no’, but Vansell beat her with a ‘yes’ before she could do anything. The boys turned and started heading off down the other side of the hallway, leaving Millennia alone to hope and pray that their efforts would pay off.

//

Jelpax did his best to keep from thinking about Drax all morning but he quickly realized his efforts were futile.

He’d known Drax since their earliest days at primary school and he learned long ago what he was like when he was ill. There were specific things he did, specific ways he acted, and none of those were what happened when he woke up that morning. It was worse than a general sickness and Jelpax had his suspicions that the anxiety was not random at all.

As such, he did not listen to what Drax told him and decided to skip out on lunch in favor of going back to the dormitory. He knew he didn’t have a ton of time, so he headed straight over there. He doubted their door would be locked as it never generally was, which was why it came as such a surprise that the door did not swing open right away. Jelpax frowned, reaching into his bag to dig out the set of keys he rarely had to use.

Once he managed to find them, Jelpax slid up the key to their room and stuck it into the lock, twisting until it clicked. He pulled the door open, expecting to find that everything was pretty much the same as he left it—Drax still sleeping, or just chilling in bed doing nothing—but what he actually found made him stop dead in his tracks. Because it was not as he left it at all, and it was not a sight he ever wanted to see.

Drax was not sleeping in his bed, nor chilling out there, or even sitting at his desk working on something he’d made an excuse to get extra time for. No, he was lying down on the floor, his back turned to the door and his body so still that Jelpax’s hearts skipped a beat. He froze dead in the doorway, his breath catching in his throat for just a moment before he slammed the door shut and dropped to his knees beside his best friend.

“Wake up. Drax.” Jelpax’s breath shook more and more as he got no response, his hearts pounding in his chest. “Drax, darling, please wake up. Please. Please, I can’t lose you. Please. Please, you mean everything to me. Please.”

No amount of pleading nor shaking was enough and regardless of what Jelpax tried, Drax did not stir. His breath was barely audible though it was there, and thankfully, Jelpax could still feel a heartbeat. He quickly looked around the room, hoping to find something that would help him to understand what happened, but there was nothing. No evidence to give him the faintest idea as to what happened.

Jelpax sat back on his feet, biting down hard on his lip as he clasped his hands together so tightly his fingers turned white. He could feel the blood on his tongue, but he made no move to change his stance. He didn’t know what to do. Everything happened too fast and he had no idea what to do, how to fix this, or if Drax was going to be okay.

He swallowed hard when he felt the tears stinging at his eyes, blinking repeatedly to stop them from falling. Fogging up his glasses was not going to help anything, nor was panicking, though it was already a bit late for that. Jelpax took a deep breath as he reached over to where he’d dropped his things, struggling to find his phone in his bag due to how badly his hands were shaking. Eventually, he managed to pull it out, and dialed the number he hoped to god he never had to remember.

“You’ve reached the Academy Infirmary; how can I help you today?”

“I—” Jelpax cut himself off quickly, his voice shaking so badly he could hardly speak. He tried to take another deep breath, but found it came out shallow. “Something happened to my—to my roommate. He’s not—something happened and he’s not waking up. I don’t know what to do. Please. I don’t—I don’t know what to do.”

“Stay calm, please,” the sickly-sweet voice on the other end of the call responded. “I’m sending a nurse to your aid. What room are you in?”

For the first time in his life, Jelpax found himself almost unable to answer the questions that the woman was asking him. He didn’t know what floor he was on, or what room he was in. He didn’t know his name, or Drax’s. All he knew was that he couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe, and he wanted his best friend to be okay.

He needed Drax to be okay.

//

“I’m going to kill him. I’m actually, literally going to kill him.”

“Good.” Mortimus nodded approvingly, taking a bite of his sandwich before he went on, waving his lunch at Koschei. “You going to need any help with that? Because I’d be happy to oblige. I might still have a flamethrower in my room if you want to dig through the clothes for it.”

“Oh, god no.” Koschei shook his head quickly, shuddering at the mere thought of digging through Mortimus’s piles of shit. “No, nope, nah, that won’t be necessary. I think I can handle killing Runcible by myself. I’ve got some knives and stuff, plus my bare hands, so…”

“Right, right.” Across the table from them, Ushas gave them a look as if she were somehow supportive of the ridiculous idea he had to get revenge on their poor, idiotic hall monitor. “Well, I can’t say an entirely on board with your plans here, but it does have a better chance of success than Theta’s boycott, which I don’t think is going over so well thus far.”

“Excuse you.” Theta jabbed his fork in her direction, his hazel eyes narrowed in defense. “For your information, I only got called out by three out of four professors this morning. Therefore, at least some of them will be fine with me doing this, and if I can get a few of them on board, then I’ll be able to get enough of them on board to change the dress policies.”

“You’re one student, you absolute moron. How are you meant to change the entire dress policy all on your own? Nobody gives a shit, especially since you’re the only one who’s doing this. If it were everyone then they’d make a deal of it but you’re not. You’re one stupid, trouble-making student. Nobody cares.”

Theta opened his mouth to protest, but instead simply inhaled sharply, shaking his head in disappointment. He wasn’t sure what exactly to say to her other than that he disagreed, especially since she was most likely correct. After all, it wasn’t like his mission had been successful so far. In fact, he’d already been given enough detention notes to last him four months. Luckily, he did not have to share this information, as Vansell spoke up before anyone else could continue with their original topic.

“In other news,” he said, “we’re planning to set an uprising against the foreign professors. That is, the ones who are not Prydonians and have no business teaching us anything. Magnus and I are already on board and we know that Millennia is not, but we’re looking for others to help us out with this. Are any of you in?”

The table was silent. Not one of the other spoke, leaving them at the same place they’d started. Two idiots trying to change a policy on their own. It kind of sounded like the same thing that was happening to Theta, but somehow, he failed to see that.

“Shut up, Nosebung,” he snapped. “We need this diversity of professors and if you don’t agree then you can go ahead and fuck off. I have much more pressing things going on right now and if you want to do good in the world, I suggest you take off your horrible robes and support me.”

“Support you?” Koschei gaped, turning to look at his best friend beside him. “How am I meant to support you when I’m already busy taking care of my own shit? Didn’t you hear my plans for revenge? I have to kill Runcible, mate. I just have to. I can’t live with the moron anymore. If I have to see his stupid face one more time, I swear to god, I’m going to—”

“For the love of god,” groaned Rallon, rubbing his temples. He was sitting at the far end of the table, not engaging in the conversation but watching it from afar. “Would it kill you all to have a pleasant conversation for once in your lives? Just one meal without discussion of mischief or killing people?”

Theta hesitated before he answered. “Yes, actually. I think it might.”

Clueless as to what he should say next, Rallon dropped his head onto the table in front of him; grateful that he’d already moved his lunch.

//

By the time the nurse finally arrived, Jelpax felt like he was going to throw up.

He’d never quite understood what true panic felt like. He experienced anxiety the same as anyone else, but he’d never felt the sheer panic and fear that some of his friends knew until he sat there at Drax’s side; doing everything he could to fight off his tears as he waited for the nurse to arrive.

The woman who entered the door had graying brown hair and was an average height with a rather plump build. Jelpax recognized her as being one of the nurses who often worked in the main building of the Academy, and who had treated his friends for multiple superficial injuries. That meant he knew that she was a good nurse, at least, and he hoped beyond anything that she would be able to help.

He hoped beyond anything that Drax was going to be okay.

“You said you just found him like this?” asked the nurse, after confirming several other superficial details that Jelpax’s racing mind was barely able to process. He glanced up at her blankly before nodding slowly, his gaze returning to Drax’s still body. He was still breathing, thank god, but too softly for comfort. “All right, and there’s no signs of anything happening?”

“No, he just—” Jelpax released the tight grip his teeth had on his lip, taking a deep, shaking breath before he finished his answer. “He wasn’t feeling well this morning and I came back to check on him at lunch and he was just—”

He cut himself off, unable to finish the thought. Thankfully, the nurse understood what he was saying and nodded as she resumed her work. She requested a pillow, which Jelpax grabbed quickly before handing it over to her. They placed it onto the floor, and Jelpax couldn’t help but bite back down on his lip as she rolled Drax onto his back. She opened her medical bag and started to check his vitals, not looking to Jelpax when she spoke.

“Did he say what was wrong this morning?” she asked. When he failed to answer, she clarified. “He told you he was feeling ill, did he say what symptoms he was having?”

“Uh, yeah.” Jelpax shook his head slightly as he wracked his brain, trying desperately to get rid of the clouds in his mind and remember what exactly Drax had said to him that morning. “He was feeling just generally ill, like sick to his stomach and lethargic, I think. And he said he was really, really dizzy and I don’t know if it’s related, but his anxiety was flaring up just awful. He might have had a headache too because we had this presentation we’ve been working on every day for two weeks now and he just completely forgot about it.”

“Yeah, all right. I think we’ve got our answer then.” The nurse sighed deeply, scribbling something down on her clipboard. “Do you know if he’s been taking his medications?”

It was strange to hear someone else mention them as Jelpax generally thought of himself as the only one who knew, but he got over the oddness quickly and answered, though he wasn’t entirely sure as to the relevance of the question. “I don’t know. I think so? He’s really private about all that.”

“Well, if he’s not been taking them, then we’ve likely got our cause there.”

“I don’t—” Jelpax hated the way he couldn’t hold a thought, but the stress was becoming overwhelming and more than anything he wanted a straight answer. “Cause for what? I don’t—I don’t understand what happened to him. Is he okay? Is he—?”

“Based on what you’ve told me and the state he’s in right now, I’m almost positive he’s had a seizure.” If his hearts had frozen earlier, Jelpax’s entire body shut down for a moment when she spoke. “That alone isn’t truly a concern, of course, but the real problem here is that he’s not waking up.”

“What?” His voice came out as barely more than a squeak, the information overwhelming him more than he could express. His thoughts were racing faster than they ever had before, trying to understand what he’d been told when he had no true concept of what happened. “I—I don’t understand. Drax had a seizure?”

“Again, I don’t know for certain, but that’s what it looks like. I’m not that surprised though, to be honest.” She reached into her bag and started to prepare for something else, but Jelpax was way too deep into his own thoughts to register what it was. “I hate to say it, but the boy’s a spaz. He was bound to slip up on his meds eventually.”

“Wait, what meds? Why would skipping them cause this? Why…?”

“Ah, I think he’s on valproic acid right now?” The nurse was far too calm for Jelpax’s liking and he almost wanted to slap her straight to the point. “‘Cos of the way it works, it does real well when you take it consistently, but if you start getting lax or stop taking it, that can often make the epilepsy flare up, hence the seizure.”

Jelpax’s hearts dropped into his stomach. He froze shock still, his gaze fixed straight ahead as he found himself suddenly unable to move. He didn’t breathe, didn’t blink, and didn’t even think for several seconds after the nurse spoke; her tone so casual like she’d thought he knew all along. But there had to be some mistake, didn’t there? There was no way she was talking about Drax. It wasn’t possible, Jelpax hadn’t known his best friend for all those years without knowing that about him.

Drax hadn’t been his best friend for all those years without trusting him.

“Is he going to be okay?” Jelpax asked eventually, realizing that it was the wrong time to dwell on the reasons Drax hadn’t told him. By the time he spoke again, the nurse was dragging an oxygen mask onto Drax’s face before turning to write more notes on her clipboard. “I mean, is he—?”

“I can’t make you any promises right now because I don’t know what’s gone wrong.” The tone in her voice caused Jelpax’s hearts to drop even further, and he found there was too much water in his eyes to keep blinking it away. “We’re going to have to take him over to the infirmary, and we’ll see what happens from there. Hey, you all right?”

Jelpax nodded quickly, ignoring the stabbing pain as he bit down on his already split lip for the hundredth time that afternoon. “He knew it was going to happen, didn’t he?”

“I can tell it’s not the answer you want but that’s far more likely than not, yes.”

“Oh, my god.” He pushed his hands through his hair, dragging his legs into his stomach as he curled back against Drax’s bed. “He—He means everything to me.”

“Take a deep breath, hon,” said the nurse, her tone soft. “I don’t need to be wheeling two of you out of here.”

“I’m sorry.” This time, when the tears built up in his eyes, he couldn’t stop the cascade that slid down his cheeks. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

Jelpax didn’t have the faintest idea who he was apologizing to but once the words spilled from his mouth, he couldn’t stop them until he choked on his own regretful sobs; his true feelings finally winning the fight against his body’s deep suppression.

//

“Finally, finally I’ll get my revenge.”

Koschei rubbed his hands together evilly, sliding back around the corner when he heard Runcible coming towards him. He’d been planning his evil revenge for almost two hours now, and he was more than ready to get it over with. He had everything in line, all he needed was for Runcible to walk right into his perfect trap.

As per the plan, Runcible opened the door to his dorm, and—

Nothing.

Runcible walked out of his dorm and strode off down the corridor, as if nothing had happened at all. He was not angry, he was not annoyed, and he was most definitely not covered in sour oatmeal. Koschei swore to himself, creeping out of the corner once Runcible was gone. He ran over to the hall monitor’s dorm room, frowning as he inspected his trap.

All the strings were in place, and it looked as if it were all set to go, so why hadn’t it gone off? What made his plan backfire so badly that Runcible didn’t even know he was going after him at all? Determined to find out, Koschei clicked the door open with his lock pick, only to stop dead in the doorway when the bowl of sour oatmeal dumped down on his head.

He still didn’t know what went wrong with his trap the first time, but unfortunately, he did know that it worked the second.

//

The last person Theta expected to see when he arrived at the Headmaster’s office late that afternoon was Vansell, and yet there he was. He was sat in one of the chairs outside the door to the man’s office, sitting beside Magnus who looked just as bored as his friends.

“What the hell are you two doing here?” asked Theta, crossing his arms against his chest. They both were still wearing their robes, making Theta the only one there who was not properly dressed. Not because he’d already called it quits for the day, of course, but because he was still going through with his boycott. “Did you finally decide to join in? Because you’re not really dressed for it.”

“No, we’re meeting with the Headmaster to discuss who he’s employing,” Vansell answered, looking Theta up and down with a scrutinizing gaze. “I’m assuming you’re the delinquent he’s meant to be meeting with before he can speak with us?”

“Yeah, that would be me. I got called out by eight professors for breaking the dress policy today. It looks like I’m about to get shouted at by the Headmaster too, so… you know, maybe he would let you two come in with me? It would certainly be a lot less scary if I had someone there with me. You could back me up on the itchy collar thing!”

“I am not going to try to get our uniforms changed because you think the collars are itchy,” Magnus grumbled, rising from his seat. “But I also don’t want to sit here waiting any longer than I have to, so we might as well go in there. Even if he doesn’t let us in, it’s worth a shot.”

Vansell opened his mouth to say something but must have decided against whatever it was as he ended up snapping it shut again and rose to his feet as well. He and Magnus stood behind Theta when he knocked on the door, waiting for the Headmaster to welcome them into the room before they entered the room. The man groaned when he saw Theta entering with his entourage but waved them all over. Since there were only two seats across from his desk, Theta and Vansell sat down, while Magnus stood between them.

“All right, I know why you’re in here, Theta Sigma,” the Headmaster started, nodding towards the student in question, “but I’m not really sure what you lot are doing here. Mind explaining what you came in here to speak with me about?”

“Yes.” Vansell gave him a profoundly serious look, once which almost made Theta laugh at the absurdity of it. “We’re here to discuss the possibility of replacing some of your staff. See, we’ve realized that an overwhelming amount of our professors are not from the Prydonian chapter, and—”

“I’m not firing anyone. Get out.”

Theta whipped his head around to look at his friends as they shrugged and left the office, clearly formulating a new plan already. He didn’t care that their plan was ruined but he was not the least bit interested in being left in there on his own. He was going to get ripped to shreds—he knew it. And based off the look on the Headmaster’s face, he knew it too.

