Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Goddard University was, put simply, the stuff of legends. It was the sort of place that the overachiever kid in every biology class sighed dreamily about as they doodled its logo in their notes. It was the institution that the main characters of every teen-demographic drama wanted to end up at. People across the world owned sweaters with GODDARD emblazoned on them, marveled at pictures of the campus, and saw its name as synonymous with success.

It was tucked away in a small, idyllic town, bordered by a quaint downtown area on one side and forest on the others. Its buildings were old, with spires on their tops and brick exteriors that had seen countless classes of students come and go. Its acceptance rate was, year after year, estimated to be a single-digit number that continued to fall with each new class. The professors, community, and academics all ranked in the upper echelons of various college listings, and it was widely regarded as the Ivy League school of the Midwest.

All of this, of course, is to say that sophomore Doug Eiffel was not exactly the typical student at Goddard University.

“If I can be completely honest with you, dear listeners, it’s a miracle they even looked at my application,” he said into the microphone, twirling a pen idly in one hand. Eiffel was seated in the small broadcasting booth for Goddard’s student-owned radio station, reclined back in his chair with his feet up on the desk. The air conditioner behind him was producing a pleasant breeze that was reinvigorating, even though it was early October and the air had already taken on a slight chill. Stacks of records and literature surrounded him, accumulated over years of broadcasting to the entire student population. In this booth, every Saturday afternoon, Eiffel felt a complete sense of tranquility, one that he had only ever experienced a few times before college. It truly does not get better than this, he thought.

“I mean, I’m still not convinced that my admission wasn’t some kind of clerical error, but don’t tell them that. I’ll take what I can get, especially at Goddard.” He glanced over at the digital clock that was balanced haphazardly on a stack of books. 1:59, its display read.

“Oh, man,” Eiffel sat up in his chair and moved it closer to the radio equipment, its wheels squeaking across the linoleum floor. “Well, I guess that’s all, folks! It appears we have run out of my time in the station today - please hold your tears, I’m devastated too. This is what happens when I start talking about myself.” He grinned at his own joke.

“Alright, well, I will leave you with something to remember me by.” He slid a few switches on the soundboard down, then pressed a button on the computer. “This is Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, composed in eighteen-something. A personal favorite of mine, if any music majors out there are wondering. Enjoy, dear listeners, and have a wonderful weekend.”

He shut off the microphone audio and stood, pushing the chair in as the piano notes floated gracefully from the speakers. Even though his show was mostly just him talking (with the occasional 2000s rock hit played throughout), he liked ending each day with a classical song. They were sort of calming, in a way.

Softly, he hummed along to the song, picking up his phone and opening the door. The broadcaster with the next time slot, a girl whose name he still had yet to learn after a year of working one after the other, gave him a small wave as she stepped into the booth after him. Eiffel smiled at her.

He had scarcely closed the door to the radio station behind him when he was greeted with the same voice that met him every Saturday, with the same thing she always said: “G-good show, Doug.”

He scoffed. “Yeah, right.” He started past her, and she fell into step beside him, shoulder-to-shoulder with him in the narrow hallway. “Sometimes, Hera, I really think you don’t even listen to them.”

“What?” Hera looked offended. “I haven’t missed a single one! Even when I was s-sick and you kept playing Green Day and saying, ‘Th-this is for my best friend Hera, who absolutely despises Green Day,’ I kept you on.” She rolled her eyes. “You don’t deserve s-such loyal listeners.”

“You’re right, you’re right,” he conceded, holding up his hands. “The Green Day thing was pretty funny, though, you gotta admit.”

“Maybe a little,” Hera smiled, pushing through the doors of the building where the radio station was housed. They stepped out onto the sidewalk, squinting against the bright light of the sun. The sidewalk curved to the left here, but they walked straight on through the grass of the quad, heading for Hephaestus House.

Oak trees stood sentinel on either side of the pair, and they strolled through the shade casually, taking the same route home that they always took. They ducked around students tossing frisbees back and forth, exchanging a few greetings with people they knew. A few warm-colored leaves were already beginning to fall from the trees, and Eiffel went out of his way to crunch them underfoot.

They were silent as they emerged from the quad and crossed the road, heading down the sidewalk towards the residential houses. But that was nothing new for them. Eiffel disliked quiet; he preferred to always have music playing on his headphones, or even talking out loud to himself if he had to. With Hera, though, he’d never really needed to fill the silence. Knowing she was there, probably thinking the same things he was, was enough. And either way, they’d known each other for so long that they could practically have an entire conversation through nonverbal cues alone.

“So,” Hera dragged the word out, clasping her hands behind her back. “Th-there’s a party tonight. It’s at Hermes. I thought you m-might like to know.”

“Oh, yes!” Eiffel pumped a fist in the air. “I was just thinking this morning, you know, a party would be great tonight. Who’s going?”

“Well, I let Minkowski know, and she s-seemed…” Hera lifted her hands in confusion. “You know. I d-don’t think she really likes p-parties.”

“Typical Minkowski,” Eiffel said.

They were turning onto Leo Street now, where Hephaestus House sat imposingly. It seemed to loom over all the other houses on the street - with its grand total of three stories and starkly different architecture, Hephaestus stuck out like a sore thumb among the normal, more modern-looking houses on Leo.

Hephaestus House, rumor had it, was built by an eccentric old man back when Goddard University was first founded. The story went that the old man had gotten more and more paranoid with age, adding on room after room to the house, along with stairways that went nowhere and doors that opened into sheer drywall (that part, Eiffel could confirm to be true. He’d gotten lost in the house more than a couple times during his first few weeks). Some people said the house itself drove him to madness.

When the man died, the university claimed the house and rented it out to students living on campus. Normally, people would be clamoring to live there for its massive size and position close to essential parts of the main campus, but the odd design and rumor warded off most students.

Its five current residents, however, were definitely not “most students.” In fact, sometimes Eiffel wondered if Hephaestus really did make people lose their minds. It would certainly explain the mad scientist who lived in their basement.

“What about you?” Hera asked, pulling him from his musings about their living situation. “Do you wanna go?”

“Of course,” Eiffel said. He glanced at her. “Do you?”

“Oh, I’ll t-tag along, I guess,” she smiled. “I’ll try to talk Lovelace into it, too. It would be n-nice if we could all go together.”

“Sounds like a plan.” Eiffel cut across the grass towards Hephaestus, then bounded up the porch stairs. Minkowski kept saying they would need to get them repaired soon, but as far as Eiffel was concerned, they were perfectly serviceable. Hera skirted around the spots that were visibly sagging as she followed him up the stairs.

“Those th-things are going to collapse on us one day,” she muttered.

“But not today,” Eiffel remarked cheerily. He pushed open the front door of the house, which creaked loudly on its hinges. He kicked off his sneakers by the entrance and shouted, in his radio-broadcaster voice, “Honey, we’re home!”

“Oh, good,” Lovelace’s voice floated out from the living room. “Minkowski, I think Eiffel’s home.”

“I heard,” Minkowski replied. Her tone was one that was all too familiar to Eiffel - it was her not-mad-just-disappointed voice, which usually meant she was about to ask him if he’d done the dishes or vacuumed the hall yet (the answer, of course, was always a sheepish no ).

Eiffel backpedaled towards the door, pointing emphatically over his shoulder. “Pretend I was never here?” he whispered to Hera. She looked unsympathetic to his plight.

“Too late, Eiffel,” Minkowski boomed. She was standing at the end of the hallway, her arms crossed. She looked a bit like a statue, towering over Eiffel and preparing his inevitable demise. Even though he technically had two inches on her (he’d checked), she was still the most intimidating resident of Hephaestus, physically or otherwise, and she made sure everyone knew it.

Eiffel sighed and leaned against the wall, resigning from his great escape. Hera slowly edged her way out of the hallway and into the kitchen, where Eiffel knew she would be listening intently. “What’s up, Minkowski?” he asked, smiling nervously.

“Eiffel,” Minkowski began, somehow already exasperated. “Are you the one who keeps stealing plates from the dining hall and bringing them back here?”

“What? Me?” Eiffel feigned innocence, his eyes widening in shock. “I have no idea what you mean. I don’t even- who would steal plates from the dining hall? I’m almost offended you would ask.” He shook his head, “They aren’t even that good. Personally, I love our regular old plastic plates. I think the chipped edges actually give them charm.” He crossed his arms and nodded like he had said something very convincing.

Minkowski stared at him as he spoke, waiting for him to wear himself out. “Are you done?”

“Yeah. I think that pretty much sums up my opinion on the matter.”

“Great. Well, I’ve talked to everyone else about it. Hilbert seemed angry I had even considered him as a suspect, Lovelace and Hera both insisted it wasn’t them, and I know I didn’t do it, so that lea-”

“Are you sure?” Eiffel interrupted.

Minkowski stared, furrowing her brow. “Am I sure of what?”

“Are you sure you didn’t steal them?” He straightened, then closed the distance between them until they were engaged in a close-range staring contest. “Are you completely sure, Minkowski?”

“I’m not falling for that, Eiffel,” she frowned and backed up into the living room, Eiffel following close behind.

Lovelace was reclined on their plaid couch in the living room, reading a thick book. She had one earbud in, but Eiffel could tell she was eavesdropping on their argument as well. He never really understood how she could keep track of so much at once.

Minkowski began, “Lovelace, will y-”

“Hey, Lovelace!” Eiffel spoke over her, folding his arms over the back of a chair. “You know I would never steal anything from anyone, right?”

Lovelace glanced up at him. “Eiffel, last week you stole my entire tube of toothpaste because you ran out of your own. You could have just asked.”

Minkowski turned and glared at Eiffel, eyebrows raised expectantly. He gave her a sheepish smile. “Not the answer I was expecting.” 

She sighed, rubbing her temples with one hand. “Just … return the plates, Eiffel. I don’t want the rest of us to be implicated in your petty theft.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” he said, saluting her. She shook her head disapprovingly and disappeared into the kitchen.

After a few moments, Hera walked through the same doorway Minkowski had just gone through. “Real nice s-save,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “I think your lying could really use some work, th-though. One day she won’t let you go that easily.”

Eiffel smiled. “You keep saying that, and yet I still keep getting away with it every time. Funny how that works.”

Hera shook her head, brushing past him towards the couch. She sat down next to Lovelace, crossing her legs underneath her. “So, Lovelace, have you heard there’s a p-party at Hermes t-tonight?”

Lovelace looked up from her book. “No, I haven’t.” Her eyes flickered between the two of them. “Are we going?”

“Hera and I so far,” Eiffel chimed in, resting his head on the back of the chair. “Minkowski is a no, obviously. One of these days I’ll convince her to let us throw one here, though, mark my words.”

“We were wondering if you wanted t-to come,” Hera said.

“I … think I’m free tonight. A party sounds great,” Lovelace said, her eyes shining with excitement. “What time?”

“I thought we c-could leave around eight.” Hera looked up, “That work for you, Eiffel?”

Eiffel shrugged. “I have literally nothing else to do today. Any time works.”

She opened her mouth to respond, but before she could, there was a shout from the kitchen. “Bowls, Eiffel?!” Minkowski poked her head into the living room, holding a ceramic bowl out in front of her. She looked almost disgusted by it. “You stole bowls, too?”

Eiffel brought his hands up defensively. “They’re ergonomic!” he protested. “Or something! I had our best interests at heart, I swear.”

Minkowski groaned. “You’re taking these back, too.” She pointed at him for emphasis, her gaze fierce, then returned to the kitchen.

“...How did you even smuggle a bowl out in the first place?” Lovelace asked.

“I got really creative,” Eiffel replied. He straightened and drummed his fingers on the back of the chair. “Now, if you’ll both excuse me, I have to think of an even more creative way to smuggle them back in. Goddard’s first reverse heist has to be one for the history books.” He started for the stairs.

“Party’s at eight!” Hera called after him.

-

Hermes House could not have been more different from Hephaestus. It was much more modern, with white clapboard siding and windows that actually opened, a luxury Eiffel was unfamiliar with. The sun had just begun to set, and already the porch was overflowing with a noisy, slightly intoxicated crowd of students, their flushed faces glowing orange in the disappearing sunlight. Someone had pulled out a guitar and plucked out some familiar riff as Eiffel, Hera, and Lovelace pushed their way into the house.

It was dark inside, and the air shook with bass from whatever song was playing. In the hall, people were clustered together, chatting about a wide range of topics. Eiffel caught a few snatches of conversation - here someone was discussing their biology professor, who sounded like a real piece of work; there was another person, who sounded completely sober, delivering a full speech about the merits of reality television. Only at Goddard, he thought.

