Chapter Text
“Hey youngin’, are you lost?”
Beverly was. And the voice was right beside him, so whoever it was could only be speaking to him. He turned his head to face a cheerful girl in overalls with huge breasts. Now Beverly wasn’t usually the type to immediately notice girls’ breasts, particularly since he had no interest in them, but you couldn’t not notice it. She was taller than him, though to be fair most people were, and seemed to be at least a few years older. Orange hair was hanging in a loose braid over her shoulder and her freckled face radiated with friendliness.
“Well, I know where I am,” Beverly said, “I was given a tour of the campus and stuff, I just… I’m not sure what comes next I guess.”
“Socially lost, I get it,” she said sympathetically, “I can help with that! I’m Moonshine.” She held out a hand, and the short boy took it and gave it a firm shake. Beverly Sr believed in firm handshakes, a value he had tried very hard to pass on to his son.
“Beverly,” he said. “I’m visiting for the weekend. I might go here next year.”
“Exciting!” Moonshine grinned. “So are you going to the barbecue thing tonight then?”
Beverly nodded. There was a huge barbecue scheduled where potential students visiting could meet current students.
“Super! Alright, so first things first, we need lunch. You eat hamburgers, right?”
“Yes,” Beverly said after a moment of hesitation. He had packed a lunch, but he didn’t want to blow off his strange, but nice new friend, and besides, he loved hamburgers.
“Great, come along then. We’re meeting my friend there, you’ll like him.”
And so they went. Walking with Moonshine was an interesting experience. Much like Bev Sr she would say hi to everyone, but where Bev’s dad did it with a polite nod and a hello Moonshine would offer anyone a cheerful greeting. It seemed much more genuine and sporadic with her. Less like a social obligation.
“Wow, do you know everyone?” Beverly asked after Moonshine had told a skater walking by that his wheels were sick.
“What? Oh no, I just say hi to folk. Seems so restrictive that you only talk to people you know, you know.”
Beverly nodded, considering it. “Yeah, that adds up,” he agreed.
Soon they arrived at a small burger joint that Beverly under no circumstances would have been allowed to enter with his family. It looked just shabby enough that his parents would have walked faster past it. Moonshine had no such qualms and walked right in, greeting the waiter by his first name.
A guy was sitting in the corner booth alone. He had a thick beard, and was wearing a red plaid shirt, and once Moonshine’s voice rung through the locale he looked up from his phone and smiled at her. Moonshine headed right for him, Beverly trailing right behind.
“Moonshine! ...and you brought a kid?” the guy looked at Beverly.
“Beverly Toegold the fifth,” Beverly introduced himself.
“I found him lost on campus, so he’s hanging with us today. Bev, this is Hardwon, the coolest dude I know.”
“Pleasure to meet you, Hardwon,” Beverly said with his ever polite smile as he sat down at the table.
“Yeah, cool to meet you too,” the other guy replied, obviously unsure what to make of this very polite, very short guy his friend had picked up.
“So Bev, tell us about yourself,” Moonshine demanded, fixing her gaze on Beverly.
“Oh, well I am 17, almost 18, and I guess I’m a pretty regular guy. I live with my mom and dad, and I don’t know, there’s not that much more to it.”
“You just told us nothing kid, what do you do with your time?” Hardwon shook his head.
“It’s my senior year, so I work very hard at school, and when I have time I hang out with my boyfriend.” He paused, looking cautiously at the two of them for any sign that they might have a problem with him dating a guy.
“Cool, I had a serious girlfriend before I came here too,” Hardwon said, and his use of past tense made Beverly wonder how to react. He didn’t want to brush over anything, but he wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to poke at it either.
“Ah, it didn’t work out then?” he asked. No one would ever accuse Beverly Toegold V of being tactful.
“No, her dad was an asshole and wouldn’t let her see me.”
Beverly nodded awkwardly.
“Probably for the best, the distance thing would’ve been super rough.”
Another nod, now accompanied by Beverly scratching the back of his neck.
“Oh Hardwon doesn’t mean that distance can’t work,” Moonshine hurried to say, “I’m sure you and your boyfriend will be alright.”