Knowing he was pretty much doomed, Theta laughed nervously and swallowed hard, hoping that whatever happened wouldn’t be as bad as he thought.

//

They didn’t let Jelpax into Drax’s room for almost two hours but when they finally did he found himself physically unable to leave his friend’s side.

It was overwhelming at first, walking into the disgustingly clean room and seeing the sight of Drax lying on the bed, his face covered by an oxygen mask and at least two IVs on his arm, but Jelpax managed to get himself used to it. He still couldn’t get over the fact that it was his best friend he was seeing in such a place, but he was alive and that was all he cared about. According to the nurse he’d spoken to, Drax was likely going to be okay as they were able to stabilize him after whatever happened, but that was the only part of the information Jelpax was truly able to process.

Once his brain had finally started working again, all he could do was wonder why he hadn’t known sooner. Not only why Drax hadn’t told him or trusted him with the information, but how he hadn’t figured it out on his own. How, after everything they’d been through, nothing tipped him off to such a major secret his best friend was keeping from him. Even looking back, he couldn’t see any signs, and he just knew there was something he was missing. Something that should have made him suspicious but didn’t.

Something he should have noticed but didn’t.

Jelpax paced around the room for somewhere around ten minutes, but otherwise, he stayed planted in his seat beside Drax’s bed. He was fairly certain the nurses would send him away at some point, but he wasn’t going to go until they forced him out. There were things more important than eating or doing homework, as much as the ignorant adults might have argued him on that fact.

He was sitting in that same spot in the chair, his fingers laced with Drax’s limp hand, when he felt the first movement. His eyes were closed when it happened, but it wasn’t his fingers that moved which meant it had to be Drax’s. They simply twitched for a second, then clasped around Jelpax’s just a bit tighter. Then he took a deep breath in, his dark green, bloodshot eyes fluttering before he finally left them open halfway. He blinked a few times, taking in his surroundings, then turned his head when he saw Jelpax sitting beside him.

“Drax.” Jelpax’s voice cracked on the one word, but he was so relieved to see his friend awake that he didn’t care. “Are you okay?”

Drax nodded. He said nothing—possibly because of the mask on his face—but played with Jelpax’s fingers a bit as he took a few more deep breaths. His eyes drifted shut again after a few seconds and Jelpax almost thought he was falling back asleep, but then a doctor came into the room and he nodded again when she asked if he could hear her, and another time after she questioned whether he was able to breathe okay. She warned him to tell her immediately if he was struggling to breathe later, then proceeded to remove the oxygen mask from his face.

Both Drax and Jelpax were silent as the doctor checked Drax’s vitals again, aside from when they had to answer questions about things. Even then Drax kept his answers short, however, and his voice was soft and breathy as if he were still having trouble making words come out of his mouth.

Once the nurse finally left after assuring them that Drax was not, in fact, going to die that day, they were finally alone again and still, neither of them said anything. Drax stared up at the ceiling, his fluffy light brown hair tickling his eyes as he took more deep breaths. Jelpax wanted to say something, but didn’t know what, and ended up going with nothing for what was probably too long. Thankfully, Drax managed to say something to him first, and the one word alone was enough to make Jelpax smile, if only from relief.

“Hi.”

“Hey.” Jelpax sniffed, blinking several times to keep from looking like quite as much of a softy. He didn’t protest when Drax reached out for his hand again, though he was unsure of whether he did it for his own benefit or Drax’s. The question he asked next, however, was absolutely meant to comfort himself. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I—” He cut himself off, shaking his head slowly. His eyes were still noticeably sleepy, and Jelpax almost felt bad for keeping him awake when his body clearly needed to recover. “I’m not supposed to tell anyone. I guess… I guess that doesn’t really apply anymore but it’s kind of drilled into me. I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t—don’t apologize. I’m not mad at you, I just don’t understand why you didn’t trust me. I’m your best friend, Drax. Even if you didn’t want anyone else to know about this, you know that I would— I can’t— I can’t lose you. I can’t.”

“Okay, okay. Jesus Christ.” Drax’s tone was both exasperated and exhausted, and as he slid back into the pillows, Jelpax was fairly sure he knew which feeling was stronger. “I know you’re stressed but I’m not dying so you don’t have to be such a chick about it, all right? Or such a me about it, I guess. I’m a hell of a lot worse than most chicks.”

“Yeah, ‘cos you know what? Most chicks would’ve told me.” It wasn’t true, but Jelpax couldn’t keep the words from coming out of his mouth and once he started, he couldn’t stop. “I don’t know how I didn’t see it. They said—they told me you’ve been on meds since before fucking primary school. And I can’t even think of any signs. I’ve been trying so hard, but I can’t think of anything that would’ve pointed me in this direction and I don’t even know how to take the news and it’s not even from your mouth. All I keep thinking of is that time you wouldn’t let me change the lights. Is that why you wouldn’t do it? Is that why you kept getting so weird?”

“Not entirely or directly.” He took a deep breath before he went on, and Jelpax hoped it was because he needed to take a second and not because he was running out of oxygen again. “The reasons for that were twofold and technically this—this wasn’t one of them.”

“I don’t know what that means, Drax.”

“I know but it’s not quite related to this and I really don’t want to get into it right now, okay? I’m already stressed enough.” Drax sniffed and shook his head, glancing down to he and Jelpax’s entwined fingers before he went on. “I think what you think you should have noticed is just going over your head because it’s all kind of disguised as different things. I know I should have told you sooner but I’m just not good at talking about this stuff. At all.”

“It’s okay.” In all honesty, Jelpax wasn’t quite over it yet, but he couldn’t hold a grudge. Not then. “But I don’t understand what you mean. What went over my head? What am I not connecting the dots on?”

“There are three things that come to mind and they’re all kind of in disguise, like I said, so don’t feel bad when I tell you this, yeah? The biggest one that I think you’re not thinking about is my tremors. ‘Cos I know you’ve known about those meds since that professor’s lounge shit, but I don’t take them ‘cos of anxiety, I take them ‘cos it’s a side effect from the acid I’m on.”

“Okay, yeah, you’re right, I wasn’t thinking about that at all. I just kind of assumed that was an anxiety thing. I didn’t even think it could be—”

“No, I know, and I wasn’t expecting you to, obviously. And the same goes for the next thing actually ‘cos I haven’t even done it since like, primary school, and I don’t even know if you remember but I used to do this weird thing where I would inexplicably fall down like, all the time. And that’s actually something called an atonic seizure, but I didn’t want you to know that so I just kind of rolled with the ‘ridiculously fucking clumsy’ thing. I actually faked a lot of shit to make that more believable.”

Though it shouldn’t have been funny at all, Jelpax found himself laughing at the comment as he stared down at Drax’s hand, playing with his fingers absent-mindedly. “And the third thing?”

“Uh, well, this one is probably going to piss you off because I’ve lied out my ass about it,” Drax answered, his tone faltering. “And it’s also a very recent thing which I think you’re going to be kicking yourself for not noticing but… you know how sometimes I just like, completely zone out? Not for a long time or just kind of spacey, but like, deadass cannot hear you for a good fifteen, twenty seconds?”

“Yeah.” Jelpax nodded, his brow furrowing in concern.

“Right, yeah, that’s a seizure.” His tone sounded almost joking, but the way he chewed on his lip was more upset and anxious than anything else. “It’s called, um, an absence seizure. It’s nothing serious, really, it’s just like, the electricity in my brain is all fucked up and sometimes it just stalls everything for a few seconds. It hasn’t really happened much since I was a kid, actually, so I think that’s because I was skipping out on my meds.”

“Please don’t do that anymore.” With the look that appeared on Drax’s face, Jelpax almost immediately regretted his words, but he didn’t take them back. “I’m sorry I’m being blunt, it’s just… this has been the scariest day of my entire life and I don’t want this to happen again.”

“No, I know, it’s okay. And I’m sorry, I know it’s my fault. I should have said something, and I probably shouldn’t have sent you away ‘cos I knew it was going to happen and it really wasn’t safe to be on my own, but…” He shrugged, dragging his free hand across his face as he sniffed. “Look, I know it probably won’t help, but if it’ll make you feel better, I can answer any questions you have. Or explain anything you’re still confused on, too.”

He nodded, hesitating before he spoke. “Does it hurt?”

“Not half as much as the look on your face right now.”

Jelpax told himself he wasn’t going to break down when his best friend needed him the most, but he couldn’t stop the tear from rolling down his cheek as he held onto Drax’s hand just a little bit tighter.

//

It wasn’t until dinner that evening that the rest of the members of the Deca realized that everyone else’s plans were going just as badly as their own.

Theta’s plan to boycott the Academy uniforms had come to an unfortunate end when the Headmaster threatened him with permanent exclusion, and he found himself backing down despite everything he’d promised to himself. There was a lot he was willing to risk for stupid stunts, but he had no plans to get kicked out of school anytime soon.

Vansell and Magnus had made no progress on their quest to recast the staff either, and found that there were a lot more people who were supportive of the diverse professors than those who were not. Vansell claimed to find this surprising, since Prydonians were so ridiculously arrogant, but he didn’t argue it too much when Millennia tried to debate him on that.

Koschei had, at some point, apparently decided that it would be a good idea to pour old oats all over Runcible’s head, but his plan evidently backfired and left him smelling like sour oatmeal instead of his intended target, which made Theta more than a little upset with him when he returned to their dorm after meeting with the Headmaster that afternoon.

Rallon’s ultimate masterplan to avoid everyone’s schemes was, as always, thrown off course when Mortimus decided to drag him into his schemes with the sole purpose of doing something more interesting than Koschei (most likely because he was angry about not getting to help kill Runcible). They hadn’t really done anything yet, but Rallon was terrified of what Mortimus might think up.

And that left only Ushas at the table, no schemes to be pissed about, but a lot of thoughts on her mind. Because it wasn’t until she was sat there, listening to Millennia explain what was happening with everyone, that she realized she hadn’t seen Drax all day, nor Jelpax since their first class together that morning. She wouldn’t have been concerned on a normal day since Drax skipped often, but Jelpax disappearing was all but unheard of and suddenly, she found herself feeling a sense of dread, like something had gone horribly wrong.

“Hey, has anyone heard from Drax or Jelpax today?” she asked suddenly, cutting off the plethora of arguments happening at the table around her. “I haven’t seen either of them in hours. Drax, not even since yesterday.”

“Now that you say it, I haven’t either.” Mortimus frowned, furrowing his brow. “I thought I saw him this morning, but he never showed up for foreign cultures in the afternoon. Which is really weird because aside from history, that’s one of his favorite classes.”

“Yeah, and they haven’t been at any meals today either,” said Theta, his brow furrowed in concern. “Should we send them a message or something? This can’t be right.”

“I’m already on it.” Magnus waved a hand at his friends when they gave him a look, not turning away from his phone. “I’m curious, not concerned, all right? Don’t paint me as a softy.”

They all stayed silent as he typed furiously back and forth with whoever was on the other end of the phone, his entire face twisted in either confusion, anger, or worry as he continued the conversation. Eventually, Ushas cracked and demanded to know what was going on, forcing Magnus to look away from his phone.

“Drax is in the infirmary,” he announced, his tone flat.

The gasp went around the table, accompanied by wide-eyed looks. “What? What happened?” asked Millennia, her tone filled with fear.

“I don’t know. Jelpax won’t answer me.” This time, Magnus sounded almost pissed off, but he was clearly doing his best to maintain his composure.

“He probably just did something stupid again,” said Ushas, rolling her eyes. “Messed up one of his experiments or did a stupid prank or something. Sounds exactly like the kind of thing he would do.”

“No, it’s definitely something serious, that’s why Jel won’t tell me.” He continued typing at his phone as he spoke, his eyes fixed on the screen. “He says everything is fine now but not to come over because Drax doesn’t want us to know what happened.”

Any doubts Ushas had about the legitimacy of his words vanished when she saw the look on Magnus’s face. He stared blankly down at his phone, his fingers only ceasing their typing when he waited for Jelpax to respond. They continued going back and forth for a few more minutes, but after several minutes, Magnus just shook his head as he looked to the others.

“He’s not going to budge,” Magnus announced, his tone half flat and half annoyed. “He said he’s staying there with Drax right now, don’t know if he’ll be back this evening or not but the nurses say they’ll be back in their own room by tomorrow night. Guess Drax is out of classes for at least the rest of the week, but he should be back in the dorms soon.”

“He didn’t say anything about what happened?” asked Theta, trying to wrap his head around the information.

Magnus shook his head. “No, he just said that it was something serious, and not to make fun of either of them when they got back because it’s no sort of a laughing matter. He also said to not mention it to Drax at all, but you know us.”

“So, they’re not going to be at the meeting this week?” Millennia made a thoughtful face when Magnus shrugged. “All right, then I think we should relocate. Anyone up for a bit of a friendly prank?”

Though several of them would admit they were generally more inclined to participate in less than friendly pranks, everyone agreed.

//

Jelpax was pleasantly surprised by how soon they were able to get home. As expected, Drax had to stay through the afternoon the next day, but it was only procedure as their advanced technology was able to get him back up to speed within the day, and past that it was just making sure everything was still where it needed to be.

Unfortunately, Drax was still extremely groggy and spent most of the next day sleeping. Jelpax stayed in the room with him after classes got out, using the time to do his homework and occasionally talk whenever Drax decided he wanted to start babbling at him again.

Given the circumstances, neither of them were planning to show up at the Deca meeting in the morning and Jelpax had made sure that everyone else knew it was for good reason. He had no idea whether they would actually comply with his requests, but he asked them all to be chill about the whole situation and just to stay calm and not poke fun at either of them—especially not Drax—about it. Given past track records, Jelpax had a feeling they’d have some shit to deal with once everything got back to normal, which was why he was so surprised by the gesture his friends made that morning.

The knock on the door came first, and Jelpax called for whoever it was to come in. It was early in the morning and he doubted it would be someone he didn’t want to talk to, so he decided to get it over with sooner rather than later. When the door slid open, it was, in fact, someone he liked a little more than the others—Millennia. She poked her head in, glancing over at Drax on his bed before looking over her shoulder and turning back to Jelpax.

“Hey,” she said, her tone soft. “We were thinking, and we hoped it might be okay to have our meeting in here today?”

Jelpax glanced over to Drax, who only shrugged. “I mean, it’s kind of a small room, but I guess—”

Millennia didn’t wait for him to finish. She turned back around, saying something to those that Jelpax couldn’t see before she slid the door open the rest of the way and walked in, followed by their other friends. Jelpax rolled his eyes as they all took their seats, almost surprised by how much space they still managed to get between them despite the size of the room.

At first, Jelpax worried that Drax would be uncomfortable with the situation but when he looked over, he saw that his friend was just as confused and humored as Jelpax was himself. He dragged himself into a seated position, yawning as he looked over to his friends who sat near him.

“You idiots seriously relocated the meeting so I could be here?” said Drax, rolling his eyes. “After that whole thing with Borusa about how we can’t possibly hold our meetings anywhere else? I mean, we’re kind of just proving him right at the moment.”

“Yes, but we’re also making sure that you’re okay,” Millennia pointed out. “See, somebody wouldn’t tell us what happened, and we were all worried and we just wanted to come see you. Even Magnus, though I know he’s not going to admit to it.”

“Hey, I’m not going to admit to anything either,” Vansell added, crossing his arms. “You just going to leave me off the dick list like that? Damn, what a dick move.”

“Shut up, Nosebung,” snapped Theta, turning to glare at him. “If you don’t mind, some of us actually want to know if our friend is okay or not. So, are you? You’re not going to suddenly die on us, yeah? Because if you died I would kill everyone in the room and then myself. Except not Koschei because he’s too hot to die. No homo.”

Koschei quite possibly slapped his forehead harder than anyone had done before. He said nothing, however, only shaking his head as several of his friends chuckled at his expense. Once the laughter finally died down, Magnus took the opportunity to speak up, his tone unreadable.