The three of them emerged into the kitchen. It seemed to be the source of the music, as well as the lifeblood of the party: wherever there were drinks and snacks, college students would congregate. Students clustered around the countertops with cans and red cups, shouting to be heard over the din. A few feet away, people danced in the living room, jumping up and down and half-singing, half-shouting.

Lovelace moved through a crowd of students, shouting an ‘excuse me’ over their conversation. They barely seemed to notice her.

There was a tap on Eiffel’s shoulder. He turned to see Hera, grinning at him and pointing over her shoulder. He craned his neck around a group of people to see someone on the dance floor, who he thought he vaguely recognized from Lovelace’s basketball team, eating out of a plastic bin of cheese puffs by himself. It was already half empty. Eiffel looked back at Hera, and they burst into laughter.

Lovelace returned then, holding three drinks. She passed one to each of them, then gestured across the crowd to the back door.

The trio fought across the room, shoving their way through unruly groups of students. Finally, Eiffel pushed the back door open, and they practically spilled out into the backyard. The cool night air was a welcome reprieve, despite the fact that they had spent barely two minutes inside the sweltering house.

“Jesus,” he laughed, opening his beer. “Surprising campus security hasn’t shown up yet with how loud they’re being.”

“Yeah,” Hera said, leaning against the house. “Why do we c-come to these things again?”

Lovelace shrugged. “We get to talk to each other and drink. Ideal Saturday night, I’d say.”

“And sometimes someone makes a fool of themselves. It’s worth the hassle,” Eiffel grinned and took a sip of his drink.

The backyard was relatively quiet, though the music from inside still pounded faintly on their ears. There was no porch back here, just a door opening onto a strip of concrete that Eiffel, Lovelace, and Hera were now gathered on. The grass was unmowed, and a single tree in the corner of the yard was losing its leaves. There were a few shadows against the back fence with their arms around each other, but they didn’t seem to notice the trio.

“Yikes,” Lovelace whispered, casting a look at the couple. She raised her eyebrows at Eiffel and Hera. “Never understood why people do that.”

“Lovelace, be nice,” Hera scolded, a smile on her face, “what if th-they’re in love?”

“Yeah, come on, Lovelace,” Eiffel shook his head reproachfully. “Just because you’ve been single since high school doesn’t me-”

“Hey! Speak for yourself,” Lovelace retorted. She took a sip of her drink, then added, “You know, I’m starting to think the second you move into Hephaestus, you instantly lose all charisma.”

“Untrue. I am a very successful radio personality,” Eiffel said.

“Oh, yeah, with your average of one listener p-per broadcast?” Hera teased.

He waved her off. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Uh-huh,” Lovelace said. She was silent for a moment, drinking and watching the party through the windows. Suddenly, her eyes widened. “Oh, my god, I just remembered something I was going to tell you all about.”

She leaned in towards them, and Eiffel and Hera followed suit. “Okay, so, yesterday, Hilbert asked me if I ‘knew of anyone’ who would be willing to ‘participate in scientific experiment,’” she added air quotes, “and when I asked him what kind, he just left the room!”

Eiffel shuddered. “Yeesh. You know, living with Doctor Moreau is not as cool as I originally thought it would be.”

Lovelace leaned back and shook her head. “I mean, this definitely isn’t the first time he’s asked about this, but given that he tried to have me order him a Tesla coil online last week, I’m a little worried about what he’s doing down there right now.” She took a long sip of her drink. “I’ll keep an eye on him, though. Hopefully he’s just trying to reanimate the dead or something.”

“That’s the best c-case scenario, with Hilbert,” Hera commented.

Lovelace laughed. “God, you don’t know the half of it. He was a nightmare in my freshman year. Back for his third degree, something about biology, and he was experimenting on spiders. Big, creepy bastards that he would just leave out in jars all over the h-”

“Woah!” Eiffel interjected. His skin was already crawling at the idea that there were ever spiders in his living space. He tapped his half-empty drink against his palm nervously. “Can we change the topic, please?”

“Is there a problem, Doug?” Hera asked, nudging him. “Can’t handle s-some insects?”

“No, I can’t,” he gritted out, shivering. In his esteemed opinion, something could only have so many legs before it stopped being cool and started being creepy.

“Isn’t your favorite superhero of all time Spiderman?” Lovelace pointed out.

“Okay, that’s different. Spiderman is cool and swings around New York City saving people. Normal spiders are uncool and make creepy little webs and try to crawl on you to bite you. There’s a clear winner here,” he said, crossing his arms.

The other two blinked at him.

“Okay…” Lovelace said, furrowing her brow. “Hera, remind me tomorrow that Eiffel knows absolutely nothing about spiders.”

“G-got it.”

“Hey!” Eiffel frowned at them, and they laughed quietly. “Alright, you two, laugh it up. When you need someone to come handle Hilbert’s next freaky little test subject, do not come to me.”

“Oh, I’m sure Minkowski would. She isn’t afraid of anything, unlike some of us,” Lovelace grinned at him, then glanced down at her can. Finding it empty, she crushed it in her hand and placed it on a nearby windowsill. “I’m gonna go get another drink. You guys want one?”

Hera shook her head, Eiffel nodded. “Back in a second,” Lovelace said, opening the back door, and was immediately swallowed by the crowd of dancing students.

The backyard fell into another one of those comfortable silences while Eiffel finished off his drink. Hera watched him carefully with that unusually observant gaze she had sometimes, squinting at him. She stood with her back to the house, so her face was somewhat shadowed, but Eiffel could tell she was thinking about something.

“What?” he asked, setting his empty beer up on the windowsill next to Lovelace’s.

“What do you m-mean, ‘what?’”

“You’re making that face again. The one where you look like you’re about to go all Professor X mind-reader on me.”

She shrugged innocently. “I’m j-just thinking.”

She gave him that look again, tilting her head to the side. After a moment, she said, “Remember the f-first party we went to?”

Actually, he totally did. He grinned at the memory. “I don’t think I could forget it if I tried.”

It was in their junior year of high school. Neither of them were the sort of kid who actually got invited to parties, especially not then - they’d sort of created their own social circle for just the two of them, and nobody was ever allowed to breach its walls. But on that night, someone Hera sat by in her calculus class had given her an address and a time. They were in.

“I’m n-nervous about this,” she’d told him, tapping incessantly on the center console of Eiffel’s car. “What if we’re, like, c-completely underprepared? Are we s-supposed to bring something? Like a b-bag of chips, or- ”

“Relax, Hera, ” Eiffel said, narrowly missing another car’s bumper as he parallel parked. He shut the car off, then turned to face her. “It’s just like the movies, right? We show up, maybe people are,” he gestured, smiling at her, “drinking, or smoking weed, you know. The things the cool kids do. ”

“You’re trying t-too hard, D-Doug, ” she shook her head.

“Fine. I won’t try. Just let me do all the talking. ”

“Yeah, right. ”

The party was about as good as you would expect a party thrown by Boston public high schoolers to be. Someone’s parents were out of town, people had brought illicit substances , as their teachers would have said, and the music was both undanceable and unlikeable. The two of them had tried to linger in the living room talking to people they sort of knew, but eventually wound up sitting on the staircase together and observing the foyer. They’d laughed about how stupid their first real high school party was turning out, squeezing over to the side every now and then when someone rushed up or down the stairs.

“This is nothing like Superbad, ” Eiffel complained, running his hand idly along the banister.

“Good, ” Hera said. Her arms were crossed over her knees, and she stared up at the crystal chandelier that hung above them. “I wonder how much property damage this p-party is going to c-cause. ”

“Billions,” Eiffel falsely assured her, leaning back and resting his head on the stairs. “Billions of dollars. More money than there are stars in the sky. ”

“That’s a lot of m-money, Doug,” Hera replied, leaning back with him. “Are you sure you w- ”

Suddenly, there was a loud pop from a noisemaker that all but quieted the commotion of the party. Everyone paused.

A terrified, shaking voice from the living room called out, “My parents are home early! ”

Eiffel whipped around to look at Hera. She stared back at him, wide-eyed, for a few frightening moments.

Someone dashed down the stairs behind them, nearly tripping over them as they scrambled for the front door. “Get out of the way, assholes! ”

Hera grinned. “We should probably g-get going.”

So they did.

All told, after they’d narrowly escaped the cul-de-sac in Eiffel’s car and laughed their way to McDonald’s, their first party hadn’t been the worst way to spend an evening.

“I c-can’t believe that kid got sent to military school for th-that. For one party,” Hera muttered.

Eiffel shrugged. “Sometimes, Hera, sacrifices must be made for our good memories. Even if that sacrifice is someone else’s entire high school experience.”

She smiled at him, shaking her head, then took a final sip from her drink. She put hers up on the windowsill with the other two, a row of cans with silhouettes dancing just behind them.

“How many people here do you think I could beat in a fight?” Eiffel asked suddenly, his eyes trained on the crowd of partygoers.

Hera looked at him skeptically. “I don’t know. Maybe t-two.”

“Untrue.” He crossed his arms and gave her a beseeching look. “Come on, baby, have a little faith.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, appearing deep in thought. “N-no, you’re right,” she conceded. “It’s actually only one.”

Eiffel scoffed. “Who, myself? You?” He leaned in, eyes widened in fake shock, “Lovelace?”

Hera laughed, then. And something incredibly strange happened.

The world suddenly disappeared around the two of them, and Eiffel felt his stomach drop. The din of the music and the chatter and shouting inside had suddenly been cut off, like a mute button had been pressed on the world, and everything else seemed so much louder in comparison. Hera’s laughter and the sound of his own heartbeat quickening reverberated in his ears.

There was a jolt of something energizing through his body, and he felt himself begin to shake. Am I having a stroke? No, he couldn’t smell burnt toast - in fact, he wasn’t sure he could get any of his senses to focus on anything at all besides what was happening in front of him.

What’s happening to me?

The whole thing happened in the span of about a second, though it felt much, much longer. Before Eiffel could process any of it, his stomach leapt back into place and the world returned around him, the party at its usual noise level again. He was standing with both feet on the small patch of concrete, the darkened backyard behind him and Hermes House in front of him. But he still felt like he had just been shocked out of - or maybe into - consciousness.

Hera was saying something to him, but he was caught up in trying to figure out what the hell had just happened. He didn’t recognize the feeling, but he knew that there was certainly something new he had just experienced there. Was it sickness? Did he need to take some cough syrup when they got back to Hephaestus? Maybe it was dread about the classwork he hadn’t started yet. Or maybe he had just drunk his beer too quickly.

“Hello? Earth to D-Doug?” Hera snapped her fingers in front of him, and suddenly his eyes focused again on her face. And maybe it was the alcohol, but she looked different from usual. Clearer, almost, like he’d been looking at her from underwater and had suddenly come up for air.

He blinked a few times in surprise, and she smiled. “You were sp-spaced out again. …Are you okay? You look like you j-just saw a ghost.”

“Oh, damnit,” Eiffel muttered, still attempting to regain his grip on everything happening around him. “Yeah, I’m alright. Sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair and looked around, feeling a bit like everything had shifted one inch to the left in the past minute without him noticing. It was incredibly disorienting. “Uh, what were we talking about?”

She let out another small laugh, and there was that jolt again. The world didn’t fall away from him this time, but it still made Eiffel feel a little dizzy.

There was definitely something wrong. He made a mental note to check his temperature when he got home.

Just then, Lovelace returned from inside the house and pressed another beer into Eiffel’s hand. “Sorry for the wait,” she muttered, glancing furtively at the window. “Got caught up with someone from my Shakespeare class.”

“No worries,” Eiffel said, still trying to shake off that feeling. Maybe more alcohol wouldn’t be too good for him right now, but he opened it anyway, with reckless abandon, and took a sip.

“We’re g-going to recycle those, right?” Hera asked, pointing at the cans lined up on the windowsill.

“Oh, yeah,” Lovelace said. “Don’t worry, Hera, we’re as green as can be here at Goddard University.” She shot them a cynical smile - everyone knew Goddard definitely wasn’t as environmentally friendly as they pretended to be.

Hera laughed, and there was that feeling again.

What the hell is wrong with me? Eiffel thought, staring down at the can in his hand.

He took a drink, then another, then more for the rest of the night, trying to ignore the way something inside him lurched whenever Hera laughed or smiled at him.