“Yeah, of course,” Beverly scoffed.
The awkward silence wasn’t allowed more than a few seconds to settle before Moonshine interrupted it, which was good because neither Bev or Hardwon made any move to do anything about it.
“So you’re going to love it here, youngin’. And with me and Hardwon to show you the ropes you will know all the best hangout spots, not to mention the best places to get food.”
“The best of course being the Stump,” Hardwon chimed in, with an almost affectionate smile at Moonshine.
“Is that like a fast food place?” Beverly guessed and Moonshine laughed heartily, shaking her head.
“Nah, kid. It’s what we call our place, Moonshine’s a mean cook. You’ll never go hungry knowing this one.” Hardwon nudged her shoulder and she shrugged.
“I’m pretty good, yeah. In fact, you should come to dinner tomorrow. Can’t have you go home without the full experience.”
The conversation went on for a good while, as they ate the greasiest burgers Bev had ever had. He loved it of course. He should feel out of place, but the few times he did were fleeting, and he found that he enjoyed the company of these two people who were frankly nothing like anyone he’d ever met before. The closest would have to be Egwene, Erlin’s cool older sister, but she was cool in more of a mean and dismissive way, Moonshine and Hardwon were just cool in a down to earth way, completely different from the private school guys Bev had known since boy scouts.
When they were done eating, and Moonshine had had a longer conversation with their waiter about his wife’s night classes, they moved on. They showed Bev all the places his parents would definitely not want him to go near, like the cool secondhand store where Moonshine did most of her clothes shopping. Beverly could only imagine his father’s face if he told him he’d even considered buying used clothes, but he still ended up buying a kind of oversized blazer that Moonshine insisted looked fly on him. It was easy to get carried away with these people.
“Wow,” Beverly grinned as they stepped out of a bookstore run by the most charming little woman. “This has been so much fun guys, but I’m kind of exhausted, do you mind if…” he trailed off, not sure how to ask to leave without offending them.
“Sure thing, youngin’, we’ll see you tonight, right?”
“Yeah, for sure!” Bev assured her, relieved that they wanted to see him again.
Back at the hotel room Beverly fell back on the bed, without laying the throw blanket out so he didn’t lie directly on the sheets he’d be sleeping in. He sent a quick text to Erlin, saying he hoped he was having a great day too, before he fished a comic book out of his backpack and lost himself in it for a while, just relaxing before the barbeque.
---
It was early evening when Beverly found himself on a campus lawn. There were rows of grills, and people everywhere. He vaguely recognized some people from the tour earlier, but he didn’t see Moonshine and Hardwon anywhere. They didn’t have a concrete plan about when or where they’d meet, it was more of a casual plan, so for now he walked around, exchanging polite chit chat with the occasional person. His father would expect him to talk to certain people of course, being a Toegold and all, and seeing as he didn’t think Moonshine and Hardwon would be too impressed by his sucking up to the administration this would be a good time for it. Professor Pebblepot, an older man and the Dean of the Law department, was easy to spot. He’d met him at functions back home on several occasions, and while he didn’t like the man particularly he still made his way over and talked to him, exchanging pleasantries.
After a brief conversation about the importance of boy scouts with a friend of his dad’s who had also been a boy scout in his youth, Beverly spotted a man he’d never met himself, but seen on the website, and heard his father talk of.
“Excuse me, Sir?” He cleared his throat, attracting the attention of the much taller man, who looked over to Beverly, offering him a friendly smile. “I am Beverly Toegold V, sir. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I hope I’m not interrupting you, it’s just my father, Beverly Toegold IV would want me to say hello.”
“Ah, Mr. Toegold. The pleasure is mine,” the man assured him, with a stiff, but friendly smile, before a loud voice interrupted the budding conversation.
“Luke, hello!” Hardwon appeared on Bev’s left side, and Moonshine on his right, and how exactly was Hardwon on nickname basis with the Yale president?
“Elias.” Not mutually on nickname basis then. Mr. Aer’Tea looked from Hardwon to Moonshine, “Moonshine. How pleasant to see you both here.”
