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Cath broke up with Levi two months before finals. It wasn't his fault. Sleeping with Levi, finally, had unleashed some kind of inner monster. Cath wanted to sleep with everybody, or at least make out with them. Girls in line for lasagna at the dining hall; the skinny, apple-cheeked boy in lit seminar; her medieval history T. A., who wore shiny men's boots and sounded positively gleeful every time she talked about rats or plague or cesspits. Even Reagan sometimes, though that was probably just separation anxiety. They were both getting singles next year, and it was hard to imagine living in a dorm room without her.
None of it meant Cath loved Levi any less. She'd been reading a lot of Baz/Simon/Agatha. If polyamory worked in fanfiction, there was no reason it couldn't work with Levi.
Reagan had burst out laughing when Cath suggested it. "First of all," she said, "you're breaking like six ground rules."
"There aren't six ground rules," Cath whined. This was serious. If she didn't work something out with Levi soon, she was going to start jumping people at the salad bar. Push that freshman in the Night Vale t-shirt right up against the sneeze-guard and make out with her above the tray of limp iceberg lettuce.
"Second," Reagan said, "This is Levi. No way he'll go for it."
Reagan had been right. Levi was devastated that Cath had even brought it up, which wasn’t fair. The whole point of relationships was you should be able to talk about what you wanted. That conversation—Levi tight-lipped, Cath indignant—had been the beginning of the end.
-
"I can't believe I'm saying this," Reagan said, a couple of weeks after the breakup. "But I think I missed you."
Cath made a face. "You probably missed Levi."
"I saw Levi." Reagan had finally gotten a laptop, and she typed with one finger while lying in bed. "But you disappeared."
"I wasn't at Levi's that much," Cath said. "Was I?"
"Every weekend? Most nights?"
"Sometimes I went to the library."
"With Levi."
"Sometimes," Cath admitted. "But you're going to see less of me next year anyway. Unless you've changed your mind."
"No way," Reagan said. "I need somewhere to throw my shit around without worrying you're going to trip over it. And you need somewhere to bring all those hotties you're making out with now that you're a free woman." She narrowed her eyes. "You are actually making out with people now, right?"
"It's been two weeks," Cath protested.
"So?"
"So I'm still heartbroken. Give me some time."
-
"How about now?" Reagan asked. She had taken to asking Cath about her make-out scheme most days. Maybe she still thought that one day, the answer was going to change.
Cath shut the door and set a stack of books down beside her bed. "I got out of lit seminar ten minutes ago. How could I make out with someone between then and now?"
"You've got to do it sometime," Reagan said.
Cath sighed. "I don't think I know how."
"You don't know how to make out with someone?"
"I don't know how to ask." Sometimes in fic, Baz just shoved Simon against a convenient wall and went for it, but in the real world, that seemed presumptuous.
"Ask them on a date," Reagan suggested.
Cath grimaced. "I don't want to go on dates. I hate talking to people."
"So pick someone up at a bar."
Cath shook her head. "I don't like drunk people. Or strangers."
"You don't want to get to know people, and you don't want to make out with strangers." Reagan narrowed her eyes. "How is that supposed to work?"
"I just want to know them already," Cath said. The way she'd known Levi. Or Baz had known Simon.
Reagan gave her a curious look, and Cath shrunk back, crossing her arms over her chest. This was why she had avoided sex for so long. It made her want things she couldn't have. It made her want to be close to people even as the rest of her pushed them away.
"Who do you even know?" Reagan asked. "Besides Wren and Levi?"
"You," Cath said automatically, then blushed.
Reagan grinned and waggled her eyebrows.
"Stop it," Cath said. "You're my roommate."
"Only for another month."
"Still," Cath said, and Reagan mercifully dropped the subject.
-
Without Levi, Cath had more time to herself, and she spent a lot of it writing fanfic. It was easier to write the sex scenes now that she had a more hands-on sense of how bodies worked. And once she started writing them, she couldn't stop. She wrote a one-shot Simon/Baz fic that was supposed to be about tending the Seventh Oak but turned into Simon and Baz discovering orgasm spells. She wrote a Penelope/Agatha bondage fic on a comment meme. She wrote a fic where all Baz did was imagine Simon Snow's thighs.
Wren was scandalized. "I can't believe you wrote PWP," she said, sitting at the end of Cath's bed and taking tiny bites of a Twizzler. "And it's hot PWP."
Reagan burst through the door. "What's PWP?"
"It's porn," said Wren.
"You broke up with Levi to write porn?"
"I broke up with Levi because I didn't want to cheat on him." Cath winced. She hadn't meant to bring up Reagan's history. "Sorry."
"I'm over it." Reagan looked at Wren. "It's really hot?"
"Yeah," said Wren. "I mean, it's probably hotter if you aren't thinking about how it was written by your sister."
"It would be written by her roommate," Cath pointed out. "Wait, Reagan, you aren't going to read it, are you? Don't."
Reagan shrugged. "Why not? Roommates isn't weird."
"Roommates is totally weird," said Cath. "Besides, you don't even like Simon Snow."
"I like porn," Reagan said, as if that were the sort of thing you could just say.
"There's lots of porn in the world," said Cath. "Read someone else's."
-
Wren wasn't the only one Cath's new stories seemed to shock. Fewer people were reading Simon Snow fics now that the books were over, but everyone who'd stayed in the fandom seemed to have something to say. Mostly they were nice things, but for every few responses of omg hot!! or haha Baz totally would, there would be one weird backhanded comment that got under Cath's skin.