He was sick. That was it. When they got home, he would check his temperature, take some cough medicine, and stay in bed tomorrow.

Everything would be fine.

Chapter Text

Everything was decidedly not fine.

A quick thermometer check when they got home from Hermes had told Eiffel he was completely healthy - 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, to be exact. The one-hundred-percent normal temperature.

Okay, maybe he just wasn’t running a fever. There were plenty of sicknesses that didn’t include feverishness as a symptom. It was possible he had whooping cough (though he wasn’t coughing) or strep (but his throat felt fine). If he could just figure out what exactly was wrong, he could explain why he felt so odd last night.

So, lying in bed that morning, he started googling his symptoms on his phone. Weird feeling in stomach, feeling nauseous not pregnant, feeling sick after drinking but i dont usually. He scrolled through page after page of results, consulting numerous sites for possible illnesses he could have.

First of all, he knew what a hangover felt like, and it wasn’t this - he hadn’t even had that much to drink last night. He was also pretty sure he wasn’t poisoned. And he didn’t even want to consider “sudden onset alcohol intolerance.” That was a little bit too damning for him to think about this early in the morning.

He rolled over and set his phone down on his nightstand, squinting against the sunlight streaming in through the window. It lit up his room, which was little more than the size of a walk-in closet, but that didn’t keep it from being crowded and absolutely cluttered. Minkowski told him to clean it at least four times a week. But if he did that, he reasoned, he might lose track of where he had put everything. There was a method to his madness.

Eiffel pulled himself out of bed, kicking aside a deck of cards that had somehow found its way into his path. He glanced around his room for a moment, staring at the messily taped-up posters on his walls and his desk piled with papers. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for - maybe something to tell him that what had happened last night wouldn’t resurface today.

He checked the time on his phone and found it was almost noon. By far not the latest he’d ever slept in. Slipping his phone in his pocket, he made his way out of his room and into the hallway.

Hephaestus was surprisingly quiet for a Sunday morning. It seemed like there was always some sort of noise on the weekends, even if it was just Minkowski calling her parents for a check-in. And if everyone was still asleep, there was still a high likelihood of hearing Hilbert banging around in the basement creating Lovecraftian horrors. A complete absence of sound was, to put it simply, abnormal.

Eiffel emerged into the kitchen, his eyes trained on the ancient coffeemaker on the counter. Lovelace’s old roommates had (allegedly) bought it secondhand from the people who lived in Hephaestus before them, who had also bought it from prior residents. For all Eiffel knew, the thing had been in the house for generations. It was nearly busted, and you had to keep a paperweight on top of it for it to work, but none of them planned on replacing it any time soon.

He was so deeply absorbed in getting some caffeine in his system that he didn’t even notice when someone else walked into the kitchen. The second he hit the clunky button to start brewing the coffee, though, the sound of a throat clearing behind him got his attention.

Eiffel jumped and whirled around like he’d been attacked, exclaiming loudly. When his darting eyes found it was just Hera, he relaxed and slumped back against the counter. “Jesus fucking Christ, Hera,” he exhaled. “Make some noise next time, please.”

Hera pressed her lips together, clearly holding back laughter. Eiffel was slightly relieved she was - he wasn’t sure if he could take any more of the dizzy feeling he’d gotten last night when she so much as smiled. “Sorry,” she said softly, leaning against the counter next to him. “But k-keep it down. Lovelace is st-still asleep.”

“Is that why everything’s silent around here?” Eiffel asked, craning his neck to peer into the living room. There, he glimpsed Lovelace fast asleep on the couch, who he’d somehow missed on his way into the kitchen. She had one hand dangling off of the couch, and her face was buried in one of their cheap throw pillows. “Huh,” he whispered. “No Minkowski, either?”

Behind him, the coffeemaker rumbled to life and started to pour. Hera shook her head. “She’s at work.”

“And Hilbert has graciously decided to let us sleep in. Very thoughtful of him.”

“Very,” she repeated, a small smile on her face.

There it was again. Maybe energy wasn’t the right word for it. It was more like a sort of fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach, one that threatened to shoot up into his brain if he didn’t watch it carefully. It made his insides feel like a highly carbonated soda.

Damnit. Eiffel had been hoping that, at the very least, whatever was causing the feeling might go away if he slept it off. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about what it was in the first place. But, honestly, he knew better than to hope for things to go his way at Goddard.

“Hera?” he started, hesitantly. Maybe it wasn’t just him. Maybe someone’s secondhand smoke had gotten into the backyard and made them all nauseous. “Uh, have you felt … weird since the party last night?”

She gave him a weird look. “No. At least, I d-don’t think so. You were acting weird, though,” she said, pointing an accusatory finger at him. “How much did you have to dr-drink?”

“What? No, no, I’m fine,” he shook his head. “Trust me, I was drinking responsibly. I think I might have caught something from someone there, though.”

“Oh, are you sick? Should I t-tell Minkowski?”

“No. No. She’ll have me quarantined for the next week if you do that. Oh, god, I can hear it now.” Smiling, Eiffel cleared his throat and raised his voice a few notes. “‘Eiffel, if you come out of your room one more time, I’m keeping you in there for three extra days. You know, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten sick in the first place if you didn’t want to deal with this! It’s like you’ve never even read Pryce and Carter’s Student Handbook and Code of Conduct, Version Seventeen-point-five.’”

Hera elbowed him, grinning. “St-stop making me laugh,” she hissed. “You’re going to wake Lovelace up.”

Eiffel smiled back at her, doing his best to ignore that fluttering in his stomach again. “Oh, Sleeping Beauty will be fine.” There was the loud click of the coffeemaker behind him, and he snapped his fingers. “Look at that. She’ll even have some coffee ready if she gets up.”

Hera shook her head, and he opened one of the cabinets above the coffeemaker, retrieving one of his mugs (purple with a dog painted on it, a gift from Lovelace last year). He reached for the coffee pot, only to find that Hera had already picked it up.

“Here, Doug,” she said, pouring it for him. “Only b-because you’re sick.”

“Wow, thanks, Hera.”

He took a drink, not bothering with any milk or sugar, and frowned. “I think you messed it up,” he told Hera, giving her a withering look over the rim of the mug. “This tastes terrible.”

“Okay, nevermind,” she scoffed. “N-now you owe me for that p-pour.”

He grinned at her and took another long sip of the coffee. It actually didn’t taste too bad for a drink from a thousand-year-old machine. The coffee from the dining halls might have been better, but not so much better that it was worth the effort of going every morning. They had perfectly good cereal in the pantry for breakfast, anyways.

Hera cleared her throat. “So, Doug. I was th-thinking that maybe we should g-go out for some ice cream today.” She looked at him expectantly.

“Hmmm. Diane’s or Cowbell?” Eiffel mumbled into his mug.

“Cowbell. D-Diane is better at milkshakes. We’ve been over th-this,” she said pointedly.

“And I disagree. You’ve just never had a good milkshake before.”

She sighed. “Yes or n-no on ice cream, Doug?”

“Yes, obviously,” he replied, setting down his coffee. “Ice cream sounds great.” And, actually, maybe it’s just what the doctor ordered to help me stop feeling sick.

“Great!” Hera exclaimed. “Your tr-treat. That’s what you owe me for the c-coffee.”

He gave her a disapproving look, one that said are you really just using me to get free ice cream?

She returned him one that said I absolutely am.

He respected it on principle. “Fair deal. I accept.”

As he drained the rest of his coffee, Lovelace stirred in the other room. The two of them went still at the sound of footsteps dragging across the carpet, exchanging glances with each other.

Lovelace stumbled into the doorway, blinking blearily at the two of them. She paused for a moment, staring at them with deeply tired eyes.

“Someone make coffee?” she mumbled.

-

Cowbell Creamery was located in the small downtown area next to Goddard, less than a five-minute walk from campus. It was one of the few restaurants in town Eiffel actually liked, and he occasionally treated himself there as a celebration after finals or a good grade. The Hephaestus residents were more inclined towards Diane’s Diner for their rare nights out to eat, but Eiffel thought Cowbell was pretty damn good. It was certainly better than the ice cream he and Hera could get in Boston.

Hera was … particular with her ice cream. She was insistent that most of Eiffel’s favorite flavors were awful, and he despised how unadventurous she was with her choices. It left them locked in a never-ending fight about it, one that always seemed to emerge when they went to Cowbell.

“I j-just don’t get it,” Hera was saying as she pushed her way through the door and onto the street. The bell attached to the door jingled overhead. Eiffel reached up and batted it as he followed behind Hera. “How c-can you eat that stuff? Aren’t the n-nuts … I don’t know, out of p-place?”

“Rocky road is one of the best inventions of the modern era,” Eiffel declared, taking a bite out of his ice cream. Yeah, Cowbell was the good stuff - the perfect amount of sweetness, and soft but slow to melt. Some people on campus swore up and down that there was a secret ingredient (besides love, like the owner claimed) that made their ice cream so good. “It’s chocolate, but better. Tell me that isn’t the best idea you’ve ever heard.”

Hera made a face at him. “I d-don’t think I’ll ever understand your thought p-process, Doug.”

“I don’t think I’ll ever get yours,” Eiffel said, jabbing a finger towards Hera’s cone. “Mint chocolate chip? No toppings? Try and live a little for once.”

“Mint chocolate chip is good!” Hera protested. She glanced both ways across the road in front of them, then ran across the crosswalk, Eiffel in tow. The pavement burned under his sneakers with the October sunlight, which was still trying to hang on to the heat of the summer months. A pleasant breeze blew across their faces as they stepped back onto the sidewalk and made their way into the park.

The park in town was small - barely more than a few benches on a clearing of grass, with a couple trees planted here and there. A fountain bubbled between two of the benches, and a group of students milled around it, chattering excitedly.

Eiffel and Hera walked past them towards the bench that they always sat on. The metal was warmed from the sun, and it singed Eiffel’s skin as he put his arms up on the back. “Whatever, Hera. I don’t get you,” he grinned at her.

She smiled back. “That’s f-fine with me.”

His stomach lurched. Jesus, he was actually sick.

He tried to concentrate on eating his ice cream to keep his mind off of it, his eyes wandering around the park. The students perched on the fountain laughed about something, and one of them playfully shushed the others. A fat cloud hung above them in the otherwise-clear sky. A few small birds twittered on the ground around them, poking at the grass for food. Eiffel chipped off a piece of his cone and tossed it in their direction, smiling to himself as they gathered around it curiously to peck at it.

“Being sick sucks,” he announced, more to himself than to Hera. “I don’t even know what’s up with me.”

“Well,” Hera turned towards him, putting her arm up on the back of the bench. “What are your symptoms? M-maybe I can diagnose you.”

“Hmm.” He looked up at the sky, thinking. He decided to leave out all the parts that pertained to Hera, in case there was such a thing as “sudden onset hating your best friend.” He suppressed a shudder at the thought. “Well, I keep feeling like I’m going to explode when people look at me. Like, if someone pushes me over I’ll just,” he splayed his hands out and made an explosion sound to demonstrate. “You know?”

“Mm-hmm,” Hera nodded thoughtfully.

“And … I’ve sorta felt weird. Something’s changed.” He peered up at the sky, noting the vibrant blue around the cloud above them. “It feels like things are clearer. And colors are brighter - like, too bright. Oh, god, am I dying?”

“You’re not d-dying,” she said, then paused. “At least, I don’t think so. But maybe th-there is something wrong.” Her brow furrowed as she considered, popping the remainder of her ice cream cone into her mouth.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She smirked at him. “M-maybe you’re in love.”

“What?!” Eiffel nearly shouted. The group across the park looked at him curiously, then returned to their talks just as quickly.

His heart rate picked up, and he felt his face starting to burn with embarrassment. Oh, god. He was pretty sure she’d meant it as a joke, but it actually made some twisted sort of sense to Eiffel. It would explain the feeling in his gut that seemed to only happen around Hera. And maybe that was why he felt dizzy just thinking about hearing her laugh at one of his jokes like she had last night.

No, absolutely not. They were friends, and they always had been, and they couldn’t be anything more. That was the end of the story. His head was swimming just thinking about her in that sort of way (though he couldn’t tell if it was making him feel worse or better).

No, no, he wasn’t in love. He definitely wasn’t in love. How could she even suggest that?

He lowered his voice and leaned closer to Hera, “You’re insane.”

She smiled at him. It was like getting hit by a truck. “Sorry. Maybe Lovelace was r-right. Nobody in Hephaestus c-can ever fall in love.”