“Oh you know us, Lucanus, we don’t pass up on a good barbecue,” Moonshine smiled, stiffer than Bev had seen all day. Something was going on here that he didn’t understand, and he wasn’t sure he liked it.
“It is really more appropriate if you call me Mr. Aer’Tea miss Cybin,” the president sighed, earning a shrug from Moonshine.
“That’s not likely to happen Lucanus. I find the whole tradition of addressing certain people formally because of their status both classist and elitist, so I don’t participate in it.”
“Good one, Moonshine,” Hardwon grinned, nudging her shoulder around Bev.
“Anyway, we just saw our new friend over here, and wanted to make sure you weren’t boring him.”
“What? Oh no-” Beverly looked flustered from Mr. Aer’Tea to Moonshine and back. “You’re not boring me, Sir. I uh-”
“It is quite alright Mr. Toegold. Give your father my hello, and run off with your peers. I hope to see you back in the fall.”
“Yes, Sir. I hope so too.”
The two others guided Beverly away, in the direction of the grills.
“Saw you were making your way through the faculty,” Moonshine said in a cheerful tune, “and that’s no way to college party kid. You’re young, talk to your peers, not those ancient people.”
“Oh, it’s just my dad- he would want me to fulfil social obligations. It’s the way things are done.” Beverly scratched his neck uncomfortably.
“Ah, so you’re a legacy then, whole Yale family?”
“Well, my uncle went to Harvard, and grandpa did pre-law at Princeton, but…” he sighed, “yes, I’m one of those disgusting rich kids.”
“No worries dude, you can’t help it,” Hardwon said, ruffling his hair.
“So, I hope your social obligations are fulfilled, because it’s time to eat some food and hang out.” Moonshine smiled, and Beverly nodded, relieved that they didn’t seem genuinely bothered by his background.
As the evening grew colder around them Beverly was chatting along with his new friends. The grills were dying out, and Moonshine was telling a story about her cousin Cooter, although his actual relation to her was a bit unclear. It was a story about a prank they’d pulled off before Moonshine moved here for school.
“Yeah, Erlin and I enjoy pranks too,” Bev said as the laughter settled.
“Erlin, that’s the boyfriend?” Hardwon asked, and when Bev nodded he followed up with, “alright then, what pranks have you done?”
“Well one time we prank called half the neighborhood,” Beverly smiled, when the other two were giving him blank stares he continued, “and another time we filled everyone’s mail boxes with useful wilderness survival tips, and I do mean filled them up, it greatly inconvenienced a lot of people.”
“Man, where did you find this guy, the boy scouts?” Hardwon laughed, and Beverly could only nod.
“Actually, yeah. We met in cub scouts.”
“Hey don’t feel bad about it, we’ve all got different roots youngin’” Moonshine said, attempting to cheer him up, “so you’ve been a bit sheltered, only makes it more exciting that you get to broaden your horizon. If that’s what you want of course.”
“Oh yeah, I’m all about broadening my horizons,” Bev nodded.
“Great, kid. Stick with us and your horizons will be so broad you won’t even be able to measure them.” Hardwon slapped his back, in what Bev was fairly certain was an encouraging way.
“Hey so you should definitely talk to some other potential students. Me and Hardwon here are great company, but these folks will be your classmates and stuff.”
“I-” Beverly hesitated, “I’m having pretty fun with you guys actually.”
“We’ll be right here youngin’, go talk to someone who isn’t your dad’s age.”
So that’s how Beverly found himself looking around the crowd, his eyes finally landing on a tan red-head who was sitting cross legged on a bench with a sketch-book on his lap.
“Hey, what are you drawing?” Beverly asked, coming up to the guy, who looked up from his drawing, smiling a cute, kinda dorky smile.
“Oh, it’s just a sketch really, but it’s a bear,” he moved his hands out of the way so Bev could see the wildly impressive bear sketch.
“That’s so cool,” he said, sitting down on the bench as well.
“Yeah? Thank you, it’s sorta my thing, drawing animals.”
