Chapter Text
Doctor Urza was an awful person. His mechanical engineering exams were legendarily terrible. Still, Chandra Nalaar knew her shit. She knew the math, she knew the theories, she knew how he liked to write his tests. Still, it wasn’t going to be easy by any means. She still had weeks of lab work to go through, inventor examples, hand draftings, just stacks upon stacks of material to review. This is on top of her other approaching midterms. Knowing you’re capable of something and actually doing it when it's going to be a hell of an ordeal is another. Still, she had Jace and Gideon’s GSA/Taekwondo clubs party to look forward to. She glanced up across the library table scattered with study material at her first and likely closest friend she made at university, Jace Beleran was one of the first people she had met at university and remained one of her closest friends, even if he was a sleep-deprived looking disaster right now. He, for some insane reason, was double majoring in math and psychology. He never quite looked like he got enough sleep, but it was the norm during midterm season and he looked awful. He looked over his stack of textbooks, making eye contact for a moment and immediately pretending he didn’t. He was always shy, but incredibly sweet and intimidatingly brilliant.
She was distracted from her distraction by a familiar voice cutting in beside her. “Chandra, do you have the solution to the modulus of elasticity lab? I want to check my results against the lab guide if you have it handy”. The voice belonged to another of Chandra’s closest friends, Saheeli Rai. They had known each other for years, met in high school as gawky idiots that happened into Honors Chem together. Saheeli was gorgeous as she was brilliant as well. They had bonded after Chandra had suffered a particularly rocky breakup junior year which had made a lot of things about herself much clearer. Funny the first person she came out to as bisexual came out right back as gay in return. They had been best of friends ever since that awkward, tearful night.
“Sure, lemme ummmm…” Chandra fumbled with her laptop, balanced awkwardly next to her notes. “I'll send you a link to my whole lab folder”
“Shouldn’t you already be like, sharing everything you’re allowed to? In comp-sci we just keep a communal document for every class along with individual notes” hummed an undeservedly smug voice across the table. Ral Zarek popping his eyes over the screen of his laptop, his shock of white hair illuminated by the screen he was glued to. Ral the type of friend that was wonderful to have around but also a pain in the ass sometimes.
Before Chandra could come up with a clever response the last of the five sitting together cut in. “Ral, it’s midterms, can you please spare us your *oh so sharp* wit?" Asked Kaya. Kaya was a newcomer to the group as she had transferred abruptly about half a year ago. She didn’t talk a lot about herself but possessed a rapier-sharp wit and an intensity that made her an irresistible friend and ally. “Unless you want to teach the class about modular elastics or whatever it was, don’t stress them out.”
Ral blinked in shock as Saheeli burst into laughter, effectively diffusing the tense situation. Her laughter was a bright sound cutting through the open study room of Tolarian University library. The open rooms were nice due to the lax silence rules, where groups could meet and work.
“I see someone is amusing my favorite tonight” Said the newly approaching girl with two cardboard trays of steaming hot drinks. “I appreciate it but don’t make any moves on my girl”. She set the drinks down and leaned in for a quick peck on the lips from Saheeli. “Rehearsal over early so I snuck your drink orders from my co-conspirator here, hope they’re right.” Huatli took a seat at the empty chair at the table, next to Saheeli who was concealing a light blush.
Chandra reached up, finding the cup with a “C” scrawled on it in grease pen. The smell of it revealed it to be her favorite and go-to order, dirty chai latte. Granted, she could live off the things and has for some periods of time when school gets abundantly stressful.
The others took their drinks, hot tea for Saheeli, redeye black for Jace, london fog iced for Kaya, and a white mocha with raspberry and extra whip cream for Ral. To be fair Saheeli had been incredibly sneaky about getting everyone’s order.
Huatli leaned around her girlfriend looking in Chandra’s direction “your favorite was there, she asked about you” teased the darker haired girl. Jace glanced up at Chandra with a sly grin while Chandra was willing every fiber of her being not to turn a deeper shade of red than her hair. “Do I have to drag you in there to get her number or you gonna keep making the worst attempt at flirty eyes I've ever seen” She laughed in a way that differentiated this good-natured teasing from outright bullying.
Saheeli playfully swatted her girlfriend with a packet of papers she was going through. “Leave her alone love, she can handle this on her own.” A wicked smile appeared on her completely innocent face, “once she finds her big girl panties and finds her way into coffee girl’s” came the unexpected barb. Saheeli was not often one for lewd jokes but Huatli was an influence on her, and who else to tease but your best friend.
Jace let out an ungraceful snort of a laugh at this line. After he recomposed himself he steeled himself and looked Chandra in the eyes. “Not to be a dick, but we’re here to help, you know, should you need help finding your way into anyone’s panties” His serious tone broke before he could get the words out into deep laughter.
Chandra felt as if she had actually ignited she was so embarrassed. “You all are supposed to be on my side with this” she laughed “What if I'm not looking for anything right now, I'm doing fine on my own.”
“Look, if you aren’t looking for someone that's fine, but you’re about as subtle as one of those cartoon wolves.” Saheeli added comfortingly, “ What we are saying is if you need some support, a wingwoman, someone to help out, we are there for you. We know things haven't been exactly *ideal*” with the emphasis on that word she passed a glance to Jace whose face turned into a slight grimace.