“Pretty sure that wasn’t what she said,” Eiffel smiled, trying to ignore how his fast heart was pounding under his ribcage.

Hera shrugged. “I d-don’t know. I’m not our doctor. You should g-get Hilbert to ch-check you out at home.”

He scoffed, leaning back against the bench again. “Yeah, right. I wouldn’t trust that guy to give me a cough drop.”

He was silent as he finished what remained of his ice cream, trying to slow down his breathing and racing thoughts.

He shouldn’t feel like this about Hera making a joke. He shouldn’t feel like this when she smiled. When the world had crashed in on him last night, something had changed.

But it couldn’t be love, right? Right?

It couldn’t be, because they were best friends, and it couldn’t be, because how would he deal with that? He hadn’t dated anyone since high school. And it wasn’t like he could tell Hera if…

Eiffel tore his eyes away from the ground where they’d fixed themselves, forcing himself to look up at the park. He shouldn’t even consider something like that. He knew it wasn’t true. He was just sick, and soon he would be better.

Across the park on the fountain, two people from the other group moved closer to each other. They were smiling and laughing about something. Then, quick as lightning, one of them leaned over and kissed the other on the cheek.

Something seemed to burst in Eiffel’s chest.

He was frozen. There, in the park, with his best friend sitting next to him, he realized with horror that the sickening feeling festering in his chest cavity really was a crush.

He was getting nervous around her. He was getting butterflies (oh, god) when she smiled.

Worst of all, as he watched the couple across the park kiss, he realized that he was jealous of their relationship. Because he wanted something like that, too.

No, no, no, no, no. This couldn’t be happening. This had to be a dream. Any moment, he would wake up and things would be normal again, and he would laugh at the idea of ever being attracted to Hera.

Any moment now, this nightmare would be over.

Right?

Chapter Text

Wrong.

Eiffel laid wide awake in bed, staring up at his darkened ceiling. He was tense, gripping the sheets at his sides. Every now and then, he would spare a glance over at his phone to check the time. The last time he had checked, it had been around two A.M. He had a lecture at nine in the morning, but he couldn’t get to sleep.

His mind was full of incomplete thoughts. They swirled around violently in his head, and he couldn’t focus on one for long enough to form an opinion on it or even work through what it meant. He had been trying to stop himself from thinking for hours now, trying to force himself to think about nothing at all, but it never worked. The thoughts always came back with a vengeance.

Every single one of them was about Hera.

He was going to be sick, for real this time. It hadn’t been a real sickness that had been tormenting him since the party. It was worse, actually, a word he didn’t even want to think of because of the weight it held. 

Doomed, doomed, doomed. That’s what he was. He was doomed and his heart beat faster around Hera and he kept itching to look at the pictures he had with her on his phone and he was doomed.

He’d never felt this way about her. They had always been just Hera and Doug, best friends and practical social outcasts. There hadn’t been so much as a rumor about the two of them dating, even after they’d gone to prom together (and left halfway through to go get burgers). Maybe they just hadn’t been relevant enough socially, but still. The thought had barely ever crossed his mind, and when it had, he’d laughed it off.

Eiffel shifted onto his side, facing his room. The smallest amount of moonlight filtered through his blinds, illuminating the books and papers discarded on his floor. He tilted his head to look out the window, tracing his eyes along the jagged architecture of Hephaestus that jutted out against the black sky.

There were a few stars shining quietly up there. He liked the stars. Hera had told him the name of every single one of them one night, when they were laying on the top of Eiffel’s car in some field a few miles out from the city.

Oh, goddamnit. Even the night sky made him think of Hera.

He kept trying to convince himself that this wasn’t happening. As Minkowski would say, there was probably a perfectly logical explanation for why he was feeling like this that didn’t include the L-word. He had to be fine, because if he wasn’t, he didn’t know what he would do.

He couldn’t love her. It just wasn’t possible. Sure, she was beautiful, and he loved the sound of her laughter and her radiant smile, and he wanted to be around her all of the time, but that wasn’t love, was it? It couldn’t be. He wasn’t sure he could handle the ramifications if it was.

With his eyes still trained on the window, something fleeting crossed his mind. It was gone almost immediately, but he forced himself to concentrate on what it was, desperate to think about anything besides his current situation.

It was a memory.

Sometime in their sophomore year, Eiffel had been lying on the floor of his bedroom, staring out the window at the moon rising above the brownstones across the street.

It was around one in the morning. Sometimes, when he stayed up this late, he liked to imagine that he was the only one awake for miles. It was never true - the sound of sirens or soft talking outside would always shatter that illusion for him. It was nice to think about, though.

Right now, he knew there was at least one other person awake nearby. She was laying perpendicular to him, with her legs laid across his, staring at something on her phone. She didn’t seem to mind the mess around her or how clear it was that Eiffel hadn’t vacuumed his room in quite some time. He really appreciated that about her. She never judged him.

“Doug? ” she asked suddenly, setting her phone down on the carpet. He turned his head to look at her, and found her eyes staring intensely into his. “What do you th-think about love? ”

“What, as a concept? ” he asked, smiling at her. “I thought Han Solo and Leia did it pretty w- ”

“Not what I m-meant,” Hera interrupted, holding back a smile. “I mean, d-do you think you’d ever be in love? ” She propped herself up on an elbow and gave him a serious look. “Do you l-like the principle of it? ”

He pulled himself into a sitting position, rubbing the back of his neck. “Jeez, Hera, this is deeper than I thought we would get tonight.” It was a hard question to answer - did he like the principle of love? What did that even mean? He was only fifteen, for god’s sake; what did he know about love?

“I don’t know. Love is nice, like, in the movies. But for me… ” he frowned. “I don’t know. I dated Kate last year, but she dumped me. You remember that. I don’t think that was love.”

Hera nodded. “Th-that was a funny week.”

“Shut up,” he smiled at her. “But, yeah, I don’t know. Maybe one day I’ll meet some nice girl - or guy, you never know - and I’ll let you know if love is real. Why? ”

Hera shrugged. “Just wondering.” She paused for a second, her focused eyes flickering around his room, then said, “I j-just don’t know if it actually happens. You know? It seems f-fake. Like something th-that only happens to people in stories.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Eiffel said. “Maybe it’s a myth made up to sell rom-coms.” He glanced out the window again at the moon, shining down on them like they were the only two people awake in the entire city. He looked back at Hera, her eyebrows raised at him as she waited for him to go on. “But if it isn’t, there’s someone out there for both of us. I’m sure we’ll find ‘em eventually.”

She smiled. “You’re r-right. And I’ll need you to b-be my wingman.”

“Sounds good to me, sweetheart.”

He couldn’t stand it anymore. Groaning, he pulled himself out of bed and got to his feet. He pocketed his phone - the display read 2:27 A.M. - and opened the drawer on his nightstand, feeling around in it in the darkness. Eventually, he found the contraband he was looking for and stumbled through the darkness out of his room.

Navigating the precarious construction of Hephaestus could be dangerous in the dark, but Eiffel knew the pathway to the balcony by heart. It was one of his favorite places in the house, especially on nights like these where he couldn’t sleep for one reason or another. He’d never needed a balcony break more than he did now.

Quietly, he eased open the door to the balcony and slipped out into the night, shutting it behind him with a soft click. He made his way to the railing, retrieving his lighter and box of cigarettes from his pocket.

Technically, smoking wasn’t allowed on Goddard’s campus, but then again, neither was drinking. You could get away with either one by doing it in a place where campus security wouldn’t look. Eiffel had never run into any problems smoking on Hephaestus’s balcony, except for the several times that Minkowski had demanded that he stop. She always threatened to throw out his cigarettes, but never actually did, and so they’d settled into a silent disagreement about it that never developed much further than a hostile look when he smelled like smoke.

He lit the cigarette, closing his lighter with a satisfying snap that he hoped nobody inside would take notice of (especially not Hera, who was a notoriously light sleeper. He couldn’t handle talking to her right now).

As he took a drag off the cigarette, he stared out into the shadowed backyard. There was a thin film of moonlight over the unmowed grass. Everything was so silent compared to his nights in Boston. There were no cars rushing past on the street behind him, just the silent call of some nocturnal bird. Here at Goddard, he really could be the only person awake for miles around, with the exception of the poor overachievers still up studying.

Suddenly, there was a creak on the balcony stairs. Eiffel started, nearly knocking his lighter off of the balcony railing, and whipped around to face the darkened staircase.

For a moment, there was nothing, and Eiffel relaxed. He was getting too jumpy. Maybe this is what love does to a person. Not that he was in love.

“Eiffel…?” The voice from the staircase was deep and heavily accented. It was both a relief and a second scare all over again to hear.

“Oh, Doctor,” Eiffel sighed. “Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me. I thought you were…” he trailed off, looking down at the wooden balcony floor. Hera, maybe. That would have been awful.

Doctor Hilbert stepped out of the shadows and into the porchlight. He was wearing a lab coat again, like always, and the light glinted off the top of his head (how was that guy already bald in his late twenties?). He held a large metal box in his hand, and one of his hands covered the top conspicuously. “What are you doing out here? It is very late.”

“I could ask you the same thing, Doc,” Eiffel replied, taking the cigarette out of his mouth.

Hilbert made a face at him, but didn’t say much more. His expressions were always so indecipherable to Eiffel.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I won’t tell you why I’m out here at two A.M., and you don’t have to tell me why you’re out here at two A.M. Capiche?”

“...Yes. Good.” Hilbert nodded. That was about as close as he got to enthusiasm.

They both stared at each other silently for a moment. It was awkward. Eiffel couldn’t do silences with other people like he could with Hera - he needed to be talking or doing something, and smoking didn’t exactly count. That was more of an idle action than anything else. It was so different with Hera. Everything was different with Hera.

He was thinking about her again. Shit. If a cigarette and the sight of Hilbert’s bald head couldn’t even keep his mind from wandering back to her, what would?

“Well,” Hilbert suddenly said, breaking the weird quiet. “This was good talk. I am going inside now.” He started for the door.

“Wait,” Eiffel blurted out. He wasn’t sure what made him do it. He wasn’t necessarily close to Hilbert - they were completely different types of people, and Eiffel wasn’t really into the science-y studies. He certainly didn’t trust him with his secrets. But maybe that actually made him the perfect person to ask about this. “Uh, you’re a doctor, right? You know things about … the brain?”

Hilbert stopped and slowly turned towards Eiffel. Eiffel thought he saw a brief smile appear on his face, but it may have been a trick of the light. “Yes. I am doctor many times over.”

“Great!” Eiffel exclaimed, maybe a bit too enthusiastically. He snuffed out the tip of his cigarette on the balcony railing, then leaned back against it and crossed his arms. “I have a brain question.”

“I will do my best,” Hilbert said, shifting the box to his other arm.

“Okay, so…” Eiffel took a deep breath. “Lately, I’ve started to feel, you know, weird. And it’s only around one person. And now I feel awful about it because of something sh- they said, and I can’t stop thinking about it.” A laugh crept into his voice, “I can’t sleep over it. It feels like I’m dying. Am I dying, Hilbert? Do you think that’s it? Can you be killed by … something in your head?”

Hilbert was silent for a long time. Eiffel got the impression that his question had disappointed him. He shifted uncomfortably under his stare for almost a minute straight, trying to figure out a way to take back words he’d already said.

“There are many ways your brain can kill you, Eiffel,” Hilbert muttered slowly. “Many, many ways.” He straightened a little, and the porchlight made his eyes gleam eerily. “But feeling? Feeling cannot kill you. Is just feeling.”

Eiffel blinked, trying to wrap his head around that. Maybe it was sage wisdom. Maybe it was just Hilbert saying Hilbert things. Either way, he wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “Uh, thanks, Doc. That makes a lot of sense.”

Hilbert nodded once, then turned to the door. “Goodnight, Eiffel,” he said, stepping inside.

“Night, Hilbert.” Eiffel watched him leave, then faced the backyard again, putting his arms up on the railing. He stared up at the sky, full of more stars than he and Hera could see just outside the city.

Maybe Hilbert was right. Maybe feelings couldn’t kill you, and maybe there was a reason his heart fluttered when Hera smiled at him, and maybe he’d answered Hera’s question and found that love was real, at least on one side of the equation. Maybe he really was … in love, in some way. He could probably admit that.

He could just never admit it to anyone else. Especially not Hera. Feelings like that ruined friendships. If he told her, she might never see him the same way again. She might never even talk to him again.