“So, you going to tell us what happened now or what?” he asked, his brow raised in curiosity. “Not that we’ve been dying of anticipation for the last day and a half, but you were pretty damn cryptic with those messages, Jel.”

“That’s my fault,” said Drax, shrugging lamely. He was still slightly pale, but Jelpax knew that was because he was only tired and a bit ill, so he didn’t worry about it. Not too much, at least. “I asked him not to tell anyone. And I actually still really, really don’t want to talk about it so if we could just… move past this, that would be fantastic.”

“Okay, but can you give us hints or something?” asked Koschei, ignoring the glare he got from his best friend. “Just so we know like, the category this falls in. Did you flop an experiment? Blow up a prank? Catch a deadly disease?”

“Uh, none of the above. It wasn’t intentional though; I’ll tell you that. And I guess it was kind of my fault but not directly, and just to be clear, I am sick! So, don’t think I’m faking right now because I will stand up and I will throw up on you.”

Jelpax laughed at the threat, but Koschei was clearly not amused in the least. Beside him, Mortimus looked to Drax thoughtfully, glancing back at his other friends before he popped the question that was making his face twist thoughtfully.

“Whatever you’ve got isn’t contagious is it?” he asked, giving Drax a look. He smiled when his friend shook his head. “All right, then let me get over here because this floor is way too uncomfortable.”

He stood up and bounced over to Drax’s bed, flopping down beside him. Drax snorted and slid over when Mortimus snuggled in on top of the blankets, giving Drax a look which said that he didn’t understand the concept of personal space.

“All right, now,” said Drax, glancing over at Mortimus beside him as he spoke, “I really don’t want to talk about myself and I do want to know what kind of shit you’ve been getting into while I was gone so… recap, anyone? Doesn’t have to be detailed, but I hate knowing I’ve missed two days of shenanigans for fucking nothing.”

“I tried to boycott our uniforms,” Theta informed him, his voice surprisingly cheery considering how that one ended. He adjusted his seating in the bean bag he’d sat on, a smile on his face. “Yeah, I have like, eight months of detention now from getting shouted at by pretty much every professor I have, but all in all, I think it went pretty well. I made a point at least. Or got my voice heard. Let them know that someone is against them? No, none of these quite sound successful, do they?”

“None of them sound even remotely successful. You’re making yourself sound like an absolute fool, actually. But please, go on. You’re cheering me up immensely. Has anyone else done anything that stupid? Or even stupider? Because I would love for this smile to get bigger.”

“Magnus and Vansell thought they could get half the Academy staff replaced,” said Millennia, ignoring the two in question when they turned to glare at her. “Yeah, apparently they’re both extremely classist and they think that because Prydonians have the most power, nobody else should be teaching us.”

“I can get behind that,” Drax told her, nodding approvingly.

“You’re just saying that because you’d get a new temporal theory professor,” Jelpax cut in, giving him a look.

“Well, yeah.” He rolled his eyes, as if the implication should have been obvious, though most of the room hadn’t caught on. “Professor Hinnera already knows all my tricks. I get her out of there, I get a clean slate to start cheating again and maybe I can actually pass that class.”

“Okay, Drax, I’m sorry,” Ushas started, “but it doesn’t matter what professor you get in that class, you’re never going to pass it. You’re so horrible at it that even your attempts to cheat at the exams proved fruitless. That’s why Professor Hinnera found out about your cheating in the first place, remember?”

“That was one time that I did that,” Drax snapped, glancing around to see who else knew which event they were referring to. “One time! But thank you for apologizing before you insulted me that time, you all must’ve really been concerned to stop treating me like a moron.”

“Nah, we’re just taking it out on Mortimus.” Magnus looked over to his roommate, who groaned dramatically. “We haven’t told him yet, but we’re giving you the week off. Sorry, Mort. That is, sorry that I’m not sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” said Mortimus, glaring at him as he crossed his arms against his chest. “Sorry that I’m not sorry that I hate you. When we get out of here, I’m requesting a new roommate and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“I’ve been trying to make that happen since the day we met, you dumbass.”

“Fuck, why do my plans always have to backfire?”

“Because you’re a dumbass,” Magnus repeated, sighing deeply. “How many times do I have to tell you that part?”

It was one of the stupidest arguments that Drax had ever heard but for some reason, it made him smile wider than he had the entire week. He honestly hadn’t expected anything from his friends and, in fact, thought they’d likely forget he existed until he returned, at which point they’d make fun of him for what happened. But they didn’t. They were grossly loyal, and while he’d only seen it in action a few times, Drax was starting to realize more and more that the Deca had truly unbreakable bond.

“I mean, you are kind of a dumbass, Mort,” Koschei added in, backing up whatever Magnus had said last.

Surprisingly, Magnus turned to look at him with a finger raised. “Hey, no. You don’t get to call him a dumbass. Dumbass is my thing. I’m the dick who knocks sense into him and you’re the morons who keep his spirits up. Don’t team up with me or he’ll jump out his own window and then I’ll have to kick all your asses.”

“Before you didn’t want to be my roommate and now you’d kick everyone’s asses to avenge me?” Mortimus clutched his chest dramatically, swooning as if he were really touched. “Wow, I suppose we’re closer than I thought. Shall we have the wedding this week or next?”

“I think you should shut your mouth now because you seem to have forgotten that while I might kick asses to avenge you, I’ll sooner kick asses to defend myself.”

“Are you threatening to kick my ass now?”

There was nothing worth listening to in the conversation, but somehow, Drax found himself unable to look away. It was good, it was happy, it was normal, and he loved the way it made him feel like nothing weird happened at all. Sure, it was a little strange to be having a Deca meeting in his dorm, but it was better than skipping it altogether, right? He was glad he got to see all his friends, and he was grateful for how easily they slipped back into their old routine, ignoring the fact that anything happened to one of them.

Drax thought he might tell the others about everything eventually, but not yet. Not until he was at a point where he felt ready to tell Jelpax about the things he’d yet to say. The things that hurt him more than anything else and which would probably change everyone’s perspective on him forever. Not until he felt comfortable enough to admit the truth to himself.

“Guys, I’m sorry, but can we please stop?” Rallon’s voice was attempting to be calm, but he seemed almost nervous to be calling out his friends the way he did. “I know you’re all getting heated over this but it’s always awful when our meetings turn into big, long arguments. Let’s just take a deep breath, cool off, and—”

He snapped his mouth shut as he whipped around to look at Drax, pursing his lips as his friend smiled at him; completely regretful of having tossed away his pillow.

It was a bit strange having a Deca meeting in the dorms, but they had to admit the pillow fight was worth it.

Chapter Text

“It’s not happening. It’s just not happening. This is not happening!”

Theta threw his hands over his ears, pulling his pillow on top of his head to try and muffle his best friend even further. By that point, Koschei had already been screaming for a good two hours, and Theta didn’t know how much longer he would be able to stand it for. (But thankfully, he knew it wouldn’t be longer than three days since at that point, everything would be over.)

“How the hell did I do this last year?” he went on, his pacing almost deafening as he stomped across the room anxiously. “How the hell did I do this any year? This is not happening. Oh, god, this is not happening!”

Sick of listening to the same pacing, shouting, and nail-biting that had been going on for the last week, Theta groaned and threw his pillow off his head; not showing Koschei the least bit of remorse when it whacked him in the face. Koschei, however, was not happy in the least and glared at his roommate before chucking the pillow back at him.

“What was that for?” he snapped; his tone dark. When Theta only shrugged in response, he went on. “If you haven’t noticed, I’m under a lot of stress right now. I don’t need you and your shenanigans making things worse, so just leave me alone for a bit, all right?”

“I can’t!” Theta groaned. “You’ve been shouting for days. How am I meant to keep ignoring you when you won’t stop screaming in my ears? I mean, god, I know that this isn’t easy, but do you have to do this every year? It’s really getting old and it makes this whole thing way less fun.”

Koschei opened his mouth to snap at Theta but ended up only shaking his head before he resumed his pacing. No matter how hard Theta tried to get him to change, it seemed that Koschei would never change his party planning routine. Not one year could they just have fun working on it. No, Koschei had to leave everything until the last minute and freak out over it year after year after year. And it wasn’t even worth it because honestly, Koschei’s parties sucked. In fact, they were somewhat notorious for sucking as hard as they did.

“You know what? I don’t want you to help me anymore,” said Koschei suddenly, as if he were truly taking something away from his friend. “Now, when everyone’s asking who set up this year’s masterpiece, you’ll just have to say, ‘oh, it was Koschei, my genius roommate and former best friend’. No more credit for you. Nope, just standing around moping as everyone around you parties and you’re just crying in the corner because you were too stupid to work with me instead of against me.”

“Jesus Christ, Koschei.” Theta sighed deeply, clutching onto the pillow Koschei threw back to him. “You’re acting like I’ve just turned down an offer to be the Lord President. This is just a shit party for a bunch of stupid kids.”

“A what?!” Koschei clapped a hand over his chest, whipping around to look at Theta with his blue eyes wide. “This is not a shit party. It’s an incredible event that brings the entire Academy of hundreds of students together and if you think this is stupid then fuck you. This is the single greatest event of the entire year, and— stop mocking me!”

Theta ceased the movement of his hand when Koschei snapped at him, rolling his eyes as he crossed his arms. “Okay, well, if it’s seriously such a great thing, then you need to prove it. Make this a decent party this year because every other year since you’ve hosted these, they’ve been shit.”

“Wow, god, you’re just tugging on all my heartstrings right now, aren’t you? Well, I am going to prove you wrong. I am going to prove you so fucking wrong that you’ll never know what’s right again.”

With that, Koschei turned and stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.

//

“Hey, Zas!”

Mortimus turned to run over to his boyfriend when he spotted him in the hall, hanging out with a few of his friends near a locker. Though they’d been together for a few months at that point, Zasku hadn’t actually introduced Mortimus to his friends yet and waved them away before he came over. Mortimus found that odd but didn’t say anything about it. He had more important things to think about right then.

“What’s up, Mortimus?” asked Zas, glancing over his shoulder as he adjusted the bag on his back. “I thought we weren’t going to meet up until later.”

“Yeah, but I was just talking to Koschei about the end of term party and then I saw you and I thought it seemed sort of prophetic,” Mortimus told him, his tone peppy as ever. “So, I thought I’d just come over and make sure that you wanted to go with me. You do want to go together, right?”

“I—” He took a deep breath, once again peering around the hall before he reached out and took Mortimus’s hands into his own. “Yes. Of course, I want to go with you. I’ll come to your dorm and get you after classes and we can walk over there together, yeah?”

“Perfect.” Mortimus smiled wide and leaned forward to kiss his boyfriend, but Zasku pulled away. He held up a finger as he took a step back, giving Mortimus a look which wasn’t quite convincingly fun.

“We should save it for the dance. Just two days, innit? We can make it.”

Mortimus nodded when Zasku winked and turned around, heading off down the hallway. Something about the exchange felt off to him, but he didn’t quite know what it was and there was no way he wanted to throw a wrench in the works right before the dance, so he kept his mouth shut.

It’s not like it could be anything that serious, right?

//

When he decided to ask his friends for ideas for the party, Koschei had not anticipated the sheer amount of conversation which would come out of it. The positive, the negative, and the inevitable banter that came from the most flamboyant of the Deca. Of course, the worst of them all was Ushas, who was degrading as ever.

“I just don’t understand the point of this stupid party in the first place,” she said, for what felt like the thousandth time. “It’s not academic and it doesn’t do anything to boost our performance. And don’t say that it boosts morale or something because I am tired of listening to that bullshit. You know that the cons outweigh the bad. It’s distracting, it’s loud, it’s obnoxious, and it’s—”

“The greatest party of the year?” Koschei nodded eagerly, as if that were genuinely what she was going to finish with. “Yes, I know. Now just shut up and support me, yeah? I need to make this party killer this year so that people don’t try to kill me again. Do you have any ideas? At all?”

“Yes,” said Theta, pointing a fork in his direction before realizing the strange gesture and dropping it back onto his lunch plate. “I think that if you want this to be a really great party, then you should not be the one to plan it. Back when Ulla was hosting them, they were absolutely phenomenal. But now they just make everyone want to blow their brains out.”

“Wow, harsh. Ulla’s parties might have been great, but they weren’t—okay, yeah, you’re right. Her parties were the shit. How do I make a party like that? What am I missing in this? There has to be something she was doing that made it all work so well, right?”

“Yes, I believe what it was was that she was an experienced party planner,” Vansell piped up. “Koschei is just some dumbass that thought he’d ask for the job so that he could pick up chicks. I don’t know how the hell he thought that was going to work, but clearly it hasn’t so—”

“Shut up, you’re not helping!” Koschei snapped, glaring at him. “I need someone fun to talk to about this. Someone like… Drax. You’re a busybody, right? Remarkably extroverted, always on top of things, biggest loudmouth in the crowd?”

“Well, yeah.” Drax nodded, but didn’t stop picking at his meal, not bothering to give Koschei his gaze. “But you should know that my plans for this week mostly concern destroying your party, so I don’t think I’m the person you’re looking for in terms of making it better. Sorry.”

Koschei groaned dramatically, throwing his hands into the air with no regard for his friends sitting beside him. “Does nobody care about this party? Does nobody care about me? I mean, god! Is a great party really so much to ask for? Can nobody appreciate what I’m trying to do here?”

“No.” Magnus shook his head, his blond hair flapping slightly around his ears. “Nobody gives a shit about what you’re trying to do here. Sorry to break it to you—well, no not really, but—your parties suck ass. Every year. Literally. I swear, half the Academy doesn’t bother showing up anymore. Even the Scendeles are hosting their own thing in its place.”

“Okay, that’s a blessing though. I mean, did you really want those guys stinking up our courtyard?”

“Technically, we’re all on the same courtyard,” Ushas added, only shrugging when they turned to look at her.

“Look, just get some decent party stuff, okay?” Surprisingly, the person who finally came to Koschei’s aid was none other than Rallon, who was sat on the other side of the table, his leg bouncing as he leaned forward to speak with his friends. “I don’t know why your parties suck so much every year but Millennia is really excited to go to this thing with me and if you mess it up for her then I’m going to— uh— get Magnus to beat you up for me because honestly I’m pretty much useless when it comes to confrontation.”

Magnus turned to him. “I mean, you’re not wrong. And I’d be glad to do that, just tell me what you need done. Arms? Chest? Face? Don’t go for the face. That’s too obvious.”

“Oh, god, I was just joking. Please do not ever beat anyone up for me. Not even if I lose my mind and ask you to. Seriously.”

“Okay, all right, I’ll just keep going after the people on Mortimus’s hit list then. At least he’s got a lot of them. Granted, they’re mostly his exes and a good chunk of them did nothing wrong, but you know. You take what you can get.”

“This is probably the most fucked up conversation I’ve ever listened to,” said Jelpax suddenly, pushing his hand through his curls. “I don’t even know how I’m friends with you all. For one thing, it’s not that hard to plan a party, and for another, who the hell beats people up just for the satisfaction of it?”

“Magnus does, obviously,” Koschei answered, “and if you’re going to go off about how easy it is to plan a party, then why don’t you help me with this? It would certainly be a lot better than my party sucking and you bitching about it after the fact. And even if it still sucks, at least not all the blame is on my shoulders.”

“Yeah, no thanks.” He shook his head. “Sorry to break it to you, but I’m going to be a little busy making sure that Drax doesn’t accidentally blow up anything while he’s doing his best to ruin what’s left of your already shitty party.”

“Understood.”

Koschei sighed as he dropped his head onto the table in front of him. Clearly, his party wasn’t going to get better unless he could find some way to fix it for himself.

//

“Look, I know you think you’re being hilarious and all, but is this really such a good idea?”

Drax whipped around to give his best friend a look, his eyes narrowing. “Yes, absolutely,” he answered, not hesitating for a second before he spoke. “If you think that I’m going to take back my brilliant plans on this then you don’t really know me at all. This is going to be one of the best years for pranks I have ever had. Ever. You just wait.”