The barbed teasing gave way to an actual almost sweet sentiment, still, Chandra was blindingly embarrassed. “Look, ok, she’s super cute. I mean, hella cute. Like, *unf* you know? But like, how to even try? ‘Hi, I'm Chandra Nalaar, you have a very cute butt and I would like to get to know it better?’” she scoffed.
Ral joined in “I dunno, that would work on me if we’re oversharing”
“No no no,” Huatli argued, “you just need to go in, catch her when they're not busy and flash that irresistible idiot smile of yours, say something goofy, and ask her if she wants to hang out sometime, she says no?” Huatli shrugged “we find you a cutie at the party.”
“I mean, why bother, She's probably not even into girls"
Jace joined in “she has a lesbian pride pin on her bag and wears a rainbow bracelet to work you unobservent disaster.”
“I dunno, ally? Look, as fun as it is to get teased mercilessly by you all, I've been studying this for like 4 hours now and that chai ran right to my bladder so I'm going to excuse myself while y'all come up with more ways to torment me.”
She stood and marched away from the table confidently. “Get her number!” called Huatli after her.
Not giving them the satisfaction of selling that she picked up her pace out of the open study room, through the common area and down the stairs, avoiding the restroom attached to the coffee shop because, well, that's not happening.
Rounding the corner into the main floor hallway where the bathrooms were stashed, she ran nearly face first into Coffee Girl coming out of the little convenience store set up down the hall. Gods she has pretty eyes.
“Ooph, sorry I wasn't…” Coffee Girl stammered out, meeting the gaze of the redhead and eyes widening like a prey animal caught in headlights. “Watching where I was, I'm sorry”
“No no it's me, I'm just umm...” She looked down the girl’s big round eyes and soft face to the nametag on her apron. She had never worked up the courage to read it because since she took up shifts in the coffee shop Chandra has been avoiding embarrassing herself. "Nissa" it read.
“Hey, umm, you made my dirty chai earlier, it was ummmm really good?” she asked, not sure why it came out as a question.
“Thanks” said Nissa timidly,”you're Chandra, right? That loud dark haired girl’s friend?” catching herself, she downplayed “it's from a mix to be honest, I just added the spice and the espresso”
“Yeah it was super good though, umm, Hey” Chandra swallowed her pride, this is go time, “you wanna maybe a coffee, get a coffee, I mean a drink, maybe not coffee you probably are sick of it, to do something sometime?”
Nissa’s timid sheen wavered as she looked up at Chandra, it was almost like she had to call up all of the courage she could muster. “That would. I mean I like coffee too but I would yes, like to do, a thing. With you?”
“Oh ok, err, just text my phone so I have your number, if that's like? Ok?” what the hell was she doing.
Nissa’s eyes widened in terror, “I'm not supposed to have my phone on me on the clock, it's in my locker but maybe I can go get it?" Why was she so nervous?
She's backing out, isn't she? Chandra’s brain screamed at her. “Hah, that's funny” It wasn't funny? “Here's mine, would you be ok just sending yourself one so I could have...your number, if that's ok with you”
Nissa nodded and took the offered phone, took a second to figure out how to navigate (as everyone else’s phone is bizarre alien technology) and nodded again as she hit the send button. Chandra could swear the smaller brunette had a blush rushing across her cheeks.
“Gotta you know, back to the coffee work. The back to work,” Nissa stammered out and nearly bolted away like a scared rabbit.
“Fuck me,” Chandra moaned to herself, remembering her need to pee and moping her way in to the ladies room. Never on Earth had an attempted flirting pickup gone so poorly. She sat and sunk her head into her hands. Way to fuck that up, might as well just go home because there's no way she can face the others now.
A soft “bzzt bzzt” from her phone that she didn't have the energy to pick up. Probably Jace giving her more shit. Saheeli wasn't totally wrong though. She hadn't kept a relationship for longer than a few weeks since getting here, that is, not counting *her* but, that wasn't a relationship as much as it was an embarrassing string of party hookups. That's about all she's managed. Handful of hookups, some fleeting feelings (swiftly dashed to pieces as soon as she trusted), some crushes and hopes that led nowhere. School is hard enough, why complicate it with pretty, brown eyed, brown hair, round face, thin waist, nice chest, amazing little butt, lithe arms and legs, coffee girl who seemed more terrified than interested.
Another string of buzzes drove her to pick up her phone. Three messages. One from Jace with a picture of a pair of panties with a coffee pattern on them and a heart emoji, one from Saheeli, apologizing if they went too overboard with the teasing, and one from a number she didn't recognize. It took her a moment to realize the first line was sent from her phone saying simply “Nissa Revane” and a reply saying “I grabbed my phone from my locker to return the message. I'm sorry I come off so timid I just am not very good at people, I hope you understand. I am excited to get a coffee drink sometime. Also, may I have your last name for your contact?”.
She blinked a few times before it processed. She stared at the message, not believing it to be true. She stood, washed her hands and wandered back to the group.
“Hey love, are you ok?” asked Saheeli urgently, she had clearly made herself feel bad about the teasing.
Chandra couldn't answer, only dropped the phone on the table, face up, message displayed.
Saheeli grabbed it and read through. “Hey umm, guys? I think she did it”
Jace snapped his head up, bagged eyes wide. Ral raised his eyebrows lowering his laptop screen, Kaya smiled softly, and Huatli jumped up and hugged Chandra.
“Ok now, what do?” she squeaked out to the group through the force of the hug.