Eiffel definitely wouldn’t be able to handle that. Even thinking about it made his head spin in a bad way. He needed her in his life, and not just because he felt this way about her. She had been his one constant since middle school, and he wasn’t sure he could stand to lose that over some stupid feelings.

No, he thought, staring up at the star he remembered Hera identifying as Polaris. Telling her about this was out of the question. They were usually honest with each other about everything, but there was no way she felt the same way about him. And even if she did, what then? No, it was entirely too risky to tell her.

He would just have to deal with it. He could do that. He wouldn’t let this love thing get in the way of their friendship, and he wouldn’t tell anyone. He’d keep it to himself until it went away. It couldn’t kill him, Hilbert had said.

He picked up his lighter off of the balcony and headed inside, going back to bed now that his mind was at least a little calmer.

Eiffel could definitely suppress his feelings. How hard could it be?

Chapter Text

Eiffel managed to survive the next few days without any major run-ins with Hera. They both had classes at the beginning of the week, and Hera had to attend some event at the observatory on Tuesday, giving Eiffel the chance to successfully avoid her most of the time. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be around her - in fact, he felt the exact opposite way, itching to talk to her and hear that intoxicating laugh of hers again. But he had a small measure of self-control about him, and he knew that being around her might only make things worse.

So, when he could, he maneuvered around Hera’s schedule in subtle ways. He had enough plausible deniability if anyone asked him about it: he picked up a shift at Diane’s here, went to office hours there.

And, unfortunately, it worked. Some small part of him had been hoping he’d run into her anyway. Maybe he was still clinging to hope that he could see her and be normally, completely platonic about it. But he knew that wasn’t really going to happen. He wanted to see her to feel his heart beat faster in his chest. He wanted to see her because he liked being around her.

But all of that was the stuff he was trying to ignore. He let it stay deep down, keeping it in the very back recesses of his mind where not even Hera and her unnaturally perceptive gaze could find it. Soon, it would go away or fade, and he could go back to being normal around her.

Soon certainly didn’t mean now, though.

The three knocks on his door were soft, unlike Minkowski’s hard raps or Lovelace’s preference to just shout for Eiffel when she needed him. He froze. That sort of knock only belonged to one person, and it was precisely the one he was avoiding right now.

He scrambled to the floor from his bed, where he had been scrolling through his phone for the past hour. His plan, if anyone asked, had been to tell them that he was studying this afternoon. The studying excuse was the oldest trick in the book. Nobody ever fell for it, but they also never probed any deeper. It worked every time.

He moved some of the scattered papers on his floor around him in a slightly plausible studying arrangement, then tossed his phone up to his bed. He cleared his throat and called out, “Come in!”

The door swung open, and Hera peered around the edge, smiling when she found Eiffel on the floor. His heart skipped a beat. “Hey, Doug,” she said cheerily, leaning against the door. “What are you d-doing?”

“Studying,” he answered, too quickly. “Yep. Studying. Nothing else going on. Big, important exam on Thursday. Gotta study.” Man, Hera was right. He really needed to work on his deception.

“Since when do you st-study?” She raised her eyebrows at him. “Like, ever? Studying is n-not a Douglas Eiffel activity.” She stepped further into his room. He wasn’t sure if he wanted her to come in or leave entirely. It was paralyzing.

“I maintain a very high GPA here, Hera. It’s higher than three,” he gave her a very serious look.

“Yeah, thr-three point zero one,” she joked, peering down at the papers around him. “Wow. Serious work. Is that a syllabus from the class you dr-dropped two months ago?”

Eiffel flushed and shoved the paper under his bed. “No. I’m studying. It’s very important.” He hoped she would get the message eventually and just leave him alone. But Hera was nothing if not stubborn, and he knew that all too well.

“Oh. Okay,” she said, tilting her head. “C-can I join you?”

“No!” he blurted out, his face flushed. Her smile faltered.

“I mean, yes! You can! It’s just-” he sighed and dragged a hand down his face. Nice one, Eiffel. “I just need to be prepared for this test. It’s sort of … freaking me out,” he said, not meaning the test that he’d made up at all.

“I’m sure you’ll do g-great, Doug. D-don’t worry about it,” Hera assured him, turning back towards the doorway. “I’ll be b-back. And we’ll hit the books hard.” She grinned, then disappeared into the hallway, her light footsteps receding towards her room.

Eiffel exhaled for a very, very long time. It felt like every muscle in his body had tensed up while Hera was here, and he was pretty sure he was going to regret that tomorrow when he woke up with an aching neck.

It didn’t make any sense to him. He didn’t need to feel this nervous around her. They were friends! He knew her! Just because he had feelings for her didn’t mean he had to suddenly lose all capacity to form sentences when she was nearby.

It really is like they say, he thought, looking back down at his papers to make sure they were at least tangentially related to his classes. Love does make you stupid.

Hera returned, thankfully, before he could consider if he had always been this stupid. She was carrying a textbook and notebook in one arm, and a speaker in the other. She grinned at him. “R-ready to study?”

He pointed up at her. “What’s with the…?”

“Oh, you c-can’t study without music, Doug. Come on, you’re the one with the r-radio show,” she said, moving aside some of the debris on his floor for a place to sit. She set the speaker down on the ground, then sat across from him and pulled out her phone.

While she stared down at her screen, swiping through to her music, Eiffel found his eyes drifting towards her. He tried to keep his gaze trained on his papers, to keep from lingering on the way her hair framed her face or how the light streamed through the window to focus on her features.

She selected a song, and a soft guitar began to play, floating out of the speakers and filling Eiffel’s room. She looked up and smiled at him. “Hope you like m-my playlists.”

He could barely breathe. “They’re great, Hera.”

She shifted around on the floor for a moment, finding a comfortable position, then opened her textbook. Eiffel watched as she pulled out her notes - her handwriting was always so unnecessarily neat - and began to read.

He picked up one of the papers nearby, which was mercifully for the class he really did have on Thursday, and scanned it. He tried to take in the words, but his eyes kept skipping over them without bothering to retain the meaning. How could he think about this stuff with Hera here, playing her favorite songs and occupying his mind?

To be fair, that wasn’t an achievement. Eiffel could hardly ever focus on things. But this was worse.

“What class is it?” Hera asked suddenly, glancing up from her textbook.

Eiffel set the paper down. “What class is what?”

“What class is your exam f-for?”

“Oh. Uh, Communication and Identity.” He waved a flippant hand through the air. “It’s nothing too interesting. Not like your classes.”

Hera smiled. “Yeah, I’m s-sure you would be really excited to d-discuss the geology of the moon.” She threw her hands up in the air. “There’s rocks! B-big deal.” She sighed and hunched back down to her textbook. “S-sometimes I wish they would just g-get to the material I don’t already know.”

“You’re too smart for them,” he told her, meaning it. He leaned back against his nightstand, letting his head thunk against the wood. “Hear that? I’m not like you. My head’s completely hollow.”

“Hey,” Hera gave him a stern look, “not many people c-can say they go to Goddard. What would Dean C-Cutter think?”

They stared at each other for a moment. Hera’s straight-line mouth trembled just slightly, and they both burst into laughter. Eiffel kept his down to hear hers more clearly.

“I think,” she managed through giggles, “he would t-tell you you aren’t being harsh enough.”

“And then suspend me immediately,” Eiffel added.

“Oh, of course. How c-could I forget?”

Their laughter died down, but Hera kept that shining smile of hers as she peered back down at her notes. The song changed to something lighter, with piano notes and an orchestra. She hummed along to it.

Eiffel looked back at his notes, then up at Hera again. He couldn’t believe he was feeling this way about her. He had avoided her all week, and now he was falling right back into how she’d made him feel over the weekend. All it took was a smile and a laugh to make him feel lovesick again.

The other night, lying awake in bed, he’d had a thought about this. He’d thought it meant he was doomed, in the sense that it was going to tear him apart and ruin their friendship. And maybe that was still true (which was precisely why he couldn’t tell her), but there was another part of it that doomed him. He was doomed to feel this way about things he hadn’t appreciated before. How many times, in high school, had he paused to admire the way she laughed at his jokes? It seemed to be the only thing he could think about now.

Love, he knew from television, was complicated. Couples fought and made up and cheated on each other because the ratings were going down, and sometimes they got married in unconventional places because that was how wedding episodes always worked out. Sometimes two people could never be together. Sometimes they were meant to be together.

This would work itself out. It always worked out in the shows. And, unlike in the shows, he didn’t have to worry about spontaneous changes to the plot because of bad ratings. So things would be fine.

He realized he’d been staring at the same piece of paper for several minutes, caught up in his own head again. The song had changed to something more upbeat, and Hera bobbed her head along across from him, tapping her pen against her palm.

Eiffel tore his eyes away from her and looked back down at his paper. Okay. Okay. It was time to buckle down and study for the test that absolutely did not exist. He reached under his bed and pulled out his textbook, flipping open to a random page.

He read for the next hour or so, trying not to be distracted by Hera’s music and stealing occasional glances up at her. The words in the textbook blurred together the more he read, until he wasn’t really reading words so much as seeing shapes. Sometimes they morphed into Hera’s face, or music notes, or the occasional bowl from the dining hall that he had yet to return. It made getting any real studying done impossible.

Finally, when the sunlight streaming into the room had all but dimmed completely and Hera’s playlist was on some Tchaikovsky piece, she slammed her textbook shut. Eiffel jumped, startled out of his listless textbook perusing, and looked up.

Hera was standing, picking up her phone from Eiffel’s floor. “I think I should g-go get something from the dining hall,” she said, shifting her books into one arm and cocking her head at Eiffel. “Want to c-come with me?”

Yes. I’d love to. Eiffel shook his head. “Nah, I’ve gotta … finish studying up this chapter.” Goddamnit.

“Alright. Good st-study session.” She turned to leave.

Eiffel was saying her name before he could stop himself. “Hera?”

She glanced back at him over her shoulder.

Don’t leave, he sort of wanted to say. Instead, he gave her a sloppy smile and managed, “Thanks for studying with me.”

She smiled at him, and he felt a little lightheaded. “Of c-course, Doug.”

And then she was gone, shutting the door behind her and leaving him at least fifty percent more doomed than he had been beforehand.

He got up and practically collapsed into his bed, burying his face in the sheets. He allowed himself one short, quiet scream of frustration into the bed before he rolled over and stared up at his ceiling.

He was in love with his best friend. He suspected it would be a really great plotline if it weren’t happening to him.

Chapter Text

Eiffel had barely been home from class for two minutes when he heard Lovelace call his name from outside.

He groaned, sinking further into the couch he’d just sat down on, and shut his eyes. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep, she’d leave him alone or forget she needed him for something.

That tactic never really worked with Lovelace. “Eiffel!” she called again, louder this time. “Come outside for a sec!”

“Why?” Eiffel asked, more to the universe than to Lovelace. “Why me?”

Someone grabbed his shoulder roughly and shook it, pulling him up from the couch. His eyes flew open, and he found Lovelace’s stony eyes staring at him, her mouth set in a line. “Because Minkowski has class and Hera is all the way upstairs. So come help me, or so help me god…”

“Alright, alright!” He pulled himself from Lovelace’s grip, brushing off his shoulder. “Jeez. I think you might’ve dislocated something.”

“No, I didn’t.” She turned and beckoned him along as she left the living room and headed for the front door. Eiffel followed behind her, stepping into his sneakers in the hallway.

“What do you need me for?” Eiffel asked, jogging to keep up with Lovelace’s long strides across their front lawn. The grass was slightly dewy from the earlier rain, and drops of water flew up around their shoes.

“I’m installing a new radio in the car, and somebody’s gotta hold it while I put it all together,” she explained. She stopped at the side of her car (a small, silver sedan she’d bought last year for a couple thousand dollars) and opened the passenger side door. “Hop in.”

“What’s in it for me?” he joked.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll go easy on you next Smash Bros Saturday.”

“Deal.” Eiffel climbed into the passenger seat. He was rarely ever up here when Lovelace drove them places; Hera had made it a habit to be the very first one to call shotgun when they stepped out of the house. There were CD cases scattered at his feet, and her dashboard was covered in a thin layer of dust. He noticed a few small hearts traced out in the dust and smiled to himself. The car may have been old as hell, but Lovelace cared for it like a friend.

She got in the driver’s seat and slammed the door shut behind her, then leaned forward towards the radio. The center of the dashboard had been essentially gutted, and wires snaked out of the gaping hole where the radio had once been.