“Why do I have to wait?” asked Jelpax. He was sitting on the floor opposite the hall from Drax, who was digging through his locker for something he hadn’t yet revealed. “Can’t you just tell me what it is now? I mean, it’s not like I’m about to tell anyone else, so it’s not going to ruin the surprise.”

“No, but if I tell you, then you’re going to try and stop me. I literally heard you say that to Koschei, Pax. This is happening, whether you like it or not. So just stay back and let me work, yeah? This’ll all go a whole lot smoother if you just keep your distance. I promise I won’t go too far. Probably. Things might get a little out of hand around the middle, but I’ll reel it back in by the end.”

“I’d like to trust you on that, but I’ve seen these things spiral out of control one too many times to believe it.”

“Wait, wait, what spiral out of control?” Mortimus had been walking down the corridor when Jelpax spoke, and he stopped dead in his tracks between his two friends, looking between them frantically. “Is this about the pranks on Koschei’s party? Can I help you? Please? Please? Please? Please?”

“No, shut up.” Drax shook his head quickly, barely looking back to his groaning friend behind him. “You know how you get with pranks.”

“I won’t go overboard this time. I’m serious. Please, just let me do this. Please. Just this one time. Just once. I will only do what you tell me to do. I won’t add anything, I won’t take anything out, I won’t mess with your plans at all. I promise. Please. Please.”

Drax inhaled deeply before he closed his locker, slowly turning around to look at Mortimus standing behind him. Even Jelpax found himself getting antsy as he waited to hear what conclusion his friend would eventually come to, which may or may not have included Mortimus in whatever he was planning. Eventually, Drax sighed and nodded.

“Okay, fine. Just this one time though, yeah? I’m promising you nothing for the future. And you’re on probation too. If you fuck up anything, and I mean anything—”

“You’ll never, ever trust me with any of this again. Okay, yeah, I get it.” Mortimus waved a hand around dismissively, the excitement overwhelming his expression. “All right, so, when do I start? What do you need me to do? How big is the thing we’re planning?”

“Uh, the thing I’m planning is pretty big, but I’m not going to tell you everything. Your part of the plan is just to make sure that the Scendeles come this year. Do you think you can make that happen? You’re good at sweet talking people, yeah?”

“Oh, yes, the best you can find.” He nodded eagerly, his eyes lighting up. “Oh, this is going to be great. Thank you so much for giving me a chance. I’m not going to mess this up for you, I promise. I’ll mess it up for Koschei, yeah, but you? No. After this, you’ll want to be my business partner forever.”

Drax waited until Mortimus was long gone before he finally turned back to Jelpax, an extremely humored expression on his face.

“Guessing that means you’re not taking him?” said Jelpax, one brow raised.

“Not unless you want me to replace you.”

And as much as he hated being roped into Drax’s schemes, he didn’t.

//

“Look, I know that you’re really excited for this and everything, but I just want you to know in advance that it might not go as smoothly or be as great as we’d hoped.”

Millennia sighed when Rallon spoke, nodding along to what he said. Yes, he was probably right, of course, but he was missing the bigger picture. That she didn’t care how good the party objectively was as long as she got to have a good time with him and him alone.

She sighed, tightening her grip around his fingers as she adjusted her seating beneath the tree they were sat beneath at the edge of the woods. It seemed like such a simple thing to say, such a simple thing to explain, but somehow, Millennia couldn’t find the right words to do it. Rallon was somewhat of a perfectionist and tended to struggle when things didn’t go his way, and she knew that if she gave him the wrong impression of what she was expecting, it might only make things worse. So, instead of responding immediately, she took a second to make sure she chose the right words.

“It’s not the party I’m excited about, Rallon,” Millennia said eventually, her tone light and friendly. “I’m excited about getting to spend the evening with you, whether the party is good or not. You’re my boyfriend and I’m not looking for a great party to remember, I’m just hoping we’ll get to have a wonderful evening together.”

“Oh.” At first, Rallon’s tone seemed somewhat surprised, but then he nodded, a small smile on his face. “Yeah, all right. In that case, I promise that you are going to have the greatest evening of your life. Unless future me somehow manages to top the things I am going to plan. Because this—this is going to blow your mind.”

In response, Millennia only grinned and leaned forward to kiss Rallon, who couldn’t stop himself from exhaling happily. They’d been together for quite a while by then but every time he kissed her, he felt like it was the first time. The same incredible rush like everything in the world was perfect for just one moment. Everything just fell away as their lips met, and Millennia’s soft fingers tousled the back of Rallon’s dark hair. The way she pressed her forehead against his for just a second before she pulled away, leaning back against the tree as she adjusted her sunglasses and looked to the sky, her blue hair reflecting in the bright light.

For the longest time, Rallon didn’t understand what love was. He didn’t know how someone could feel like that about another person. But then he met Millennia and his entire perspective changed. And it was changing still, in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

In a way he’d never, ever trade.

//

Theta yawned for the umpteenth time since he’d sat down in the chair, looking around the half-decorated room with his expectations lowered even further than they had been before (if that was possible, at least, which he was starting to think that it wasn’t).

Since they were so close to the date of the event, Koschei and his team—which unfortunately included Theta—was already getting prepared for the event and the amount of decorations they’d set up that afternoon was enough to blind a man. Theta himself was meant to be helping hang up string lights at the moment but he’d wandered off to take a break ages ago and nobody came looking for him so he stayed seated in his plastic chair, staring our around the courtyard as they set things up without him.

Every so often, Theta looked away from the other students to check the time on his watch. He knew exactly what time he sat down at and was actually somewhat enjoying seeing just how long he could slack off for until somebody finally noticed what he was doing. It became almost a game of sorts, though it was far from the most entertaining thing in the world and he often found his mind drifting, particularly when his eyes landed on Koschei and his strong muscles carrying things around.

Not that he wanted to stare at Koschei’s muscles, of course, his eyes just happened to be drifting there of their own accord and he found it somewhat challenging to pull them back.

Though he was not looking at his best friend right then, Theta was in the middle of one of his zoned-out daydreams when he felt the water suddenly splash on the back of his head, running down his shirt as it began to soak his shirt and freeze his skin despite how hot the sunlight was outside.

“What the hell?!” he gaped, leaping out of his seat as he whipped around to see who was standing behind him. His eyes narrowed when they landed upon none other than Magnus, who only shrugged as he took a step back, slowly spinning the cap back onto his water bottle. “What was that for?!”

“Thought it looked like you needed some help,” Magnus answered calmly, clearly not bothered in the least by what he had done despite how rude of a gesture it was. “I’m sure you weren’t intentionally dozing off on the job, yeah? I know how much Koschei means to you and I can’t imagine you’d want to let him down on purpose.”

“No, of course not,” Theta stammered, his eyes flicking back and forth as he realized the implications of his actions. “I was just sitting down for a minute because I thought I might be getting heatstroke. Or something. But I think your freezing cold water has cured me of that affliction, so I’ll be heading back to work if you don’t mind.”

“I do not mind. As you know, I’m only here to serve a detention so I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about how well this does or doesn’t go. You, on the other hand, are most certainly going to be disappointed if Koschei decides to shun you after this, so…”

“Okay, I get it, I’m going. Goddamn, you don’t have to be such a dick about everything.”

“Actually, I do. I’m nothing if not a dick. I mean, seriously, can you imagine?”

“Unfortunately, no, I cannot.” Theta shook his head, sighing deeply as he turned back to return to his work. “All right, I’m going to go find Koschei and get back to work now, so no more shouting at me, yeah? I’m allowed to take a break without you getting pissed at me.”

“Yes, you are. But that break lasted an hour. That’s cause for getting pissed off.” He took a step past Theta, shoving a hand into his head playfully as he did so. Theta recoiled, but Magnus ignored him. “Now go before I really get pissed off. I don’t want to stay late again.”

Theta nodded, biting down on his lip as he headed back into the team of volunteers and forced workers as he searched for Koschei, knowing already that they were doomed to work another day of long hours.

//

While everyone else was eating dinner or preparing for Koschei’s end of term party, Mortimus was sliding through the bushes on the courtyard as he sneaked over to the Scendeles’ Academy building. He wasn’t entirely sure how he was going to convince the Scendeles to come to their party yet, but he figured he’d come up with something along the way. After all, he was charming and clever, so it couldn’t be all that hard, could it?

He hopped over the gate near their dormitories, sliding against the wall of the fence until he reached the entrance to the main Academy building. He didn’t want to be seen by any professors before he could slip into the building, knowing that he was less likely to get in trouble if he met with some students first. (Mostly because he figured they would be dumb enough to think he was their friend, but he didn’t want to say that. It felt rude.)

Once he was certain that the coast was clear, Mortimus slid out of the shadows, pulling his hood over his head as he skipped into the building. Since it was after hours, he was hoping that he would be able to blend in better since the students weren’t required to wear their robes and he could pass as a Scendel who just wasn’t wearing his robes. Minus the trademark Scendel stench, of course, which he was unfortunately unable to replicate.

Mortimus nearly walked right over to the first student he saw to try and initiate a conversation, but upon seeing the spacey look on their face, he decided to see if he could find someone a bit more intelligent and a bit more self-aware to help him convince the rest of the Scendeles to come to the party that year. The only trouble with that plan was, of course, tracking down a Scendel who was both somewhat intelligent and self-aware.

Surprisingly, the person who ended up being perfect for the job was none other than the girl who almost knocked him down when she bumped into him, apologizing profusely as she did so. She nearly knelt to help him gather his things, her pastel pink hair flying down as she did so, but then she laughed and stood up when she realized that he wasn’t actually holding anything. She grimaced at him sheepishly, the expression somehow still looking beautiful against her dark skin.

“Sorry,” she said again, wrapping her arms around her stomach awkwardly. “I’m Clereanecansi, or Clerea for short. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“No, I’m fairly certain we haven’t.” Mortimus made a face as he reached out to shake her hand, smiling as he fought every instinct he had to blurt out the fact that he was not a Scendeles and therefore it was more than doubtful they’d even been in the same room more than maybe once. “I’m usually called Mortimus. Unless you’re one of the people who prefers to call me ‘dumbass’, which is cool too, I guess.”

“Oh, no. No, I think I’m the dumbass in this situation. I just walked right into you!” Her dark brow turned apologetically, her brown eyes looking almost sad. “I’m sorry again, I don’t know what’s gotten into me tonight.”

“Well, I don’t know either, but I think you might be able to fix it if you come to a party this week. You know of the Academy end of term party, yeah? You been before, I’m sure.”

“Well, yeah. Not in a hot minute, since us Scendeles have all sort of agreed not to go anymore, but I remember it used to be okay. Kind of terrible, but I usually had fun. I really don’t think we’re going to resume attending this year, though. I hear the parties haven’t gotten much better.”

“No, no, no, that’s where you’re wrong.” Mortimus shook his head quickly, pulling a stray hair back behind his ear as he gestured wildly with his arms. “There’s a whole new team assisting with the planning this term and it’s going to be the most kickass party of the year. If you don’t go, you’re going to be missing out, I promise. You all are, actually, so I think it’s a rather good idea for you to get all your friends invited to this before you all miss the event of the century.”

Clerea smiled. “Well, I might need someone to go with me.”

“That’s fine! I’m sure there are plenty of guys or gals or pals that you can bring. I mean, you’re quite beautiful if you don’t mind me saying, so it’ll definitely be easy for you to find— oh, you meant me. Oh. Oh, this is awkward. This is very awkward. I’m actually— I’m sort of taken, but if you want to meet with me platonically…?”

“Okay.” She nodded, a smile still tugging at her lips. “Yeah, I’d like that. I’ll see you there then, and I’ll invite some of my friends to come too.”

“Brilliant, I’m looking forward to it!”

Mortimus breathed out a sigh of relief as he spun around on his heel, heading straight back for the exit. If that weren’t a guarantee that at least some Scendeles would show up at the party, he didn’t know what was.

//

“…in my defense, I’m not trying to destroy everything. I’m just trying to make sure that this party is fun for at least one of us. That one of us being me, of course, because I never fail to entertain myself with my shenanigans. And I know that you’re entertained too, so you really have nothing to complain about. Ow, shit!”

Drax flicked his wrist rapidly, blowing on it as he winced. He snapped his goggles on top of his head, bringing his hand closer to his eyes, looking at the cut on the side of his palm. He bit down on his lip, closing one eye when he saw the blood on his hand. Just in time, he held out his good hand to catch the box of plasters that Jelpax threw at him, not even turning to look before he did so.

“I keep telling you not to talk while you’re working,” said Jelpax, “and yet you never stop. This happens every single time and somehow I’m still surprised by the bandages on your wrists. I mean, god, it’s pretty damn obvious they’re from how distracted you get. Now be more careful, yeah? I got a lot of homework to do, I don’t have time to take you to the nurse’s office today.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Drax rolled his eyes, flipping a specific finger at his friend before he ripped open one of the plasters and stuck it onto his hand, wincing as it touched the open space. He then reached out for a tissue, wiping off the screwdriver that had jerked and cut him before he pulled his goggles down and resumed work on his project. “At least I’m wearing my goggles this time, hm? No more burns on my face this time!”

“While I’m glad you’re not going to burn out your eyes, it’s rather bold of you to assume you won’t still burn another part of your face. What are you even working on over there? Is your prank truly so serious that you have to build a whole contraption for it?”

“Yes. I promised Koschei months ago that I’d help him out with the sound system for the party, and apparently he doesn’t think I’m going to sabotage that bit. So, my plan here is to burn all the bridges left between us and lend him a sound system from me, designed by me, and constructed by me. If all goes to plan, things are going to be rather beautiful during the second hour of the party.”

“What do you mean the second hour?” Jelpax frowned, finally spinning around in his chair to see what his friend was doing. Drax, however, did not turn around, still entirely focused on whatever gear he was twisting into place. “Do you have this planned down to the minute or what?”

“No, I just want him to think that everything is going well at first.” He shrugged, reaching over to write something down with his left hand before he flipped the pencil behind his ear and went back to the half-finished project in front of him. “That’s not going to work if it never functions properly at all. So, what I’ve done here is add a clock, so it sort of runs on a timer, see? That way, he’ll be able to run everything just fine for an hour but after that, everything is going to flip out the way I’d like it to.”

“And I’m assuming there’s still no way to talk you out of this?”

“Nope.”

“All right then, carry on.”

Drax smiled to himself as he did so, while Jelpax only sighed. He never looked forward to Koschei’s parties either, but he didn’t think that quite warranted making them even worse. Especially not when Koschei was actually trying his best for once.

Knowing there was nothing he could do, however, Jelpax went back to his homework. Someone else could deal with the shenanigans this time.

//

The last day of prep for the party came way too fast and Koschei found that he was so nervous throughout the day that he couldn’t stop himself from tapping his fingers. He kept looking to the clock, hoping and praying that time would move faster so that he could get out of classes and get back to work on his event. There was a very small window during which he could correct the mistakes he’d already made, and he was going to lose that window to stupid, useless classes in which he didn’t even care to pay attention enough to learn anything. It was ridiculous.

When the last class of the day finally finished, Koschei nearly knocked both his chair and his desk over in his rush to get out of the room. He shoved past numerous students in the hall as they crowded the corridors, all pouring out of their classrooms at the same stupid time as him. He all but ran outside to the courtyard, immediately throwing his backpack onto the ground and ripping his clipboard out of it to see what all he still needed to get done before the event the following evening.

As soon as he finished reading through the list, Koschei was ready to get started with his work, which was why he was so pissed that nobody else was there yet. What was he supposed to do when there was no one else around to help him? He could hardly set up the rest of the lights on his own, or the chairs, or the decorations. There was far too much to do and not enough help to get it done in time. And the worst part was that he couldn’t even really complain about it, because none of his volunteers or delinquent workers were actually meant to be there for another half an hour, but for Koschei, that was a half an hour they desperately needed.