Well, that was… extreme, one commenter wrote on the orgasm spell story.
whoa, said another. I can't believe this is the same person that wrote Carry On o_O
One of the lesser Simon Snow blogs even ran a story with the headline "Magicath Comes of Age." Which was insulting. Writing PWP had nothing to do with how old Cath was. And so what if it did—there was a whole corner of the internet where people wrote nothing but Professor Bilberry and his pet lizard, and nobody bothered them about it.
Cath closed her laptop with a sigh.
Sitting with her computer on her lap, Reagan jumped. "Who am I beating up for you now?
"You beat people up for me now?"
"If they deserve it." Reagan swigged an energy drink dangerously near her keyboard, and Cath cringed.
"It's just Fanfix people," Cath explained. "They're being weird about a story I wrote."
"Is it a dirty story?" asked Reagan.
"I don't know," Cath said. "No. Why do people have to call sex things dirty? Violence is dirty. Dirt is dirty. Sex is just…"
"Hot?" Reagan supplied, after Cath trailed off.
"Yeah," Cath said. "I mean, if you write it well."
"I still want to read this sex story of yours," Reagan said.
Cath just barely stopped herself from asking which one. "Why?"
"Does it matter?" Reagan asked. "Anyone on the internet can read it."
"But anyone on the internet who does read it found it because they like Simon Snow fic."
"Well, I like you," said Reagan. The compliment hung awkwardly in the air.
"You'll think it's weird," Cath said.
"I like that it's weird."
"No, I mean." Cath struggled for the right words. "You'll think I'm weird."
"Because you write about gay magicians instead of making out with people yourself?"
"Because I'm supposed to be the repressed one." Cath fought the panic in her voice. "I don't drink, or go to bars, or touch people unless I'm really sure I like them. I don't sleep with people, and I don't write x-rated fanfiction. Only now I do, and it freaks people out. I like that you didn't freak out when I wanted to make out with people who weren't Levi. I don't want to lose that by freaking you out now."
Reagan's voice was unusually soft. "You really think your story would freak me out?"
"Wouldn't it?"
"I actually think you writing porn is kind of badass," Reagan said. "But you don't have to show it to me if you don't want to."
Cath thought about all the weird sides of herself Reagan had seen and accepted. She thought about Reagan casually announcing that she liked porn. Reagan took things at face value. She didn't worry about who Cath was supposed to be—she saw who Cath was. So maybe it was okay to let her see a little more.
"Okay," Cath said. "But I'm not reading it to you. I don't even want to be in the room when you open it."
"Are you sure?" Reagan asked.
"I'm sure," said Cath. She typed the link into an email, then hit send and put on her shoes. "I'm going out, she said. "Text me when it's safe to come back."
-
Cath was in the library when the text came.
holy fuck. how did you make Simon Snow hot?
Cath felt her face flush. you liked it?
yes!! obviously. come back.
Cath rose from her seat before she'd even really decided to. She had forgotten how good it felt to have someone like her writing. To have someone think her writing was hot. It felt like sharing a secret. Or being part of something together.
Had Reagan pictured Baz and Simon's bedroom the way Cath had? Did her skin prickle like Cath's did when she imagined each boy mesmerized by the other's spell? The thought made Cath feel closer to Reagan, in a way she couldn't entirely wrap her mind around. She walked to her room from the library dazed but determined.
-
"Hey," Reagan said, when Cath came back in.
Cath shut the door carefully behind her. Then she turned towards Reagan. "Do you want to make out?" she blurted.
Reagan snorted. "Because I read your gay magician porn?"
"Because you read my gay magician porn and you weren't weird about it. And because I like you. And I know you. And I'm pretty sure you wouldn't hold me to monogamy afterwards."
Reagan laughed. "I thought making out with your roommate was too weird."
"You read my porn," said Cath. "It's already weird."
Reagan eyed Cath thoughtfully. "It really was hot," she said. "I'd totally use presso presto in real life."
"Me too," Cath said, wondering if Reagan had meant on her. "Simon and Baz are roommates anyway," she added, before she could think better of it.
Reagan laughed again. "True. There's a precedent."
"Does that mean yes?" Cath asked.
Reagan stepped closer, and Cath swallowed. "Yeah, okay."
Cath reached for Reagan. Her face was warm under Cath's touch, and Cath wanted to sink her fingers in, trace the jagged edges of Reagan's hairline, the soft skin of her upper lip. "I should probably warn you," Cath said. "I'm kind of intense."
Reagan burst out laughing. "No shit," she said. She gave Cath a shove, and they tumbled onto Reagan's bed. There was a textbook by Cath's head, and Reagan reached down to push it away, exposing a smooth stretch of neck. Cath wanted to bite her there, claw at her skin. She felt feral.
"I mean it," Cath said, and then Reagan's mouth landed on hers and Cath grabbed a handful of Reagan's hair. Reagan's kiss was warm and messy, punctuated every so often with a nip to Cath's bottom lip that made her jump and shiver.
"I like that you're intense," Reagan said, breaking away and breathing in sharply. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, and on impulse, Cath darted up and licked her palm. "Hey!"
"Sorry," Cath said sheepishly. "Too much?"
"Hell, no," Reagan said, lowering her lips to Cath's again. "Trust me—we're just getting started."