Before Eiffel could even deign to make a joke about Lovelace’s car, she was shoving something metal into his hands. “Hold this,” she directed him, “and keep it steady.”

“Aye, aye, captain,” Eiffel muttered. He lifted up the new radio, and Lovelace got to work, picking up the wires one by one and plugging them in.

He withstood the silence for about six seconds, which might have been a new record for him. “So…” he began, glancing up at the roof of the car. “How have classes been for you? Mine have been great. I love learning about … carpe diem-ing, or whatever they actually teach me when I’m not listening.”

Lovelace shrugged. “Can’t complain.” She worked on the radio for a moment, then elaborated, “English is fun. We read poetry and talk about it, then we read gothic horror and talk about it. Then we read gothic horror poetry, and you’ll never guess what we do.”

“You talk about it?”

“You’re damn right we do.” She smiled at him. “God, some of my professors are so weird. Have you had Trenton at all?”

Eiffel took a moment to flip through his mental catalog of past professors. “I don’t think so.”

Lovelace shook her head. “Well, don’t. Trust me. He’s like Hilbert, but worse.” She took the radio from him and inspected it, continuing, “When will people learn that having no hair doesn’t automatically make you a genius?”

He burst into laughter. “Oh, god, don’t tell Hilbert that. He won’t stop until his greatest creation is coffee that makes all our hair fall out.”

She smiled. Lifting the new radio into place on the dashboard, she held out a hand towards Eiffel. “Pass me the screwdriver?”

“Uh- screwdriver, yes.” It took him a moment to find it, laying on the floor of Lovelace’s car with all of her CDs. He picked it up and gave it to her, watching as she started to screw the new radio into place. “Need me to hold that?”

“No, you’re good. You can go if you want,” she said, staring intently at the radio.

Eiffel shifted uneasily in the passenger seat, staring past Lovelace into the road. A car drove past, and he followed it with his eyes for a moment, watching it head down the street towards the other residential houses.

Lovelace suddenly halted her work. “What’s wrong, Eiffel?”

He blinked in surprise, looking back at her. “What do you mean?”

“You’re being weird. Very not-Eiffel. What’s going on?” She crossed her arms, the car stereo forgotten for a moment.

Eiffel grimaced. Sure, he’d been … maybe a bit absent, these past few weeks. He was still trying (although minimally) to avoid Hera on occasion, and when he was around other people, his mind sometimes drifted away to thinking about the whole situation again.

No matter how much thought he gave it, though, he couldn’t find a solution that didn’t involve actions with serious consequences. And Eiffel never really thought about consequences, ever, but he wasn’t willing to gamble with Hera’s friendship.

During class today, and on the walk home, he’d been thinking about all of it again. About her. His mind still lingered there a little, but he hadn’t known it was noticeable.

“Nothing,” he lied, eyes darting towards the hearts on the dash.

“‘Nothing’ my ass,” Lovelace retorted. When Eiffel only glanced down at his hands in reply, she sighed and leaned out of his field of view.

Click. The doors locked.

“There,” Lovelace said, self-satisfied. “Now you have to tell me, or I’m not letting you out of this car.”

“Lovelace,” Eiffel protested weakly. “This has to be against some sort of student code.”

“Cutter can take it up with the judge. Now what’s wrong with you?”

He bit his lip and glanced out of the windshield. The sky was still overcast from the showers earlier, and dark clouds were gathering over Hephaestus, heralding some rain in their future. This crush felt a lot like those thunderclouds. It was always there, in the back of his mind, waiting to strike when he forgot his umbrella at home.

Maybe it was a little bit of a mixed metaphor.

“Alright,” he sighed, drumming his fingers nervously on his thigh. He swallowed and looked into Lovelace’s eyes, trustworthy and strong-willed as always. Maybe he could tell her a little bit. “Have you ever … uh, been confused about how you feel about someone?”

She furrowed her brow. “What do you mean?”

Eiffel gestured helplessly. “You know. Like, have you ever felt so strongly about someone that you don’t really get how you feel? Or … why? Stuff like that, you know?”

Lovelace stared at him for some time, her mind clearly working out what he was really saying under about twelve veils of ambiguity. A fat raindrop landed on the sunroof, and Eiffel looked up at it, momentarily distracted.

“I get it,” she finally said, her voice slow and deliberate. There was a small smile on her face, and her eyes twinkled. “I get what you mean, Eiffel.”

His breath caught in his throat, and his eyes went wide. “You do?”

“Oh, I do.” She grinned at him. “You have an enemy, don’t you?”

Eiffel blinked. “What?”

“A nemesis? Someone you really, really hate?” Lovelace crossed her arms and nodded sagely. “I know the feeling. And I can definitely help you with that.”

Eiffel opened his mouth to correct her - no, I don’t hate anyone, I have the complete opposite problem - then closed it. He couldn’t tell anyone about this, especially not Lovelace. Even if he omitted Hera’s name, she would guess it way too easily. Then, because she was Lovelace, she would push and push him to do something about it until he really did. And there was no telling what sort of consequences that would have.

He sat back in the passenger seat, leaning the back of his head against the window. A few more raindrops fell on the glass. “Do tell, Lovelace.”

“Alright. Well, first of all, if you don’t know why you hate someone, really dig deep. What did they do to piss you off? Why does the sight of their face make you want to punch them?” She tapped on her temple, “Knowing is half the battle, and knowing why you hate someone will make your hate that much more effective.”

“Two, make sure they know you hate them. I mean, really make their life a living hell. My old roommate Sam and I were worst enemies. One time I put a chair under his doorknob the morning he had an eight A.M. class.” A wistful look crossed her face, then disappeared just as quickly. “Do not do that one if your enemy is both stupid and lives above the ground floor. His foot was in a boot for weeks.”

Eiffel barely contained his laughter. “Alright, Lovelace. Anything else?”

“Yes, actually,” she said, pointing up at the sunroof. He glanced up and found more and more raindrops falling onto the glass, picking up in speed as they watched. “We should head inside before that gets any worse.”

“Great idea. You gonna unlock my door, or am I gonna have to jump out the window like your friend Sam?” He grinned.

“Please, Eiffel, he isn’t even here to defend himself,” Lovelace said, giving him a small smile. She reached towards her door and clicked open the door locks. “Race you inside?”

“Last one in has to get the space heater from Minkowski’s room,” he challenged.

She grinned at him. “Deal. …And, Eiffel?”

“Yeah?”

“Let me know if you need any assistance with your enemy. I’d be happy to help.” She sounded genuine, and there was a rare softness in her eyes that Eiffel couldn’t bear to ruin. He would have to come up with a fake nemesis at some point, for her sake.

He smiled at her. If only you knew the truth. “Thanks, Lovelace.”

“Of course.” She winked at him. “Now, let’s race.”

Chapter Text

“Doug, c-come on!” Hera shouted up the stairs. “We’re all waiting f-for you!”

“Just a second!” he yelled back, combing his hands through his hair hastily. He couldn’t get it to lay flat enough for the look he was trying to pull off, and he’d been trying on-and-off for almost an hour at this point. He groaned, defeated, and ran a comb through it one last time.

It stuck right back up. Eiffel swore under his breath and let the comb clatter onto the counter. Whatever. He could sacrifice some costume accuracy this time.

He pulled open the bathroom door and made his way downstairs, boots thumping loudly on the wooden staircase. The chatter in the living room paused as he entered, and three heads turned to look at him.

“Hey, folks.” He grinned back at the blank stares he was receiving.

“Eiffel,” Minkowski said slowly. “Is this the exact same costume you wore last year?”

“I t-told you,” Hera responded before Eiffel could get a word in, “he wears the same one every year. I c-can’t get him to stop.”

“I know. I just didn’t think you were serious.” Minkowski stared in abject horror at Eiffel’s costume. “Every year?” she asked, astounded.

“Every year, kid,” Eiffel proclaimed, reaching up and adjusting his vest. “Haven’t missed a single one, and don’t you forget it.”

“Oh, my god, he’s doing the voice,” Lovelace muttered, revealing two plastic fangs in her mouth. “I don’t know if I can stand him doing the voice all night.”

His mouth fell open. “What! You got a problem with Han Solo?”

“I have a problem with you as Han Solo,” Lovelace said. “Remember how last year, you got way too into character,” a small smile spread across her face, “and they had to-”

Eiffel groaned. “I know, I know. Those imperial bastards took my blaster.” He frowned down at his empty holster. “But it doesn’t matter! This year, the streets are ours.”

He paused for a moment to let his eyes roam across his roommates. Lovelace wore a dark cloak and had two sharp, white fangs in her mouth - a dead ringer for Dracula. Minkowski had on a floral shirt that was very out of character for her, with lace around the edges and everything. “What’s with the grandma’s-funeral outfit, Minkowski?”

She frowned at him. “I’m Cosette from Les Mis, Eiffel.”

“Oh! Duh,” Eiffel laughed. “Of course. Very Minkowski of you.”

Finally, he turned to survey Hera’s costume. She was never really one for dressing up, and so he wasn’t surprised to find her wearing her normal clothes, with the addition of a white tote bag at her side.

He stared at it for a moment, trying to work out who she was supposed to be, then sighed. “Alright, Hera, what is it?”

She broke out into a grin (completely unaware of how fast it made Eiffel’s heart pound in his chest), and opened her bag. It was completely empty. “I’m a n-newspaper delivery boy who’s out of papers,” she announced proudly.

Eiffel stared at her for a moment. It was ingenious. It was the best costume he’d ever seen. He saw Hera’s face trembling with the laughter she was holding back, and he couldn’t keep himself from chuckling.

“Damnit,” he said, “that’s good. God, that’s really good.”

“I don’t think I get it.” Minkowski leaned forward to get a better look at Hera’s costume. “Lovelace, do you…?”

Lovelace shrugged. “It’s a little funny.”

“It’s very funny,” Eiffel corrected, smiling at Hera. She smiled back, and he looked away before he could start to feel his stomach fluttering again. “Alright, are we going trick-or-treating or what?”

“Yes, Eiffel. We were just waiting for you,” Minkowski said. “I have our route mapped out. We’ll be out for just long enough to have our fun, but home before Hilbert can cause lasting damage to the property. Any questions?”

“You mapped it out?” Eiffel asked incredulously.

“Yes.” She sounded very serious about it.

He did not understand Renée Minkowski.

“Alright!” Lovelace clapped her hands together. “Let’s get out of here. I want candy.” She moved towards the front door, and the rest of them followed behind her.

“I like your c-costume, Doug,” Hera whispered to him in the darkened hallway. “For what it’s worth.”

He took a deep breath. Channeling Han Solo, who probably wouldn’t start feeling lightheaded the second Leia smiled at him, he turned to Hera and gave her an easy grin. “I know.”

She dug her elbow into his ribs. “You p-put that costume on and suddenly you’re Mr. C-Confidence.”

“Oh, be honest. You love it,” Eiffel teased, stepping out of the front door with her.

Leo Street was relatively empty, for Halloween night. A lot of Goddard students saw themselves as too mature for trick-or-treating, and many of them were probably at parties right now instead of out prowling for candy. The residents of Hephaestus knew better - save for Minkowski, who they had to talk into going out with them every year.

Still, though, in spite of the real lack of Halloween spirit, there were still jack-o-lanterns sparsely scattered on porches, carved with faces or obscene imagery. There were a few straggling trick-or-treaters, but it was hard to tell if they were residents from in town or Goddard students. Streetlamps burned overhead, bright white against the black of the night sky. The road was strewn with fallen leaves from trees in the yards, and they glowed with a certain sort of Halloween orange in the streetlamp light.

The scene, Eiffel thought before he could restrain himself, was almost as beautiful as the girl standing next to him.

Stop that. You can just have a nice time tonight. You don’t need to ruin it with your feelings, he chastised himself, staring out at the street to keep from looking at Hera. She’s just your friend.

Right. Just friends.

“Where to first, Minkowski?” Lovelace asked up ahead, disrupting Eiffel’s thoughts before they could get any more bleak.

“This way.” Minkowski pointed to the right, starting down the path through the front lawn towards the sidewalk. “We’ll go down this way, hit every house we can, then take a left onto Virgo and loop back around. Sound good?”

Everyone murmured their assent, though personally Eiffel thought it was way too short of a route. Minkowski had a point about being home in time to keep Hilbert in check, though. Halloween was the perfect sort of night for him to do his weird science.

The group trailed after Minkowski into the quiet Halloween evening. Eiffel reached into a pocket and retrieved the plastic bag he was going to use for candy, which was, after all, the most important part of Halloween.