There was still so much more that needed to be done before the party happened if it was going to be even halfway decent and they didn’t have nearly enough time to make it happen. Of course, a large portion of the blame for that fell on the shoulders of Koschei himself, since he made a significant amount of changes at the last minute which he shouldn’t have done if he wanted everything to continue running on time. He felt he didn’t have much of a choice, though, considering how much people were already picking on his party though it hadn’t even happened yet.

Since nobody else had arrived yet, Koschei decided to get to work on his own, even though he knew he wouldn’t be able to get a lot done on his own. He got to work setting up more folding chairs, trying his best to get them all out before the others got there so they would be able to move on, but then he snapped his finger in one of them and decided it might be better to work on the string lights. Which he promptly got himself tangled up in, of course, because he’d never actually set up string lights before and he had no idea how it was meant to be done.

By the time he got himself out, there was only five minutes left until the others were meant to arrive and Koschei had all but lost his head start. So, instead of continuing to fail until they showed up, he just sighed deeply and dropped down into one of the folding chairs he’d managed to set up, then promptly fell through it because he hadn’t pushed it out all the way and it couldn’t take the pressure. He groaned as it snapped around him, slowly rolling away from it as he couldn’t quite stand up in the position he was in.

Koschei was still standing up when he noticed that Magnus and Theta had both arrived and were staring at him; Magnus with his arms crossed and a very amused expression on his face, and Theta was just looking at him with his brow raised and the weirdest look in his eyes. In response, Koschei said nothing, only brushing himself off as he rose back to his feet. He’d basically just surrendered any shred of dignity he had left, but it didn’t matter. He was going to host the greatest party of all time and that would give him all the credit he needed.

//

“Drax, thank god I finally found you!”

Confused, Drax turned around to look at Mortimus with one brow raised. He dropped his fork back down onto his plate, suddenly deciding that eating dinner was not as important as pointing out each and every flaw in the seven words that his friend had said to him.

“Okay, one,” he started, holding up a finger, “you have this thing called a phone. When you want to reach people, you can message them. And two, what the hell? We had three classes together today. How did you not find me earlier?”

“I don’t know.” Mortimus shrugged, sliding into a seat on the other side of the table. “I guess I’m not that observant and my phone is dead, thanks for mentioning it. Now, I have something very important to tell you. I can make almost an absolute guarantee that the Scendeles will be coming to Koschei’s party tomorrow.”

“Oh, kickass!” Drax reached across the table to high-five him, grinning widely. “How did you pull that off?”

“It wasn’t too hard, you know.” He waved a hand around dismissively, though the look on his face as slightly flushed and proud of himself. “I’m remarkably charming, you know, and I just happened to run into this girl who was absolutely smitten by me. I’m actually taking her to the party with me. Platonically, of course. I already told her I’m taken, ‘cos yeah, she’s pretty, but I’ve yet to meet anyone as hot as Zas. Plus, I think this has been my longest relationship to date. Hasn’t it? Magnus? Wait, where’s Magnus?”

“He got detention for being an asshole to Professor Camaid,” Ushas answered, shrugging as reached out to take a sip of her drink. “Guess he’s being forced to help Koschei set up his party now. Not that I give a shit, it’s nice to not have him here being a dick.”

“Oh, please. Just because he’s a dick doesn’t mean you don’t want him here. It’s like how you always bitch about Drax and then he disappears for a day and you’re like ‘oh, where oh where is my favorite idiot?’ It’s actually kind of hilarious if I’m being honest.”

“Right. So, anyway,” said Drax, waving his fork around as he pushed back to the original topic of conversation. “Since you’ve done so well with that, I think it’s time we decide what you’ll be doing for the next part of our sabotage Koschei’s party plan.”

“Did you say you’re sabotaging Koschei’s party?” asked a student, snorting as he passed by. “Mind if I join in?”

Drax snapped around to look at him, jabbing his fork in the kid’s direction. “You so much as look at him funny and when you wake up in the morning, your locker is going to be crawling with flutterwing larva. That’s not a threat, that’s a promise. Now fuck off.”

The kid rolled his eyes as he walked away, but none of the members of the Deca at the table reacted. They all felt the same way as Drax. He was allowed to mess with Koschei because he was part of their group, but if anyone else made any move to go after him, that was cause for revenge and they weren’t going to argue that after decades of following the unspoken rule. It was just the way their friendship worked and that was how it was going to be.

“Anyway,” Drax said again, glancing over his shoulder to make sure that nobody was listening this time, “I need you to convince Koschei that you’ve taken his side. Work with him. Be his friend. Get on his good side so that when I send everything sour, you’ll be able to convince him that you’ve been his friend all along and then you can back stab him just to drive the knife in a little deeper.”

“Jesus Christ, Drax.” Jelpax shook his head, suddenly closing his book and dropping it onto the table beside his empty dinner plate. “Are you seriously doing this for fun or has Koschei done something to piss you off? Because this is reaching all new levels of fucked up and I’m seriously doubting that you’ve done it without cause.”

“There is no cause. I’m just getting more and more fucked up by the day. Just wait until you see how far I’m willing to go. You think I’m soft but there’s no end to the Drax train to Hell.”

Jelpax made a face. “What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. Don’t question me. Just shut up, this is none of your business anyway. I’m talking to Mortimus right now. Right, mate? You want to get in on this, don’t you? It was your idea in the first place, wasn’t it?”

“My idea in the first place?” Mortimus shook his head, his brow furrowed. “I don’t know what you’re referring to. Do you mean it was my idea to sabotage Koschei’s party or my idea to get involved? Because I definitely did the latter, but I don’t think I did the former. Did I?”

“No, you idiot.” Drax sighed, shaking his head as he resisted the urge to slap a hand against it. “It was your idea to be my assistant in this. Obviously, the idea to sabotage his party was all mine. Why the hell would you be helping me with your plan? That doesn’t even make any sense.”

And, Jelpax thought, neither did the rest of the argument their conversation devolved into.

//

Though she knew that the party would not be anything special, Millennia still felt that she needed to do her best to make it a great evening. She rummaged through her closet for far too long looking for something to wear, knowing that if she wanted to impress Rallon, she would have to wear something truly remarkable. (Though, not really, because Rallon seemed to be blown away no matter what she wore or did.)

It was after around twenty minutes of looking, finding something, realizing her accessories didn’t match, and repeating, when Ushas finally called her out on what she was doing. Millennia nearly fell over in her surprise when she heard Ushas call from behind her, dropping the two dresses in her hands as she hurried to turn around.

“Sorry, did you need something?” she asked, her brow furrowed apologetically.

“No, I just wanted to know if you were going to keep doing this all evening,” said Ushas, crossing her arms. “You’ve been mumbling to yourself for ages and as far as I can tell, you’re not even saying anything important. It’s very distracting and I’m concerned I might mess up this equation. Also, in case you hadn’t noticed, the party tomorrow is going to be terrible, so there’s really no reason to be getting all fancy for it.”

“That’s what you think, but I want to look nice for Rallon. Whether or not the party is good, we’re still going to be going on a date, and I want it to be a great night. Plus, I know he’s already committed to wearing a suit so if I don’t wear something equally dressy then the whole evening is just going to be awkward.”

“Right, and you don’t want that considering how awkward Rallon is without any outside help. Not that I have anything against him or awkwardness, of course, but I do find that it gets a tad exhausting at times. Especially in cases where you’re around him for a long time, like you are. Actually, do you mind if I ask how you’ve managed that? Because it’s truly quite impressive. If I’m being honest, it’s quite admirable, the way you can—”

“Sorry, can you not say it’s admirable for me to be putting up with my boyfriend?” Millennia narrowed her eyes, folding her arms against her chest. “I personally don’t think it’s hard to spend time with him in the least and quite honestly, I find the fact that you think it is to be rather insulting.”

Ushas shrugged. “I suppose that’s not the worst thing, considering I was sort of trying to be insulting when I said that. But don’t take it personally. I have issues with Rallon, not you. You’re perfectly fine. But you’re also not very awkward and weird to hang out with.”

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say it at all.”

Sending one last glare her friend’s way, Millennia turned back to her closet, picking up the things she’d dropped in her surprise and searching through her racks for something else to wear. She knew she would be able to find something that felt right, she just didn’t know what it was yet.

//

“This is it. These are the final hours of our preparation.”

Theta did everything he could to stifle his yawn, not wanting Koschei to see just how utterly bored he was with listening to his friend ramble about how they had only so much time left to finish setting up for the party. Theta was honestly incredibly sick of everything to do with the event and wanted more than anything for it to just be over with, but he couldn’t bring himself to admit to that. Especially not to Koschei, who was so utterly proud of everything they’d managed to achieve so far.

Not that what they’d prepared was anything to write home about, of course, unless crappy string lights and a few dozen folding chairs were suddenly something impressive. Personally, Theta thought their best attraction would be the music, since he so helpfully aided in the choosing of the playlist, but there was no guarantee that Koschei’s sound system was even going to work and it certainly wouldn’t magically improve the rest of the shitty party.

“Okay, so we just need to get a few things finished before we head back to the dorms for the night,” Koschei went on, his eyes fixed on a clipboard in front of him. “I think that it’s most important for us to finish the setup, like the lights and the chairs and the decorations and all that. Tomorrow we’ll meet here and get the snacks and the sound system ready. By the time the party starts, everything should be good to go. Questions?”

“Yes.” Magnus nodded, the expression on his face neither interested nor fully awake. “Are you going to tell us what we need to do here tonight or are you just going to keep babbling on about things we already know? Because we’ve already been working for three hours and I for one would like to get out of here sooner rather than later.”

“Then I suppose you should go get back to work then, yeah? Why don’t you set up the tables? We can’t put the cloths and the snacks on them until tomorrow but the sooner we get that prep over with, the better. We’ll be in a much better position to start tomorrow if that’s done with. Now go get that done, and Skori, you’re nice and strong, you help him carry them over. I don’t need anyone dislocating their shoulders trying to carry too much weight today.”

Magnus rolled his eyes as he headed back towards the building to get the tables, the enormous Skori following close behind him. That left around a dozen people left standing in front of Koschei, waiting for further orders. None of them were entirely certain why he’d pulled them from their work in the first place, but Theta figured it was likely because he enjoyed being the center of attention and thought he’d make a speech just to remind everyone who was in charge.

“Now, everyone else find something to do!” Koschei said, looking around nervously as he seemed to realize that he had no clue what he was doing anymore. “We still need the rest of the lights, chairs, and decorations set up before we leave tonight. I don’t care which part you work on but if I see anyone standing around, I’m taking away your invitation!”

He smiled to himself as everyone trudged away to get back to work, while Theta just walked over to him with a blank expression on his face. He wasn’t quite sure how to break the news to his poor best friend, but he figured it was better done sooner rather than later, so he got straight to the point.

“Kos, you know that nobody cares if you take away their invitations, yeah?” he said, his tone slightly stunted as he realized how awkward and uncomfortable the topic was. “I think everyone would actually be pretty grateful if they didn’t have to come this term. Not that I hate your parties! But everyone else… yeah, they kind of hate your parties.”

“Oh.” Koschei frowned, turning around to look back to the group around him. “Hey, you lot! If you don’t work then I’m going to tell Borusa and he’s going to give you a proper reaming and more detention!”

Theta’s face fell, but Koschei only smiled as he walked by, clapping his friend on the shoulder. “Problem solved, yeah?”

It was stupid, but Theta would’ve given anything to help him find a different solution.

//

Mortimus knew that it was far too early for him to be out and about, but he decided to let it slide for once. He was determined to get a quick start on his next mission, which meant he had to catch Koschei before it was already time for the party. Which was why he was wandering the hall at such a strange time of the morning when it was otherwise almost entirely abandoned.

Because it was such a time, Mortimus was not expecting to see anyone else around. But as always, there were a few stragglers, and as he approached the exit to the dormitory, he heard a familiar voice that made him stop in his tracks. It was the sound of not just one person, but two—one male and one female, one of which belonged to his boyfriend.

“…you do want to go with me, right?” asked the girl. Mortimus didn’t recognize her voice and upon peeking out from around the corner, realized he didn’t recognize her face either. Still, she was standing awfully close to Zasku, and it was not comfortable in the least. “It’s fine if you don’t, but we’ve been toying with the idea since the end of last term, and—”

“No, no, of course I want to go with you.” Zasku swallowed hard, wetting his lips and glancing around the hall before he went on, his voice low. “It’s just that I have a bit of a prior engagement. I’m really sorry that I promised you back then, but I don’t think I can take you. I really would like to, but it’s just—”

“If you want to, then why won’t you? I thought you liked me, Zas. Did something happen? Are you being forced to take someone else? If there’s something you need to tell me then please, do it. Don’t just suffer in silence. I can help you.”

“I don’t need help with anything, Aels. It’s just that there’s someone else I really want to go with, and I’ve kind of already committed to—”

Zasku was cut off by Aels suddenly leaning forward and planting her lips on his, pushing him back into the wall as she did so. Given what was said, Mortimus thought for certain that Zasku would shove her away immediately, but he didn’t. Instead, he just melted into it, relaxing into the kiss instead of doing his best to get out of it. Mortimus’s hearts dropped into his stomach, his breath catching into his throat as he tried his best to stay quiet, even biting down on his lip to stop himself from saying a word.

Though it seemed like such a ridiculous thing to be freaking out over, Mortimus thought he could almost feel his hearts breaking apart. One moment ago, it looked like Zasku was being loyal—though he clearly hadn’t told this Aels person that he was taken any time since they got together—and suddenly he was trying to eat her tongue.

Over the years, Mortimus himself did a lot of stupid things. He got broken up with for a lot of very valid reasons, but it was never because of someone else before. Yes, that was kind of a terrible thing, but he had to admit that every one of his breakups and short-lived relationships was the way it was because he was a creep or an idiot or fucked something up in some other way but he’d never had his heart broken like that before.

He’d never felt as crushed as he was right then.

When Zasku finally pushed Aels off him, it was already too late to make amends. The damage had been done and though Zasku didn’t even know what happened, he didn’t think there was any way they would be able to recover from it. Especially not if he covered up what happened, which Mortimus had a really bad feeling he would. A really, horrible feeling. He took a deep breath, peeking around the corner as Zasku and Aels got into an argument about what happened.

Mortimus wanted to side with his boyfriend and pretend that everything was okay. More than anything, he wanted everything to be okay. And for a split second, he thought that it might be. He thought that, regardless of everything he’d seen, he would be able to forgive and forget what happened because Zasku was already fighting back though he’d had a moment of weakness. He was already regretting his actions and he clearly cared about Mortimus more than whoever this girl was.

But then he said the deal breaker and Mortimus couldn’t stop himself from turning and running back up the stairs, suddenly forgetting what he’d been planning to talk to Koschei about, therefore abandoning his entire plan.

“Just go with me, Zas. You know I’m better than whoever else is forcing you.”

“I— okay. I’ll take care of it, all right? I’ll save you a dance later.”

The last thing Mortimus saw before he ran out of sight was the sinister smile on Aels’s face.

//

The final hour leading up to the start of the dance was one of the most stressful times in Koschei’s life. He found himself running back and forth across the courtyard for the entire time, making sure that everything was in its place the best that it could be. It wasn’t perfect but it was rather good, and he was pleased with the way things looked so far.

Somehow, they’d managed to get everything Koschei wanted finished the night before completed, so the chairs, decorations, lights, tables, and everything else was all set up. All they were still working on at the moment was getting all the snacks set out and preparing for the rush of students that was due to arrive in less than an hour.

Drax was there helping Koschei set up the sound system too, screwing in speakers all around the area and leaving a specific place across from the entrance where they would be able to control what was playing. Despite how Drax had claimed he would be ruining Koschei’s party, that didn’t seem to be happening, and Koschei was more than grateful for that fact. It was nice and calm so far, and the teamwork was much appreciated when it came to getting everything done in time.