“That’s a neat thing,” Beverly smiled, looking from the sketch to the guy’s brown eyes, twinkling with pride as Bev showed interest in his art.
“You think so? Thanks. I’m Terran.”
“Beverly, but you can call me Bev, all my friends do.”
“Alright then, Bev. It’s nice to meet you.”
“You too, I was kinda nervous about coming up to you, you seemed so invested in your own thing.”
“Oh, yeah my dad keep telling me I need to be more inviting. I’m just not good at the whole socializing thing, you feel?”
“Yeah, you shouldn’t worry about that though. You seem pretty decent, people should want to talk to you.”
“Well now, you’ve known me for a whole of twenty seconds, I’m not sure you’re qualified to judge my character yet.” Terran seemed flustered, apparently not expecting the compliment.
“I’ll update you in another twenty seconds then,” Beverly smiled, and the other guy blushed, looking down at his drawing.
“So~ what’s your thing?” Terran looked up again, briefly meeting Beverly’s eyes.
“Ptf, I’m not sure,” Beverly said, drawing the sentence out. “I’m pretty good at separating edible plants from inedible ones.”
Terran smiled at that. “That’s a cool thing to be good at.”
“You think? I’m pretty decent with wilderness skills in general.”
“Neat! I go camping with my family sometimes, but we always bring the food we need and stuff, so not too many wilderness skills are required.”
“Hm,” Bev said, waiting another few seconds before saying anything else, “yeah, you still seem pretty decent.” This earned him a chuckle from the other guy.
“Yeah? Well thank you, Bev, I appreciate that.”
“So, do you go here, or?”
“Oh, no, I’m hoping to go next year.”
“That’s cool, me too!”
“Cool.”
Silence settled between them again, neither boy being sure what to say to continue the conversation, but not wanting to let it die either.
“Do you…” It was Terran who spoke up, but two words in he seemed to be questioning himself already, “uh want to see some of my other drawings?”
“Yeah! If you don’t mind.” Bev took a seat next to him and for the next few minutes they flipped through the sketch book, each realistic looking sketch more impressive than the last. After a cool looking owl Terran closed the sketch book, setting it gently aside. Then after a glance at Bev he moved his hand back between them, and practically radiating nerves he took Bev’s hand in his, and before Bev had a chance to say something he spoke, quickly as if he was worried about the words dissolving into nothing if he didn’t speak them fast enough.
“I don’t know if you have plans for the rest of the weekend but maybe if you have the time would you like to have coffee or something tomorrow?”
“Oh, uh…” Bev looked from their hands, to the other guy’s face, where a nervous smile was dissolving into a grimace made up of disappointment and embarrassment in equal measures.
“Oh gosh, I read too much into it, of course you’re not interested, I’m so sorry.”
“No, I’m sorry. You’re cool, and really cute, it’s just I have a boyfriend, who’s like this amazing guy and I don’t want to hurt him you know, or lead you on when I’m not really available.” He paused, biting his lip as he looked nervously at Terran. “I’d super want to be your friend tho, if you’re interested.”
“Yeah, of course. Uh, I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you around Bev.”
“Yeah, see you.”
Terran got up and disappeared into the crowd, sketch book in his hand, and Bev was left with this weird uncomfortable feeling. Luckily he wasn’t left to dwell on it too long, because seconds later Hardwon was right there, handing him a plate of food.
“Hey kid, hungry? I gathered up what was left around on the grills.”
“Yeah, thanks,” Bev smiled, taking the plate in his hands. Hardwon had really loaded the flimsy, disposable plate up and Beverly was frankly impressed it hadn’t crumbled under the weight. He wasn’t really hungry, as they had been eating for most of the evening, but he wasn’t one to turn down good food.
“It ain’t a barbecue if you don’t eat your own weight in meat you know,” Hardwon said as if they hadn’t already done just that, filling the air between them with commentary about meat rather than a single word about what had just happened. “The ribs are like ridiculously good, and the small sausages there has got some real bite to them.”
They sat like that for a while, talking about food. Beverly brought up his cooking badge that he got for making a meal over the fire with Cran, at which Hardwon chuckled. After a while Moonshine joined them, snatching a piece of sausage from Bev’s plate as she took a seat.