In years past, he and Hera would always set up camp on his front staircase after their night out, divvying up and sharing the candy that they didn’t want with each other. It was a good system: Hera was fond of sour things and fruit flavors, and Eiffel was partial to chocolate and peanuts. Halloween meant there was always something for both of them.

They passed the house right next to Hephaestus, which had darkened windows and a conspicuous lack of any pumpkins outside. No Halloween spirit, check, Eiffel noted. Goddard students were all so full of themselves.

The next house over had one light on, but as they got closer, they saw the sign taped up on the door. NO CANDY, it read, in bold black Sharpie, WE HAVE MIDTERMS TO STUDY FOR.

“Unbelievable,” Lovelace muttered.

“Right? This school sucks,” Eiffel complained, crossing his arms over his vest. “Going to Goddard doesn’t make you too good for Halloween. I mean, really, who do these people think they are?”

“C-careful, Doug,” Hera warned, “you’re starting another Halloween rant.”

“Maybe I am. I just wish people would respect the sanctity of the best holiday of the year. It’s free candy day, and they think they’re above free candy! Unbelievable,” he repeated. Nobody at Goddard got Halloween like he did, and nobody, for sure, was more defensive of it.

“Well, look, Eiffel, Urania’s got their lights on.” Minkowski pointed ahead to the first house on Virgo Court as they rounded the corner. “I’m sure they’ve got some good stuff there.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure President Jackass-in-Chief is handing out king-sized Hershey’s bars,” Eiffel groused.

Urania House had three residents, but the one they saw most often was Warren Kepler. Warren was the student government president, and he took his job way too seriously, giving speeches at events that seemingly nobody had asked for and holding doors open for people for twelve hours straight last year to get votes. He was infamous around campus for his weird, uptight demeanor and semi-regular emails to the entire student body. In short, not many people looked upon him that favorably. Especially not Eiffel, who was opposed to taking things seriously on moral grounds.

“Ah, it can’t be that bad,” Lovelace smiled. “I’m sure every piece of candy has a Vote Kepler sticker on it.”

“Well, we’re about to find out,” Minkowski said, leading them up the stairs to Urania’s front door. There were two carved pumpkins on the front porch. One was a standard jack-o-lantern carving with a menacing-looking face, and the other was a surprisingly detailed depiction of Michael Myers. Eiffel really hoped Warren hadn’t done the second one, because he had to admit it looked great.

Minkowski pressed the doorbell, and a loud chime rang out inside the house. A girl’s voice called out, “Coming!”

There was scuffling on the other end for a few moments, a short bark of laughter, and then a shushing noise. Someone pulled the door open.

Standing behind the door was a pair of people, and thankfully, neither of them were Warren Kepler. On the right, there was a grinning guy who had a pair of goggles on top of his head, wearing a black T-shirt that had the NASCAR logo messily painted on. Racecar driver, Eiffel guessed. Interesting choice.

On his left was a younger-looking girl who wore a fake mustache and a red coat. Most of her hair was pulled out of her face by a bald cap. Eiffel squinted at her as he approached the bowl of candy she was holding, scrutinizing her costume.

As he plucked a Milky Way from the bowl, it clicked for him. “Doctor Robotnik?” he asked aloud, smiling.

The girl laughed, a short little ha-ha sound. “Yeah! He’s my childhood hero.”

“Of course he is,” the guy next to her said, rolling his eyes. “Didn’t wanna match costumes with me so you could be bald.”

She frowned at him, then glanced back at the group still on their porch, all four of them looking mildly amused by the situation. “Great costumes!” she said quickly, then took a step backwards and shut the door.

They all paused for a moment, silent, and heard the muffled sound of someone saying “Listen, Daniel, Dr. Robotnik is a well-respected scientist with more PhDs than you…”

Eiffel stifled his laughter and turned to the stairs. “Well, that was better than seeing President Kepler.”

“Yeah, it was,” Hera agreed. “He’s v-very weird. Like a little C-Cutter in training.”

“At least some people besides us still care about the magic of Halloween,” Lovelace said sarcastically. Eiffel suspected it was a dig at him, and opened his mouth to reply, but she beat him to it. “Calm down, Eiffel. Trust me, we all love the Halloween rants. Free candy is great.” 

“And,” she turned to the side, “speaking of candy, why didn’t you get any, Minkowski?”

“Oh, I … forgot my bag,” Minkowski said, pausing on the sidewalk. She waved a hand through the air. “It doesn’t matter. Most Halloween candy isn’t my cup of tea, anyways.”

Lovelace frowned. “I think you just don’t want to trick-or-treat with us.”

“No, that isn’t-”

“Minkowski,” Eiffel whined, always an expert at adding fuel to the fire, “we spent all week convincing you and you flaked on us?”

She shook her head. “I just forgot it, Eiffel. It’s fine. I don’t need to get candy.”

“Yes, you do,” Lovelace decided. She reached one hand out from underneath her cloak and put it on Minkowski’s shoulder. “We’re going to go get your bag.”

“Lovelace,” Minkowski sighed.

“We are.” She looked back up at Eiffel and Hera. “You two alright staying here? We’ll be back soon.”

“Yeah, we’re g-good,” Hera said, adjusting the bag on her shoulder. Eiffel nodded in agreement, trying not to think too hard about being alone on an empty street with her.

He wasn’t very good at hiding his feelings from himself. And the jury was certainly still out on whether or not he could hide them from other people.

Lovelace smiled and guided Minkowski back the way they’d come, ignoring her halfhearted protests. “We’ll be back,” she called out over her shoulder.

“Don’t stay out too late!” Eiffel called back, a nervous smile on his face.

The street was silent for a moment, his eyes trained on Minkowski and Lovelace’s receding figures so he didn’t have to look at Hera. He tried psyching himself up a little - come on, Eiffel, you’re just hanging out with your best friend. This doesn’t have to be weird.

Right. It didn’t have to be. There was nothing going on with them.

He felt a slight nudge to his ribcage, and looked over to see Hera tapping her hand against his side. She was grinning at him. “K-kinda spooky, right?” she asked, tilting her head to the right to indicate Virgo Court as a whole.

Eiffel glanced up to see what she was talking about. Most of the houses on Virgo were dark, with their front doors in shadows and most of the lights off. One glowing window winked out into darkness as Eiffel’s eyes passed over it. But the streetlamps were on, and they illuminated the bright-colored leaves that tumbled underneath in a slight breeze. He resisted the urge to run out into the road and step on them for that crunching noise he held so dear.

A small smile crossed his face. “Maybe it’s spooky to you. I think it’s pretty nice. I’ve seen much worse on some of the most backwater planets in the galaxy, you know.”

“Oh, god, Doug. Some day, I will m-make you wear a different costume. I don’t know how much more Han Solo I c-can take.” She laughed a little, and Eiffel tried not to take notice of the way it stopped a few of his synapses from firing.

“Yeah, well, for now, you’re stuck with me,” he said, smiling a little wider. “Eight years and still going strong. No way I can break that now.”

Hera shook her head. “I wish I’d known what I was getting into when you asked to do Halloween with me.”

“Oh, yeah!” Eiffel exclaimed, suddenly recalling a night much like this one from a long time ago. “That was … maybe a mildly disappointing first Halloween for you, Hera. Sorry about that.”

“I don’t think I d-did this r-right, ” Hera admitted, staring down at her costume through the eyeholes.

“Hera,” Eiffel sighed in that far-too-high voice he’d had in middle school, “when I said dress up as ‘a ghost or something,’ I didn’t mean literally a ghost.”

She glanced back up at him, and he flinched at the sight of her eyes. She looked a little like she was about to cry. “Sorry, D-Doug.”

“No, no, no, it’s fine,” Eiffel reassured her, stepping closer to her. They’d only been friends for about two months, but he was beginning to pick up on the fact that Hera had never really had friends before, and maybe didn’t understand how the whole thing worked. Then again, neither did he, so it was only natural that they had ended up being friends.

But Hera was a different story entirely - she’d confessed to him a few weeks ago that she’d never celebrated Halloween before. Or many holidays at all. She’d told him that she didn’t really get why they were so important, and that they didn’t seem all that fun anyways.

That was when Eiffel made the decision to invite her over for Halloween. He was not about to sit idly by and let this strange girl, who was slowly becoming his first and only real friend, miss out on another Halloween night.

She still had a long way to go in the traditions aspect of it all, though.

“Look, Hera, the ghost is great. I think people will really love it. It’s very … Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin, you know? ” He smiled at her.

Very quickly, she went from looking like she was on the verge of tears to looking incredibly lost. “What? ”

“Nevermind. I meant …  the costume’s great. Now let’s go trick-or-treating. You’ve been seriously missing out for the past twelve years,” he told her, leading her out of the kitchen and towards the front door. “My parents are working tonight, so we can stay out as long as we want. And, trust me, I know all the good candy spots. ”

“Alright, Doug,” she smiled. “I’m excited. ”

“You should be.” With a flourish, Eiffel stepped towards the door and flung it open, throwing his arms wide to display the Halloween night that awaited them.

His face fell. The world outside was drenched. Buckets of rain were falling on the sidewalk, leaving the ground covered in what looked like half an inch of water. The rain drummed loudly on the porch, almost mocking the two of them for daring to have some fun on a night like this. The street was devoid of trick-or-treaters.

“Oh,” Hera muttered, peering over his shoulder. Eiffel turned to look at her, and he could see her eyes crinkling through the holes in the bedsheet. “I think we forgot to ch-check the forecast.”

Despite his spirits being completely crushed, that gave Eiffel a bit of a laugh. She started laughing, too, and the two of them got louder and louder, overpowering the sound of the rain falling outside.

It was just like Han Solo had said. He was beginning to like this girl.

“Oh, it’s fine.” Hera’s voice broke through the memory. “Sp-spending my first Halloween on your living room floor was alright, t-too.”

“Well…” Eiffel looked back at her, and suddenly the words he was going to say had disappeared from his brain. Her eyes, enthralling in a way he hadn’t noticed before, shone at him with the light from the streetlamps. For a second, it was the only source of light he could see in the dusk, and it felt like he was falling from the sky.

Her eyes were blinding. It was like he was staring into the sun, or possibly a really bad lens flare.

And, like a lot of bright lights in the darkness, it gave him hope. For a second, there was the flickering possibility in the back of his mind that they could be more than friends. Maybe they could do things friends didn’t do; maybe if he reached for her hand right now she wouldn’t object.

His fingers twitched at his side.

“Doug?” Hera waved a hand in front of his face, and he bounced back into reality, blinking at her. She gave him a wan smile. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah!” Eiffel said, more to convince himself than her. “Yeah, yeah, uh, I’m fine.” His mind raced. Why would I think something like that? There really is something wrong with me.

So much for suppressing my feelings. He glanced away into the street, shivering a little in the cold night air.

You couldn’t really hide things from your own heart. Maybe that was the scariest part of Halloween.

Hera was looking at him weirdly. She opened her mouth to say something for a terrifying moment, but instead her eyes drifted past Eiffel’s face, and she raised her hand in a wave.

“Hey, you two,” Lovelace’s voice rang out on the empty street. Eiffel turned to see her with an embarrassed Minkowski, a pillowcase slung over one shoulder. “Let’s get this show back on the road!”

He smiled uneasily and spared a glance at Hera. She was smiling, too, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. Damnit. I’ve got to stop doing things like that.

“Well, you heard the woman,” Minkowski said, trying her best to sound authoritative with a floral shirt on. “Let’s trick-or-treat.”

“Sounds good,” Eiffel managed, turning to the darkened sidewalk ahead of him. He tried, in vain, not to look at Hera.

I’ve gotta pull myself together.

Chapter Text

Dear Hera,

Hey! What’s up? How was your day today? Mine was great. I went to class, came home, talked to you in the kitchen, and now I’ve been holed up in my room for the past few hours. I’m not trying to avoid you. Not really. It’s just difficult for me to know how to act around you right now. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself.

The truth is, Hera, I have something I need to tell you. It’s really important, and I can’t keep it to myself for much longer. But I don’t want this to change anything between us. We’re still best friends. I just need to tell you so I can stop feeling like it’s killing me, you know? Once I tell you, maybe it’ll stop. Then things can go back to normal.