Speaking of teamwork, Koschei had gotten several of his friends to show up early, though Magnus, Mortimus, and Millennia were still nowhere to be seen. The others were all wandering around helping him get ready, though, and with their assistance, Koschei knew that everything was going to be finished in ample time. They nearly had the snacks ready; the lights were all turned on and ready to go, and the music was mere minutes away from being ready to play. Basically, what had once seemed an impossible task was now coming to fruition and Koschei wanted to cry tears of joy.

For the last… however many years he’d been planning the end of term parties, they’d sucked. Every time he tried his best (okay, a lot of times he didn’t really try at all, but he chose to ignore that for the time being), and every time he failed. Repeatedly. But this time was going to be different. This time, everything was going to go to plan, and it was going to be one of the best parties that Gallifrey had ever seen. This time, people wouldn’t throw fruit at him the following day, they would let him crowd surf in the dining hall as they celebrated his success.

Koschei couldn’t help but smile as he saw Drax give him the thumbs up. The music was set up, the atmosphere was at its best, and they were only minutes away from the guests arriving. Everything, for once, was finally going to be perfect. Everyone, for once, was going to love what he came up with. Even the professors were going to praise him for his work, and if everything went to plan, they would want him to host all the events until he graduated (or got permanently excluded because at that point, it seemed equally as plausible).

With minutes left to go, he bounced over to the entrance to the school, putting on his best smile to greet people as they arrived. He’d only be able to welcome the Prydonians who arrived, but he didn’t really care that he couldn’t see the others. It wasn’t like they were important anyway, and not just because he didn’t see them daily and so they had no true ability to praise him which, while it definitely wasn’t what he was doing this for, was still a great added benefit.

When it was nearly time to start the party, Koschei couldn’t stop himself from looking down at his watch. Any minute the people would start pouring in. Any minute, his incredible event would finally start, and he would get the redemption he so desperately sought. Everything was falling into place and finally, finally he would have the fame he expected when he signed up to be the new party planner in the first place.

Theta joined him at his side when the people started pouring in, helping him to greet the random students and shooting him a smile every few seconds. Their other three friends had still yet to arrive so he wasn’t entirely happy yet, but he knew they wouldn’t let him down, so he kept his spirits up. The music was started, the lights were flickering beautifully, and the snack table was already being raided by those not interested in dancing. The smile refused to fall from Koschei’s face as he greeted more and more students, waving to those he did and did not recognize. If there was one thing he knew, it was this party was going to be great.

Possibly even the greatest of all time.

Chapter Text

The party got off to a great start, if Koschei did say so himself.

Despite how much they’d complained about the upcoming event before it happened, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and it was all going exactly the way Koschei had been envisioning it for the last several days. The setting was perfect, the music was perfect, and people were all chatting and dancing in the exact way that he’d pictured. Everything was just incredible and there was nothing he would have changed about it.

Until Theta came over to his side and told him that people were still bitching because the “greatest party of all time” as he’d called it, was only marginally better than last year’s. Suddenly, instead of overflowing with glee, Koschei found himself ready to punch someone and clenched his hands into fists as he looked around, trying to find those who weren’t enjoying themselves.

But, oddly enough, he couldn’t find any. Everyone seemed to be happy, dancing around and eating snacks and chattering with their friends, except for one single person he saw sitting in a chair all by himself. Once single person that he recognized as one of his close friends (but not his closest friends), who he could not simply sit by and allow to be sad—and not just because his being down could bring down the entire mood of the party. So, instead of watching him mope from afar, Koschei wandered over to where Rallon was sitting, waving as he got closer to him.

“Hey,” said Rallon quietly, as he glanced up toward Koschei.

“Hi.” Koschei nodded to him, sliding down into the seat beside him, only to go crashing straight through the seat and have it snap on him again. He cried out when it did so, pounding his fist angrily against the ground beneath him. “Goddammit!”

“Great folding chair.” Confused, Rallon furrowed his brow and held out a hand to help Koschei to his feet, not saying a word when his friend walked around him to sit in the chair on the other side. “Did you need something, or…?”

“Yeah, I was just wondering why you look so down. It’s not because of the party, is it? Because if it is, it’s probably best that you leave so you don’t bum out anyone else.”

He shook his head, tugging at the collar of his sharp black suit. “No, it’s just that Millennia’s really late and I’m starting to worry that she might have— wow.”

Rallon stood up suddenly, his brown eyes going wide as he spotted Millennia coming down the steps towards them. She was wearing a knee-length, elegant, pale pink dress which flowed around her perfectly. Her sparkling silver shoes and jewelry matched, right down to her shiny headband. She waved when she saw Rallon, a smile appearing on her face.

Needless to say, Koschei didn’t have to do anything else, as all Rallon’s fears faded away when he reached out to take Millennia’s hand, guiding her around to the dance floor.

//

After finishing the last of his tasks for the setup of Koschei’s party, Magnus decided to retire to a quiet space for a while. Once his time ran out for that, he needed to get changed for the party, but he took his time getting back to the dorms. By the time he made it to his bedroom, the party was already in full swing, so he didn’t expect anyone to be around.

Which was exactly why he was so surprised to find that Mortimus had yet to leave their dorm.

Magnus didn’t even see him at first but heard his shaking breaths which led him to the side of Mortimus’s bed nearest the closet. His roommate was leaning back against his bed frame, his knees pulled up to his chest and his hands covering his face. He didn’t look up when Magnus walked over to him, only hiding his face even more.

“Hey, Mort.” Magnus didn’t kneel beside him, instead leaning against the wall between Mortimus’s closet and the restroom, not wanting to touch any more of the crap on the floor than he needed to. Predictably, his roommate did not respond, and he hesitated before trying again, deciding whether he truly wanted to go through with it. “Mortimus. What happened? You don’t have to tell me everything, just say who you need me to clock.”

“It was Zas.” His words were slurred with sobs, his tone so sad and pathetic that if Magnus had any source of empathy, that nearly managed to touch it. “I saw him yesterday snogging some girl in the hall, and from what he said I thought he was going to tell her off and come back to me but then he sent me a message and he said that it wasn’t working and he didn’t want to go with me anymore because he doesn’t even like guys so I guess he’s going with his ex-girlfriend and her mates instead.”

“Okay.” He knew that Mortimus needed to hear something more than that but unfortunately, Magnus was not one for compassion or empathy and had no idea what he was meant to say, so he only nodded as he allowed Mortimus a minute to gather his thoughts. “Do you still want me to clock him or are we not at that point yet?”

“I don’t know what I want.” Mortimus finally dropped his hands, revealing the grim look on his face. Magnus was surprised to see the grays streaks on his cheeks and realized after a moment that he’d actually been wearing eyeliner, which meant he was likely excited for the party before all that went down. Once noticing that, he also realized that Mortimus was half-dressed, with shiny black pants on and a powder blue dress shirt, his tie dropped around his neck haphazardly. “I just— I didn’t think this was going to happen. This was the best relationship I’ve ever had, and I don’t know what to do. I didn’t— of all the fucked-up things my relationships have ended over, I never saw this coming.”

“Believe me, I didn’t either. You’ve done some weird shit, Mort, but Zasku really crossed a line here. I mean, I don’t even see how this makes sense. I saw you two together far more than I’d have liked to, and he did some things that really made it look like he’s into guys.”

“I know! That’s why I didn’t— I saw him with her before she tried to get back together with him, and it seemed like he didn’t want to. He kept saying he had someone else he was going to go to the party with and he kicked her away when she snogged him and now he’s going with her anyway. Why would he do that to me? What did I do wrong?”

“I hate to say this, because it sounds really wrong,” Magnus started, sighing deeply, “but if you’re telling the truth right now then I really don’t think you’ve done anything wrong at all. I know this is a shitty situation but there’s nothing you could have done to stop it and honestly, it’s probably best you got out when you did. Things like this happen. It’s not your fault.”

“Then why do I feel like such a piece of shit right now?”

It was at that moment that Magnus first wished he knew what to say. Mortimus dropped his head back into his hands, his shoulders shaking as his breath got faster, his face scrunching up as he pulled his eyes shut. It was a pitiful sight to behold and if it were any other day, Magnus would probably be calling on Millennia for help with dealing with such a strange situation. But she was off having fun somewhere, as was the rest of the Academy, which left him on his own to figure something out. So, instead of trying and failing, he did the one thing he knew how.

“Okay, get up.” When Mortimus moved his hands to look at him but didn’t stand up, Magnus held out a hand, offering him help to his feet. “We’re going to make that motherfucker regret everything he’s ever done. Give me your tie.”

Mortimus sniffed as he took up Magnus’s offer, rising to his feet before he pulled the tie off from around his neck and handed it over to his roommate. Magnus looked at it for a second, then to Mortimus’s unbuttoned collar, then back to the tie, and elected to discard it onto the piles of other random junk that littered the floor. He nodded approvingly, but Mortimus didn’t move, the blank stare in his bloodshot dark brown eyes saying all that he would not.

“Where’s your makeup? You need to fix this shit before you go anywhere.” He made a face around Mortimus’s face, a slightly disgusted expression on his face. “And get a hairbrush too, you still don’t know how to take care of longer hair and it looks like a bird tried to make a fucking nest up there.”

Based on their typical banter, Magnus expected his roommate to shoot back at him with an equally annoying comment, but he said nothing. And that spoke louder than any words he could have said.

//

For the first twenty minutes or so of the party, Jelpax was pleasantly surprised by how calm everything was. Sure, the party itself kind of sucked, but he’d been expecting that so it’s not like it was surprising, and the fact that there were no ridiculous pranks or drama going on was quite nice.

Yes, the party was still too loud, Yes, there were still way too many people hanging around. But it wasn’t the worst event in the world for someone who naturally hated those things anyway and because of that, he didn’t resent it as much as he did most years. Still, Jelpax knew that things were going to go sideways eventually, since Drax had promised to ruin the party that Koschei worked so hard to create.

Of course, it wasn’t until Drax actually came over to him, an evil smile on his face, when Jelpax became aware of exactly when things were going to blow up. And that was just a few minutes away, of course, because Drax wouldn’t look so pleased with himself if things weren’t going his way. He looked pleased which meant everything was falling into place and it was only minutes left until everyone’s night was ruined. Or, at least, Koschei’s was.

“Please tell me you haven’t done anything too drastic,” said Jelpax, giving his friend a look.

Drax smirked. “No, I’m just looking particularly pleased with myself at the moment because the Scendeles are pouring in. You see that? I’ve succeeded. Well, Mortimus did that partially but it was my idea which means I get the credit, yeah? Smelly Scendeles stinking up the whole party. What more could you ask for?”

“I could ask for a nice, calm evening where everyone is reasonably able to enjoy themselves. Or rather, an evening that I don’t have to hear Koschei bitch about for the next month or longer.”

“Listen, I hear what you’re saying, but fucking him over is a lot more fun than not. So, I’m sorry that you’re going to be subjected to his ranting, but I have to do this. If I don’t, I will be betraying everything I’ve come to love about myself since I’ve been on this planet and that, I think, is not worth doing.”

“Okay, I see your point,” Jelpax started, “but that, I think, is a very selfish thing to say because quite honestly, it’s not fair to subject the other eight of us to Koschei’s torture just because you wanted to get the credit for being an absolute moron. How is that beneficial to anything?”

“It’s not beneficial to anything, it’s beneficial to me. Did you not understand that part?”

“No, I didn’t understand that part, because I thought you were slightly less selfish than that. Not that I didn’t think you were that selfish at all, but you know, I just thought—”

“Hold that thought, sorry, it’s time for my first kickoff.” Drax smiled, raising his eyebrows as he started to bounce away.

“Any chance you’re going to tell me what exactly you’re getting up to?” asked Jelpax, the fear clear in his eyes.

He shook his head. “It’s a surprise.”

“I hate surprises.”

“You say that every time.”

Despite his friend’s reaction, Drax was not the least off-put and ran out into the crowd with the same smile he’d had on his face already, more than prepared to get the chaos started.

//

“You look so lovely.”

Millennia laughed, nodding as she rested her head against Rallon’s shoulder, not stopping their small movements as they continued their slow dance. “You’ve said that about twenty times now, Rallon. I think I’ve gotten the point.”

“I know, I know.” Rallon nodded, his brow furrowing awkwardly. “It’s just that you’re so beautiful, I’m having a hard time stopping myself from saying anything. And I’m not just talking about the dress or the hair, for the record, I mean your smile, your eyes, all the things that you cannot change.”

“Actually, I can change them, and not just through regeneration.” She looked up to him, smiling as she went on. “It’s this fancy little thing called makeup, you heard of it? I’m just kidding. Thank you very much, you’re far too kind.”

“No, you’re far too kind. It’s starting to rub off on me. You don’t think I’ve become a softy on my own, do you?”

“Actually, I think you’ve always been a softy. You just needed someone to kick some of that shy out of you.”

“Wow, nice of you to assume I’m no longer shy.” Rallon’s tone was still joking, the edges of his lips curled upward.

“That’s why I said some of it.” She shook her head, sighing happily. “But seriously, honey, I’m just messing with you. Thank you for the—”

They stopped dancing suddenly, pulling away from each other when the soft music abruptly switched to something with the highest pitched tunes either of them had ever heard. Millennia was only able to listen for a few seconds before she had to cover her ears, while Rallon was so thrown off by the ridiculously boosted base that he thought he might fall over. Around them, the other students were having the same issues, stumbling around as they tried to figure out what to do in the face of such a disaster.

Several feet away, over by the control panel for the music, Koschei was having a near breakdown. He was already standing near the music when it went off and was trying desperately to fix whatever happened. He had no clue what started it but a large part of him was terrified that someone would think he was the reason it happened, since he happened to be standing near the controls when it glitched out.

There were a few possibilities as to what was happening and only two of them allowed Koschei to remain somewhat calm. The first was that something had gone wrong with the sound system and the music was playing oddly because of that and turning it off and on again would hopefully be a simple fix. The second was the idea that it might have been a song Theta put into the playlist accidentally, but when he looked over, Koschei saw that the music was supposedly still playing the same song which had been on before—and that, of course, effectively disproved option number one as well.

Which left him with only option number three, which was that Drax had been lying when he said that that sound system was off-limits from his pranks and that he had nothing to worry about. He had, in fact, not left it untouched but instead rigged it somehow to play the god-awful music that was interrupting what was meant to be the greatest party of the year.

Knowing that Drax had to be behind it, Koschei turned to go and find him, only to get stopped by a student in front of him. Though not in his robes, the dumb look on his face and the faint smell from his skin was unmistakable, and Koschei decided then that Drax was going to be dead by the end of the night.

You could mess with his sound system, but nobody brought Scendeles to his party.

//

Admittedly, Mortimus wasn’t really feeling up to the party that evening.

Magnus was very persuasive, however, and after he’d managed to get his roommate at least somewhat more decent, they were out of the dorm and heading down to the courtyard. Mortimus was still not too keen to actually get there, knowing that he’d only end up getting himself into more trouble with Zasku, but he did his best to stay calm. He’d been broken up with a thousand times before and he never made a big deal out of it, right? Why did this time have to be any different?

Side-by-side, the roommates did not look like they’d come together at all. Mortimus was wearing his spiffy button-up and shiny trousers, while Magnus was just wearing a regular jacket and shirt, with a pair of jeans which were only marginally nicer than what he wore on any average day. It wasn’t too odd, though, and Mortimus didn’t worry too much about it considering they both looked the part for what people knew them as.

The crowd outside was enormous, and through all the students from the various academies, Mortimus couldn’t see Zasku anywhere. He craned his neck, trying to see if he would be able to locate him, though he couldn’t decide whether he truly wanted to. A large part of him wanted to confront Zasku and demand to know what happened and why he did what he did, but another, more powerful part just wanted to pretend they’d never met. To move on with his life and find someone new, like he did with all the other relationships he’d had.