“Hey Moonshine, how did it go?” Hardwon said.
“Well enough. Her friends insisted on dragging her along, but not before she gave me an address,” Moonshine said triumphantly, and proceeded to put her arm around Bev’s shoulders. “So what do you think of your first college barbecue, kid?”
“There’s lots of food,” Bev said, earning a laughter from both of them.
“Well said! So, ready to move on to some really partying? I got us invited to this pretty cool party.”
“Oh, I… I’m not sure I’m the partying type, and I’m not really old enough to drink.”
“No one’s gonna tell,” Hardwon argued.
“And you don’t have to drink,” Moonshine added, “there’s no pressure when you’re with us!”
“Oh that’s cool,” Beverly hesitated for a moment. He wasn’t super keen on heading back to the room, and he didn’t want to be a buzzkill, but his father wouldn’t want him partying. “Sure, I’ll come along, but uh is it cool if I call Erlin on the way? I promised I’d call him tonight.”
“Of course! You do that and Hardwon and I’ll finish the food.”
Stepping away from the table Beverly opened his call log and hit the green call button. One ring, two, then-
“Hey, dude.” Erlin’s voice sounded slightly confused, and entirely perfect.
“Hey, dude,” Bev replied, feeling his cheeks heat up just slightly.
“Are you going to bed already?”
“Oh, no. I’m going to this social gathering with two really cool people I met, and I don’t know how long it’ll last so I didn’t want you to sit up waiting.”
“Oh. Is it like a party?”
“Sort of, I guess. I’ll probably only stay for a while, but just in case you know.”
“Hey, dude, it’s cool. I’m glad you called. How are you?”
“I’m good, dude. How about you?”
“Yeah, I’m good. I’ve just been reading.”
“Sounds nice.” Pause. “Hey, dude, I miss you.”
“Same, dude. I’m looking forward to when you’re coming home.”
“Dude, me too. Have a good night.”
“Night, dude.”
The line went dead and for a moment Bev just smiled at his phone, as if he could hang on to the connection to his boyfriend for another few seconds that way, letting the warmth spread in his body.
Partying with Moonshine and Hardwon was way different from movie nights with his classmates. He kept to his resolution not to drink, but it appeared he was the only one. The music was loud, people were equally loud, and the whole atmosphere was a rush. Moonshine soon floated off to talk to some girl named Triss, but Bev didn’t mind as he just stuck by Hardwon’s side. They didn’t do anything really, but Bev had a good time. Around midnight he said goodbye, and gave his phone number to Hardwon before he left, so they could get in touch the next day.
He woke up the next morning to three new messages. One from Erlin, wishing him a good morning, accompanied by a tired selfie, and two from a strange number. The first was just an address and the words “dinner is at five, if that works with your travel plans” and the other asked if he had any allergies.
He responded to Erlin first, sending a picture of himself attached to the message: “good morning, dude ❤️”
Then came the unknown number. The second message called him youngin’, so it was probably Moonshine. He informed her he had to be at the airport at eight, so five should be fine, and he had no allergies.
The phone pinged again while he was in the shower, and when he was dressed there was another message from Moonshine.
We can do four if that’s easier. Wouldn’t want you to have to rush.
Four is great, if it’s no bother.
No bother, see you then youngin’
He had several hours to kill between now and four, so he packed his stuff and checked out, leaving his luggage in the hotel luggage room. Then he decided to take the time to walk around the city. He still had to buy Erlin a gift, and he wanted to browse some comic book stores. The day passed quickly, and after a pretty great dinner he made it to the airport, then back home without any serious trouble. The plane was slightly delayed, but just before midnight a very tired Beverly collapsed onto his bed. While he was writing a good night message to Erlin another message ticked in on his phone, and he smiled seeing it was from Moonshine.
Hey, hope you made it home safe. We’re looking forward to seeing you in the fall.
Thank you! I just got home. Thank you for taking me under your wings. Say hi to Hardwon for me, and I’ll see you in the fall. Good night.