“Okay, I am going to go hide somewhere,” said Magnus, clearly disgusted by the crowds, “you just don’t talk to Zasku, okay? You make him jealous and you piss him off but don’t talk. And if he tries to talk to you, call me and I’ll kick his ass. That is still not a threat, that is a promise.”

“I already told you I don’t want you to beat him up.” Mortimus tugged at his open collar, pushing his hair off the back of his neck. “Now just get to sulking already, yeah? I think I can manage to survive on my own. But I’m not making any promises on who I’m going to talk to.”

Magnus sighed and nodded, rolling his eyes as he crossed his arms and headed down the stairs before disappearing into the crowds. Behind him, Mortimus hesitated before he followed, afraid of entering the crowd and stumbling upon none other than Zasku the traitor. Zasku the boy he still couldn’t get over.

That was the real reason he didn’t want to run into Zasku, of course. Because the wounds were still too fresh and while he wanted to hate everything about the person he used to call his boyfriend, Mortimus wasn’t sure that he could. He was almost positive that if Zasku apologized to him, he would come crawling back and let the relationship continue as if nothing happened at all.

And that, he knew, was the worst decision he could possibly make.

“Mortimus?”

He was suddenly jolted out of his thoughts when he heard the voice speaking to him from the bottom of the steps, the soft tone curious rather than harsh. It was a feminine voice and Mortimus wasn’t quite sure who was talking to him, but he was glad it wasn’t Zasku. He looked down to see the person below him, smiling slightly when he saw it was none other than the girl with dark skin and pale pink hair.

“Sorry,” said Clerea, the look on her face looking sincerely apologetic though she hadn’t done any wrong. “I didn’t mean to startle you. It’s just that you’re very late and I was starting to think you might not be coming.”

“Oh, sorry. I forgot we talked about that.” Mortimus shrugged, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as he walked down the steps. “I just had something come up. But speaking of, I’m not taken anymore, so I’m all yours for the evening, I suppose. Unless I decide to go sulk, or something.”

Clerea made a sympathetic face, her shiny purple eyeshadow twinkling as it became more visible. “No, absolutely not. You’re going to have fun tonight, I promise. There will be no sulking if I can help it!”

Mortimus didn’t get a chance to argue before she latched onto his hand and dragged him out onto the dance floor, almost forcing him to have a good time.

//

“So, this party is pretty much shit.”

Though there were some members of the Deca embroiled in the stranger events of the evening, there were also a few who were just trying to mind their own business. Jelpax stayed behind when Drax ran off to get involved in whatever the hell he was doing, and a few of the others had gathered around his corner with him.

Vansell came over to talk with him almost seconds after Drax walked away, clearly not in the mood to deal with whatever other shenanigans were happening at the event. Then Rallon and Millennia come over a few minutes later, confused by the strange change in music and hoping to wait it out in one of the calmer corners of the courtyard. Of course, it wasn’t any quieter than the rest of the place since they could still hear the awful music blaring around and the endless chatter and footsteps, but it was still better than standing in the middle of the crowd. And finally, Theta was the last to arrive, having fled from Koschei after seeing him run after Drax at about a thousand kilometers per hour.

“Yeah, pretty much.” Vansell nodded, taking a sip of whatever punch he’d found on the snack table. “But it’s not like I was expecting anything else from it, you know?”

“I was.” Theta sighed deeply, shaking his head with an almost annoyed expression on his face. “Koschei promised me the best party of the year and instead all I’m getting is this shit. What’s even going on right now? This is not the music I put in the playlist and I’m fairly certain half the lights have burnt out already. Also, I think a third of the chairs have collapsed beneath people’s asses and that’s all on him because he doesn’t know how to set them up properly.”

“Or you used the shit chairs,” suggested Jelpax, his tone far too casual. Theta’s jaw dropped when he said that, and yet Jelpax didn’t seem to understand that he’d said anything surprising. “What? There’s a good set of chairs and there’s a shit set of chairs. I’m assuming you’ve grabbed the wrong ones and that’s where your problem is coming from. Which room did you get them from?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, glancing over his shoulder as if he were looking for Koschei. “I think we got them from the west wing? It might have been the east, but I really don’t remember. I just helped carry them over.”

“Well, if you got them from the west wing, then you definitely got the shit chairs.”

“Is this really the most important thing we could be talking about right now?” asked Vansell suddenly, giving them both a look. “Not to interrupt, but it just seems like this is really pointless, and it’s not—”

“Shut up, Nosebung,” Theta snapped, glaring at him. “This is none of your business. Go be an asshole to those two or something.”

Vansell sighed and turned to look at Millennia and Rallon. He didn’t actually have any plans of being an asshole to them, but their conversation—however dull and lovey-dovey it sounded at first—had to be at least marginally better than the shit Theta and Jelpax were going on about.

//

After he finally spotted him, Koschei spent a good ten minutes chasing Drax through the crowds before he finally caught him. Upon catching up to him, Koschei had not simply stopped him, instead choosing to tackle him in order to prevent any chance of him getting away. Drax only laughed as they crashed into the ground, interrupting a small group of students that were trying to enjoy themselves despite the odd music that was playing.

“What the hell did you do?!” cried Koschei, pinning Drax’s wrists down to stop him from moving. “You said that you were going to build me a good sound system and I trusted you! I trusted you not to betray me and you did it anyway!”

“Yes, well, that was your first mistake.” Drax gave him a smug look, his eyebrows raised confidently. “I mean, honestly. Look at me. I am known to everyone as a liar and a prankster and yet you were still stupid enough to think that I was trustworthy. Why? Why would you do that? Why?”

“Uh, maybe because you’re my friend? I knew you were going to come after me, but I didn’t realize you were going to come after me like that. I thought we’d come to an agreement on the sound system stuff. Especially since we’d been talking about it for so long. Like, I knew you were going to screw me over, but I didn’t know you were going to screw me over that bad, you know? We had a deal!”

“We did have a deal, and I decided to betray that deal. Keep up, Koschei. Do you not know me at all? Yes, my friends are important to me, but I live for trouble and I can’t get into any trouble if I’m obeying the rules all the time and sticking to my deals so just don’t trust me anymore, yeah? I thought that would be obvious.”

“I mean, yeah, it’s obvious,” Koschei told him, the tone in his voice more than slightly annoyed, “I just thought I’d put a little faith in you. Is that the worst thing in the world? To think that my friend could actually do something good for me? To believe that a friend of mine could actually be on my side? It doesn’t sound that crazy to me, but I suppose it must sound crazy to—shit!”

Drax kneed Koschei in the stomach, rolling away from him and nearly bowling down several people as he did so. He leapt back up to his feet, ready to start a full fight, but stopped when someone grabbed onto his shirt and yanked him back, forcing him to disappear into the crowd and away from his opponent. He nearly shouted at the person but stopped when he whipped around and saw that it was none other than his old pal from the Medusa Cascade.

“Annistyn?” He made a face, glancing around as if he were surprised to see her there.

“Yeah, is that a problem?” Annistyn crossed her arms, raising her eyebrows challengingly. “You do know that the end of term party is open to students from all the academies, yeah? That means I’m allowed to be here, believe it or not.”

“No, I know you’re allowed to be here,” said Drax, shaking his head slowly, “I just didn’t expect you to drag me out of that fight. I figured when someone grabbed onto me, it would be Jelpax planning to shout at me for being an idiot. I didn’t realize it was going to be you, who, honestly, is most likely going to side with me in my stupidity. Are you going to side with me in my stupidity?”

“Depends on what that stupidity is.”

In response, Drax only smiled. Things were about to get interesting.

//

“Mortimus. Mortimus, please stop drinking that. Mortimus!”

Confused, Mortimus dropped his drink, turning around to see who was speaking to him. Of course, it was the same girl he’d been hanging out with for around a half an hour now, though her voice sounded distant and all the lights in the courtyard felt like they were a thousand times brighter than they were before.

“Sorry, I—I think someone’s spiked this punch.”

Clerea smiled awkwardly, nodding as she bit her lip. “Yes, that was you.”

“Oh, shit! I think it was me.” Mortimus shook his head, blinking repeatedly as he stuck his joint back between his lips. In all honesty, he couldn’t remember where he’d gotten it from, but he felt a hell of a lot better since he’d acquired it. “Sorry, I am just all over the place tonight. Why are you still with me? Aren’t you sick of me yet? I’m really creepy. That’s what everyone tells me, at least. I’m creepy.”

“I don’t think you’re creepy. I think you’re quite nice. And I think my friend would agree, wouldn’t you, Hollus?” Clerea nudged the shoulder of a nearby boy who, at first glance, Mortimus knew to be a Dromeian. The whole vibe about him was unmistakable. “This is Mortimus, he’s the one who invited us to the party.”

“Oh, nice to meet you, Mortimus.” Hollus reached out to shake Mortimus’s hand, though Mortimus himself was so out of it that he nearly toppled right over. “My name’s Hollus, he/him.”

Mortimus’s jaw almost dropped right onto the ground, his eyes going wide as he reached up to catch his joint before it fell out of his mouth. “Sorry, Dromeians introduce themselves with their pronouns? That’s badass! Goddamn, why doesn’t everyone do that? Oh, I’m Mortimus, by the way, but you already knew that. I prefer he/they. Nobody ever uses the they.”

“I will use the they if that’s what you prefer,” said Hollus, his tone casual but in a way that made Mortimus’s eyes go even wider. Could this be it? Could he be the perfect person? “Now, did you need me for anything, or…?”

“No, I just wanted to prove that he’s not creepy,” Clerea explained. “I guess a lot of people think he is and that’s not good. I’ve only known him for about a day, but I think he’s really nice. I could be totally wrong, I suppose, but I don’t think so.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can help much with this. No, I don’t think they’re creepy, but the fact they’re smoking a joint right in the middle of a party does strike me as somewhat odd, I have to admit. But they’ve got a nice face, looks like a friendly person. Don’t know what they’re like when they’re not drunk and stoned, though.”

“Goddamn those pronouns sound good.” Mortimus blinked several times, twitching his head slightly as he did so. “Sorry, do my eyes look red? They feel really weird. I feel really weird.”

“That’s probably because you’re stoned and wasted, mate.” Hollus shrugged, glancing around the crowd. “Is there anyone who can take you home? I’m not sure you should even be here anymore.”

“Wow, what a shitty thing to say. No, I’m kidding. That’s quite nice. Uh, my roommate is somewhere around here but I don’t think he’d care so we’re better off just leaving me here. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

He took one step away before falling over and that was an accurate representation of how “fine” he truly was.

//

“I don’t want to say this is getting interesting, but it’s kind of getting interesting.”

Though they couldn’t actually see what was happening with Drax and Koschei, the group in the corner had realized that something must have transpired when the music suddenly began to flicker back and forth between the awful, nails-on-a-chalkboard song and whatever was actually meant to be playing. Jelpax thought that Drax and Koschei were likely fighting for control, but Theta guessed it was the much simpler explanation of Koschei attempting to fix it on his own.

“Yeah.” Vansell nodded, leaning back against the table behind him. Whatever its purpose was, it clearly wasn’t serving it, as there was quite literally nothing upon it. “I was thinking I might duck out early, but this is actually getting kind of interesting, so I might—”

He cut himself off when his phone rang, holding up a finger before he stepped away from the crowds. Theta rolled his eyes, mumbling something to himself about “typical Nosebung”, before looking back to the others around him. Rallon and Millennia were sitting on chairs a little ways away, laughing about something as they stared into each other’s eyes happily. Jelpax was still looking quite annoyed as he scanned the crowds for his best friend, and across the pathway, Theta could see—Magnus and Ushas flirting?!

“Sorry, sorry!” Theta tugged on Jelpax’s sleeve several times to catch his attention, his eyes wide with alarm as he pointed to the two he was looking at. “Am I looking at this wrong or does Magnus fancy Ushas? Please tell me I’m wrong because this is so weird on so many levels and I don’t think I can cope with this. Oh, god. Oh, god, this is unholy. This is—”

“Thete, you can’t even hear them.” Jelpax rolled his eyes, yanking his arm away from Theta. “There is absolutely no reason to assume they’re doing anything other than hanging out as friends.”

Theta nodded, hoping that Jelpax was right, but he found himself unable to overlook the awkward blushes they were sharing. They kept looking at each other in a way that Theta did not like, and they were both laughing and smiling far too much for what he knew about them. It was horribly uncomfortable to watch and in the end, Theta found that the only thing he could do was stop. He couldn’t look any longer without his breath catching in his throat, it was so horrible to see.

Across from him, there was honestly not much to be concerned about. Magnus and Ushas were having a conversation and laughing at each other’s jokes, but there was really nothing about what they were saying that could be interpreted as anything more than friendly banter. Sure, they were laughing a lot, and smiling a lot, but that was just because they understood each other’s sense of humor in a way that most of their friends did not.

“This whole thing is just a disaster,” said Magnus nodding in response to what Ushas had said to him. “And honestly, it’s almost sad, because I think Koschei was onto something this year. It was certainly nothing special, but it seemed like it would suck less. Minus Drax’s shenanigans, of course. Nobody wanted the Scendeles back.”

“I know, they’re stinking up everything.” Ushas rolled her eyes, unable to keep the amused smirk completely off her lips. “Do you think there’s a chance that Drax might be able to drive them out of here again? I mean, I know they’re part of his plan, but seriously. If they’re going to come back next year then we might as well just cancel the whole thing.”

“Well, for one thing, I doubt they’re going to come back next year after this catastrophe. And for another, we should stop talking and you should dance with me.”

Ushas nearly choked on nothing, her brown eyes going wide with shock. Surely she’d heard him wrong. Magnus was not the kind of person to ask anyone to dance and she was not the kind of person to have anyone ask her. The entire situation was just so out of the blue and so wildly uncharted that she barely knew what to say and yet somehow found herself nodding in agreement.

“Yeah, okay. Beats standing around in this corner all evening.”

Theta nearly passed out from shock when he saw that bit happening.

//

Of all the things Drax had predicted to happen, he never could have foreseen Koschei standing in front of him on his knees, begging for help. His hands were clasped together as if he were truly praying, his bright blue eyes looking up at Drax pleadingly.

“Please, Drax,” he said, for about the thousandth time since he’d gotten on his knees, “just help me. Just fix the sound system. Everything was going right and then you had to mess up the music and now my whole party is ruined, and nobody is going to want to come back next year. I’m sorry to be begging you like this but I’m seriously bothered, okay? I just wanted to be able to relax and have fun and this is not—”

“Okay, I hate to interrupt you,” Drax told him, though that really wasn’t true and he had zero qualms interrupting his friend’s ridiculous speech, “but I think you have bigger things to worry about than the music right now. ‘Cos, you see, that prank was sort of twofold, and I’ve kind of got the speakers rigged to blow up with chalk bombs in like, thirty minutes. And that’s probably going to fuck you way harder than anything I’ve done to your playlist.”

Though he was already down on his knees, Koschei fell straight down onto his back when Drax revealed that detail, crashing down onto the grass behind him. Thank god he hadn’t been on the gravel, or that would’ve hurt like a bitch. Still, he found himself too shocked to move, and stayed on the ground, his limbs still somewhat upright as if he were a turtle trapped on its back.

“Uh, Kos?” Drax leaned over him, waving a hand in front of Koschei’s face while his concerned friend—Annistyn, if Koschei remembered correctly—peered over his shoulder. “Are you all right, mate? There’s still time to stop it if we get to work fast. Look on your face is almost making me want to grow a conscience.”

Suddenly, Koschei leapt to his feet and grabbed the front of Drax’s shirt aggressively, his eyes narrowing in anger. “If you don’t do something to fix this before it goes off then so help me god, I am going to destroy you. And I’m not joking this time. I am actually, literally, going to hurl you out of a window if you ruin my party like this.”

“Nice try, but there are no windows around here.” He slapped Koschei’s hands off him, brushing his shirt off as if Koschei had somehow made it dirty. “Now, if you want me to stop it, you’re going to have to give me something in return. Because I have sold my sold and my hands to make this happen—” he held up his hands, revealing the plasters on each palm “—and I will not lose my entertainment for nothing. Do you understand, or should I go over this again?”

“No, I understand. Do you think I’m an idiot? I’ll owe you a favor, yeah? I don’t have time to think of something elaborate right now. But I will owe you something, I promise. And you know I don’t go back on my promises, so…”

“How the hell am I supposed to know that? Especially given what’s happened, I think I should never—”

“Can you both stop?” asked Annistyn suddenly, popping up between them. “I know you’re both frustrated, but I’m wearing my nicest jeans right now and if they get ruined because you couldn’t stop bickering long enough to shut this thing off, I might have to kill a bitch and that bitch might have to be you.”

Koschei opened his mouth to protest, but Drax quickly gave him a signal not to, and he decided against it. She did have a point after all, and not just because he didn’t want her to kill him.

//

Somehow, in spite of everything that could have gone wrong, Mortimus found himself having fun that night. Sure, it was probably because he was half stoned and half wasted, but he didn’t care. Clerea and Hollus turned out to be good company, and just talking and dancing with them was making him feel better.

Until he saw Zasku pushing through the crowd to get to where they were standing.

Terrified of the confrontation and being aware enough to know that he was not aware and could not have a decent conversation in that state of mind, Mortimus practically ducked behind his new friends, hiding himself from his ex and mouthing to the two about who exactly that was (because, of course, in his drunken state he’d managed to tell them both about everything that happened).

Unfortunately, regardless of how hard he tried to hide, Mortimus was not able to remain unseen and within seconds, Zasku was standing in front of him, a blank expression on his face. Wanting to seem more confident, Mortimus stood up to his full height, crossing his arms against his chest in the same bold way he’d seen Magnus do many times before. Surely it would do something for his appearance, right?

Zasku did not seem to agree and instead of seeming intimidated, he just looked somewhat sad and guilty, while at the same time being reluctant. The rational part of Mortimus thought that Zasku was just as reluctant to have the conversation as he was, but the drunk, stoned part of him thought that was probably because he’d truly hated Mortimus all along and he was coming over to tell him that the entire thing was just a ruse.

“What do you want, Zas?” Mortimus snapped suddenly, glaring so hard that his eyes almost completely closed. “Whatever it is, I’m not buying. I don’t give a damn what you want from me, you’ve crossed a line and I have new friends now. To hell with you and your ‘I never liked guys’ bullshit. You know what I think? I think the truth is that you never liked me. You heard all the rumors and shit that you said you didn’t believe and now here we are. Facing the consequences of your actions. Or mine. I don’t remember what I’m talking about.”

“All I wanted to say is I’m sorry,” said Zasku, his tone far more genuine than Mortimus every would have expected. “I’m in kind of a tight place right now and I just want you to know that what happened did not happen because of you. This is all on me. And I’m really, really sorry that it happened the way it happened.”

“Yeah, bullshit. If you really cared about me, you wouldn’t let that shit get in the way, you’d say to hell with whoever doesn’t want us together. Which, on how long you took to tell anyone about me, I’m guessing that’s all your friends. And I’m guessing they mean a lot more to you than I do.”

“It’s just that I’ve known them for so long—”

“And they still treat you like shit?” He snorted, shaking his head. “Zas, if people treat you like shit, you dump their asses! You don’t keep spending time with them! Even my dickhead roommate is nice enough to treat me like a decent person. In fact, he starting to sound better than whoever the hell you’re friends with. Now, since you’re so obviously not interested in me, this is done. Thanks for nothing, mate. It wasn’t worth it for this hell.”

Mortimus didn’t know if that was how he truly felt about the situation, but he did know that was the last thing he wanted to say at that moment. With that last sentence hanging in the air, he turned and stormed off, vanishing into the crowd of a thousand students.

//

Of all the things Ushas predicted to happen that evening, dancing with Magnus was not one of them. But, somehow, it wasn’t terrible. It wasn’t amazing or great or anything special at all, but she liked it. She was genuinely enjoying herself though she was sure that it was only because she was away from the most obnoxious of her friends.

Ushas hadn’t truly been expecting to enjoy her time with Magnus and in fact, wasn’t really sure why she agreed to dance with him in the first place. She was somewhat glad she did, though, because she found herself having one of the most fun times of her life. Dancing through the crowd, punching people who got in their way, laughing as they made fun of people…

She took a deep breath, snapping herself away from her thoughts. She didn’t need to be thinking about that right now. Yes, they were dancing together, yes they were having a good night together, but no, that didn’t mean anything needed to come of it. Nothing was going to happen, nothing was supposed to happen, and she certainly didn’t want anything to happen. Just because they were enjoying themselves for one evening absolutely did not mean it should turn into anything else. And even if it could, she didn’t want it to, and she knew Magnus didn’t either. Magnus definitely didn’t want to. He didn’t even have a heart; that he’d proven on many, many occasions.

“Hey, you all right, Ushas?” asked Magnus suddenly, as if he could somehow read her extremely concerning and embarrassing thoughts. “Not worried, it’s just that you look a bit funny in the face. I say something wrong?”

“No!” Ushas shook her head quickly. “Nope. I’m just enjoying myself for once which is honestly very, very strange. It’s taking some getting used to. Not that I’ll have much time to get used to it, since it’s about time for this whole party to go to shit anyway.”

“I love how you’re implying that this isn’t shit already. And don’t tell me that you like it because whether or not you and I are having a nice time, the party itself is still one of the worst events I’ve ever been to.”

“That’s just because there’s a large crowd and you hate large crowds.”

“Is that the worst thing in the world?”

Ushas rolled her eyes, pulling away from Magnus as she stopped her swaying to stand in the middle of the dance floor. A few people gave her dirty looks, but when they realized who they were dealing with—either Ushas, Magnus, or both of them together—they backed off, which meant there was little interruption to their interaction.

“All right, well,” Magnus started, “if you done dancing, I might wander off, then. Mortimus was in a bad mood when we got here and I’m a bit concerned he’s the reason half these people are drunk. And even if he’s not, he’s probably the drunkest of them all, so…”

“Understood. Have fun with that.”

“Have fun with this.”

Magnus smirked as he turned away, gesturing to the large, obnoxious crowd gathered around them.

//

Though he’d been through many ordeals in his short life, none of them could amount to the sheer terror Koschei felt upon Drax saying that he could not reverse his prank.

Initially, Drax said that it could be done. He took Koschei over to the music stand and got to work, trying to fix it, but he kept stopping, shaking his head, and messing with his hair. Something was clearly bothering him and the worse it got, the more anxious Koschei himself felt. Things were going very, very wrong and he knew it, but it wasn’t until Drax said the words, “I can’t do it”, that his hearts finally dropped into his stomach.

“You can’t do it?” Koschei gaped, whipping his head around to look at the other students, as if they would somehow know what to do. “What do you mean you can’t do it? If you don’t fix this then everyone is going to get covered in chalk and my whole party is going to go to shit. They’ll sue me for ruining their hair and their clothes! You don’t know how bad the consequences could be if you don’t—!”

“I get it, okay? Just shut up.”

Drax’s tone was bitter, and he waved a hand in Koschei’s direction as he placed a screwdriver between his teeth. For once, he was actually trying his best, but he couldn’t get the machine to shut off. He’d planned it so well that he managed to outsmart himself and unless he was seriously missing something, there was no way to stop it without stopping the music too (which he expected would be just as bad in Koschei’s mind.”

“I’m sorry for rushing you,” said Koschei, his tone not apologetic in the least, “but for the record, none of this would have happened if you didn’t do this in the first place. If you’d just worked with me in the first place, this would all have worked out fine. We wouldn’t be here trying to do this until the last minute anyway. In fact, we wouldn’t be here at all!”

“Yeah, well, what do you expect from me?” Drax snapped, rolling his eyes. “Really, if there’s anyone we should blame for this disaster, it’s you. After all, you’re the one who was stupid enough to believe me when I said I wasn’t going to sabotage your sound system. Obviously, I was going to sabotage your sound system!”

“Oh, right, how dare I trust my dear friend? I know you have a bad reputation, Drax, but I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt. I thought that I could trust you on this one simple thing and then you turned around and you stabbed me in the back. How can we even say we’re true friends if I can’t trust you?”

“That’s the exact reason that we’re friends! Because we’re both fucking idiots and we get ourselves into this shit! Now just shut up and let me fix this before it—!”

It was too late.

Before Drax could even finish his sentence, the chalk bombs exploded, showering the crowd and the courtyard in an array of powdery colors.

//

Millennia was fairly certain she was the only person who did not scream when they were suddenly showered in what appeared to be rainbow-colored powdered chalk. Suddenly, everyone’s amazing outfits were all ruined, leaving them all covered in the same terrible shades of pastel.

“What just happened?” asked Rallon. He hadn’t quite screamed when the chalk rained down, but he did let out a squeal, which was far more surprised and alarmed than it was angry. He whipped his head around, hoping he might be able to find out what happened, but there was nothing. “Oh, my god. Everyone is covered.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” Mortimus appeared out of nowhere, draping his arms around Rallon and Millennia, sighing happily as he did so. “Gay. Gay everywhere. Taste the rainbow you fucking homophobes. What a great way to end the evening. Don’t you love it? I love it.”

“Mortimus, are you all right?” Though there was much to be concerned about, Millennia had to admit that the thing concerning her the most was the fact that he was swaying about significantly, and his eyes were notably bloodshot. “Did you get chalk in your eye?”

“No, Zasku fucked me over so I decided to spike the punch and I got some drugs too. Why? Am I blinking a lot? I feel like I’m talking really fast, am I talking really fast? Wow, I kind of feel like I’m going to fall over.”

Before he could do that, Magnus appeared out of the crowd and grabbed him around the arms, shoving him back up to his feet. Mortimus swayed a little bit before he regained his balance, blinking several times to clear his vision before he let out a puff of air.

“Okay, tell me the truth,” Mortimus went on, after regaining his posture, “is the world really rainbow, or am I just that stoned?”

“No, Drax set up a trap to drop chalk all over everyone.” None of them were really sure where Jelpax came from, but they didn’t mind the explanation he showed up to give them. “I should have guessed that’s what he was doing after I caught him raiding the art room, but you just never know. It’s such a pain to figure out what he’s doing, y’know?”

Theta, who’d shown up beside Jelpax and Vansell, nodded. “You really should have noticed that. We were supposed to be doing everything we could to make sure that Koschei had a great party and you let this slide. Shame on you.”

“Hey, he’s not my best friend! You’re loyal to yours and I’m loyal to mine. I’m not going to take any responsibility for his failing party. That’s been on him year after year and it’s not going to suddenly be my fault this time. That’s bullshit.”

“All this chalk ruining my party? Yes, it is bullshit.” Koschei stormed up out of nowhere, his face flushed red and his tone absolutely fuming. He did not approach them alone, as he had Drax behind him, a half-guilty, half-amused expression on his face as he looked to his rainbow-colored friends. “I told you all that I wanted to have a good party this year and what happened? You fucked me over anyway. All this is a bunch of bullshit. And I didn’t even get to dance with anyone! You know it turns out nobody likes me?”

Theta looked down to his feet. It didn’t feel like quite the right time to say that he wouldn’t have minded a dance with his best friend, but he figured he would say something eventually. It definitely wasn’t the kind of information he would feel comfortable keeping all to himself, especially when he wanted so badly to be able to act on it.

“Wow, what a shocker,” said Magnus, crossing his arms as he rolled his eyes. “I’ve been telling you that for years, you fucking doorknob. How many times do I have to say, ‘stop being an annoying little prat’ until you finally get the point?”

“That’s what that’s supposed to mean? Wow, I thought you were just saying that you didn’t like me. Never realized you were talking about everyone disliking me. But it’s pretty damn clear that nobody’s going to be crowd surfing me tomorrow, so I guess you weren’t wrong.”

“Just because nobody crowd surfs you doesn’t mean nobody likes you,” Millennia told him gently, glancing over at Rallon for reassurance as she spoke. He looked rather funny with his face all pink and blue, but she didn’t say anything. “It just means that your party wasn’t exactly perfect and that’s okay! Nobody is expecting perfection from you, we just wanted to have a good time. And I think I speak for everyone when I say that we had a rather good time tonight.”

“Aw, really?” Koschei smiled, blushing as if he were both pleased an embarrassed. “Well, thanks, guys. That really does mean a lot. You know, I’ve been so worried about this going sour and it looks like everything’s really working out now so that. It means a lot. Except to you, Drax, because you messed everything up.”

“Did I?” As he spoke, Drax was looking around the crowd, which didn’t look as angry as Koschei had expected. “I think everyone’s kind of embracing this little stunt of mine. Look around, they all seem rather pleased if you ask me. I could be totally wrong—I usually am—but this looks pretty damn good. Not for the janitors, but—”

“Wait, we don’t have any janitors. That’s us! We have to clean this up! Well, not all of us, but you know who you are. Magnus, Theta, myself. Goddammit! You know what? I should tell Borusa this was your fault, so you have to help us clean it up. There is no reason you shouldn’t have to take the brunt of this with us.”

“Uh, yeah there is. I’m— I— I am terrible at physical labor and if you put me to work on this I’ll probably just pass right out. And don’t ask for proof because I am the proof. I weigh like twelve pounds, you’ve said it yourself, Magnus. Please don’t drag me into this. Please.”

“I can’t say what’s going to happen tomorrow,” said Millennia suddenly, “but I will promise you that nobody is dragging anyone into anything tonight. We are going to go out there and dance and enjoy ourselves and if any of you disagree, I’m blaming the whole lot for this and we can all help with the horrible labor.”

Though several of them wanted to, none of them got a chance to argue with her before she grabbed Drax’s wrist with one hand and Rallon’s fingers with the other, dragging them out onto the dance floor with her. Theta was the next one to throw caution to the wind and ran out to join them, doing some strange dance with his arms. Vansell adamantly refused and stayed where he was, while Magnus practically shoved Mortimus out into the crowd, saying that he needed to work off whatever was in his system before he too took his place beside Vansell.

By the time most of his friends were out on the floor, having a great time, Koschei was staring at them, entirely baffled. His party was shit. Everyone was saying it and honestly, he was starting to see how true that was. People were looking bored all over the place, the music was still broken and skipping madly, half the lights had gone out, and everyone was covered in rainbow chalk. But his friends were still there, having a hell of a time as they tore up the dance floor and tore more drinks from Mortimus’s hands.

Despite everything that happened over the last few years of planning those parties, and how much he’d tried to improve, Koschei learned nothing. He didn’t figure out how to host a party any better, he didn’t get what the last person did to make the events so special, and he was absolutely clueless as to how he was meant to move when he was dancing. But the only thing he ever needed to realize was that if he had his friends there, none of the rest of it mattered. The music could be shit, the lighting could be shit, even the rest of the guests could be shit, as long as his friends were there. If he had the support he needed, the party was as good as it could ever be.

“Kos, come on!”

He blinked back to reality when he heard Theta calling to him and turned to see that his friend was frantically waving him over. Koschei glanced back to Vansell and Magnus—Jelpax had wanted to stay back too, but Drax wouldn’t allow it—as he considered his options, but eventually sighed and gave in. It wouldn’t kill him to dance with Theta for a few minutes, could it? Even if he was a terrible dancer, Theta was worse, but together they sucked in a cute, best friend kind of way instead of just looking like a couple of idiots bouncing around on their own.

Though he was initially hesitant, Koschei found himself settling into the dancing after only a few seconds and found that, even though he and everyone else were covered in annoying, uncomfortable chalk and they were getting in everyone else’s way very obnoxiously, he was having fun. A lot of fun. That was when it hit him; as he held his palms against Theta’s and did one of the stupidest dances he’d ever seen in his life, he realized he didn’t need validation. To hell with the haters.

Because, despite all his complaining, Koschei thought his party turned out to be pretty kickass after all.