Okay. Basically what I have to tell you is that I have feelings for you. Romantic ones. And it’s been less than a month but it is really, really hard to feel like this about you, Hera. We’ve been friends for too long. I know everything about you, and I like everything about you. Is that weird? You’d tell me if that was weird, right? I just think I needed 

Eiffel slammed his pen down on his desk and crumpled up the paper into a ball. The edges bit into the palm of his hand as he tossed it over his shoulder, joining the almost comical amount of balled-up papers scattered around his trash can. He put his head down on his desk with a dull thunk and groaned.

He had been trying to write this letter for at least nine different drafts, nine pieces of paper that were now lying around his trash can across the room. No matter how hard he tried, the words he wanted to say never came out quite right. There were only so many ways to say I have a crush on you that didn’t sound stupid, overly flowery, or too juvenile for even Eiffel.

It wasn’t like he planned on giving her the letter. That would be foolhardy and idiotic, and Eiffel was a little too good at being both of those things. This was one situation he could admit he had to handle with more care than usual. The letter would just be for him, to put into some envelope he’d scrounge up in the kitchen junk drawer and keep in his nightstand. Maybe one day he could look back at it and laugh, but his hope for that sort of future dwindled more and more every time Hera looked his way.

With a sigh, Eiffel lifted his head and glanced out the window. The sun had all but set, leaving just a few strands of color in the sky above Hephaestus. His room had darkened with the sunset, and he hadn’t even noticed. He reached forward and flicked his desk lamp on. The light spilled across his desk as he pulled out another piece of paper and began to write.

Hey Hera!

It’s Doug. Obviously. Who else has handwriting this awful?

That was a joke. You can laugh at that. Anyways, I’m writing this letter to tell you

No, no, no. None of this was coming out right. He crumpled the paper and tossed it over his shoulder, then started fresh with a new sheet, digging his free hand into his hair in frustration.

Hi, Hera,

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately. There’s something I think I need to tell you. It’s been taking up residence in my mind for about a month now, and it’s why I’ve been so weird lately. My head’s in the clouds, and it’s up there thinking about you.

He crossed out that last sentence. Maybe poetry wasn’t his strong suit.

What I want to tell you is … remember when I made you watch Casablanca? Well, I think it’s insane that of all the middle schools in all the towns in all the world, you happened to walk into mine eight years ago. And now we’re going to college together. Isn’t that crazy?

Well, I bring up Casablanca because I think I

He paused, pen hovering over the paper. Why was it so hard to write stuff like this out?

Having feelings did not have to be this difficult. Maybe he was only making things worse for himself. Romance was supposed to be easy, right? That’s how it was in every movie he’d ever seen. Love was effortless, even if the characters had to fight to be with each other. Everything else - the stuff inside - was supposed to be easy.

But, then again, there were a lot of things he had to be worried about fucking up - his friendship with Hera, his living situation, the energy of the entire house, his own feelings…

Normally, he wouldn’t really care about most of those. He’d certainly ruined the energy of the house before without a shred of remorse, like when he’d set the fire alarm off at two A.M. trying to smoke out of his window that didn’t open.

The friendship part - the Hera part - kept him stalled in his tracks, though. The classic Doug Eiffel Recklessness had its (very rare) limits.

With a groan, Eiffel balled up the sheet of paper - what was this, his twelfth? - and tossed it towards the trash can by his door. He cared about her too much, that was the issue. Well, maybe not so much an issue as an obvious side effect of a crush, but it was certainly getting in the way. And he couldn’t do anything about it.

New paper. Same pen. Same feelings.

Hera,

I have something I really need to tell you. Over the past month, I’ve realized that I feel a certain way about you. I don’t think I can keep it to myself anymore. I think I’m

“Hey!”

Eiffel jumped, whipping around in his desk chair to face the door. His eyes widened when he saw Minkowski standing in the doorway, her arms crossed indignantly. She was eyeing the paper refuse scattered around his trash can with disdain. “Eiffel, what is…?”

Almost in slow motion, she began to lean forward to pick one up. Eiffel’s heart stopped.

He was out of his chair and lunging towards Minkowski before he could even process what he was doing. “Nothing!” he exclaimed, kicking the paper away from her outstretched hand. “Nothing you need to- it’s nothing, Minkowski. It’s for class. It’s nothing!” He grinned nervously at her, feeling beads of sweat forming on his forehead.

Minkowski narrowed her eyes at him. “Is it nothing, or is it for class?”

“It’s nothing,” Eiffel repeated, as if saying it more would make it true.

She stared at him for a few more uncomfortable seconds, then glanced down at the papers on the ground again. “Okay, Eiffel,” she said, dropping it but sounding very unconvinced of his lies. “Just make sure you clean all of this up.”

“Will do,” he smiled, nudging some of the papers closer to the trash can. “Sooo, did you need something? Or were you just gracing me with your presence f-”

“Cut it out,” she interrupted, making a face at him. Eiffel was pretty sure she only ever did that to hide her amusement. “I came by to tell you Smash Bros Saturday has commenced in the living room. You’re expected to join us so that Lovelace can kick your ass.” At his offended look, she held her hands up. “Her words, not mine.”

Eiffel blew out a breath. “Alright. God, I can’t believe I forgot what day it was.” He turned towards his desk, spotting the final letter he’d been drafting. “Uh … I’ll be down in a second.”

“Alright.”

He waited until he heard Minkowski’s footsteps heading away down the hall, then crossed his room back to his desk. He folded the sheet of paper into a square and slipped it into his pocket, tapping it a few times for security. I can work on this later.

He followed after Minkowski, bounding down the stairs into the living room. Smash Bros Saturdays were a time-honored tradition in Hephaestus, and one that he was almost disappointed in himself for forgetting about. Attendance was mandatory for at least one game, no matter what you had going on. It was about the whole house (minus Hilbert, who seemingly didn’t understand video games) coming together to enjoy themselves.

And to destroy each other in Smash Bros.

Eiffel entered the living room to find that everyone else had already set up camp - Minkowski and Hera sat on the couch, and Lovelace was sitting on the floor by the coffee table (she insisted it gave her a tactical advantage in matches). Hera spotted him first and waved him over to the couch, a small smile on her face.

He joined her on the couch, leaning back into the plaid upholstery. “So, what are we playing tonight? Teams or singles? Home run?”

“I was thinking singles,” Lovelace said, her fingers already dancing across the controller as she started setting up their round. “I need to reassert my stance as the best player in this house.”

“Not for long,” Eiffel muttered.

“You’ve said that every week for the p-past year,” Hera pointed out. She picked up a controller off of the table and held it out to him.

As he took it from her, for a brief moment, his fingertips brushed her hand. It was a fleeting exchange, but it felt like a shockwave through his body nonetheless. He nearly dropped the controller.

Good god, he thought, shaking his hand covertly at his side. It was like he had been burned. Why can’t I just feel normally about her?

Well, if he knew the answer to that one, he wouldn’t be in this situation at all. He moved a little bit to the side, giving himself about another inch of space away from Hera, and leaned back into the couch. “Singles sounds good.”

“Your character, Eiffel.” Minkowski tilted her head toward the screen. “We’re just waiting on you.”

“Again,” Lovelace added.

“Sorry! Jeez,” Eiffel muttered, moving his joystick to select Samus. “Can’t catch a break, can I?”

“No,” Lovelace grinned and started the match. “Especially not now.”

He watched in dismay as the match started and Lovelace’s Kirby immediately came after him. Eiffel hit as many buttons as he could, but Lovelace had practice and, unlike him, actually knew how to play. Minkowski and Hera were silent, their characters sitting still on the screen.

“Don’t just watch, you two!” Eiffel frowned across the couch at them. “Help me!”

“Sorry, Eiffel,” Minkowski shrugged, trying to hide a smile. “It’s a lot funnier to watch.”

With a few more button hits and rapid movement of her joystick, Lovelace had thrown him off of the stage. He didn’t even bother to recover.

“So,” Lovelace said as she moved on to fight Minkowski, “who wants to hear what I heard about Cutter yesterday?”

“You’re just trying to distract us from the game,” Minkowski grumbled, leaning forward and tightening her grip on her controller.

“And it’s working. Tell us more, Lovelace,” Eiffel smiled. It was a nice bit of revenge for Minkowski’s inaction when he was the one getting their ass kicked. Plus, any story about Cutter was bound to be equal parts funny and eerie.

“ Well …” She smiled, tossing Minkowski’s Lucina off the stage. “Someone from my Victorian Poetry class told me that he knows someone who ran into Cutter on Halloween.” She stifled a laugh, “Apparently, he was clearly dressed up as someone, but every time they asked him who it was he refused to tell.”

Hera giggled. “He’s so odd.”

“Oh, it gets better. When they tried to, you know, bid the fair Dean a good night and get on with their way home from partying - by the way, this was, like, one in the morning, and Cutter’s just out on the street - he wouldn’t let them. He just stood in their path and stared at them for a good two minutes or something.”

“I would have just accepted my fate,” Eiffel commented. “If Cutter murdered me, so be it. Besides, I already used all the financial aid he’s giving me, so who really wins?”

“You know, he’s always been kind of serial killer-y,” Minkowski remarked thoughtfully.

Eiffel threw his hands up in the air. “This is what I’ve been trying to say! Hera, back me up here. He totally looks like Patrick Bateman, right?”

“Maybe it’s the skincare routine,” Lovelace cut in, taking out Eiffel’s Samus for the third and final time. “But let me finish. After he was done, I don’t know, playing mind games with them, he just smiled at them. You know the one, where he kinda looks like an alien who never learned how to smile correctly?” She did her best impression over her shoulder. They were all familiar with exactly which smile she meant; Cutter always looked more like he was showing off to his dentist than actually smiling.

“Anyways, then he just goes ‘Goodnight!’ and disappears down the sidewalk. Can you believe that?” With a final press of her B button, she knocked Hera off of the stage.

“GAME!” the announcer boomed. Lovelace turned around and raised her eyebrows at them.

“I can definitely believe it,” Eiffel deadpanned, staring at his position in dead last.

“Well,” Minkowski sighed, standing up from the couch. She paused to set down her controller and survey everyone for a moment. “Thank you all for attending another Smash Bros Saturday. Unfortunately, the gracious Professor Radcliffe is giving us a midterm on Tuesday, so I have to go study now.”

The letter was starting to burn a hole in Eiffel’s pocket the longer he sat next to Hera. Seeing an opportunity for a way out, he stood hastily, rubbing his neck. “I, uh … I should study, too.”

“Oh, boo,” Lovelace frowned. “You two are no fun.”

“I’ll play another r-round with you, Lovelace,” Hera chimed in.

“Thank you, Hera.”

Eiffel gave the two of them a small wave, his hand still buzzing a little where Hera had touched it. With that, he retreated to his room, his clumsy hands fumbling with the paper in his pocket as he shut the door behind him.

He laid it flat on his desk and smoothed it out, collapsing into his desk chair. He picked up his pen, and it hovered over the paper again, waiting for the words he couldn’t write out. Come on, Doug. Just say what’s on your mind.

Deep breath. He put the pen to the paper.

I think I’m having feelings about you that I can’t really explain. I don’t want to say it’s love. The word feels too heavy in my brain. But it’s definitely something like love. It’s … honestly, Hera, maybe it’s just amazement. Maybe I’m amazed at your intelligence, or how nice you are, or your sense of humor (you’re funnier than me, which is definitely an accomplishment). Or maybe I’m just surprised you can make me feel like this. The fact that you literally take my breath away, or the electricity I feel whenever

He tossed the pen down and crumpled up the piece of paper, his face burning with embarrassment. He couldn’t write this out.

He threw the paper on the floor and stared into the light of his desk lamp, hands gripping the edge of his desk. The bulb burned into his retinas like he was looking straight at the sun.

Then, very slowly, he pulled out another sheet of paper. He just stared at it, not reaching for his pen, as if the perfect love letter would materialize before him if he tried hard enough.

He fell asleep there waiting for it.

Chapter Text

“Fuck,” Eiffel whispered, leaning back against the wall and shutting his eyes. He had been staring at his laptop screen nonstop for two hours now, and the unnatural light was giving him a headache. Even through his eyelids, he could see the harsh way it lit up the room. The headache pounded on the backs of his eyeballs.

He hated making videos for class. Maybe he should have foreseen the fact that a communications degree would require a lot of digital communication, but he had never been the best at thinking things through. Now, due to some probably stupid decision made by his high school self, he was burning the midnight oil to edit an “informational video,” or whatever the assignment had been.

Still feeling the headache pressing on his skull, he forced his eyes open to look at his laptop screen again. The clock display helpfully told him that it was 11:19 P.M., though it felt much later to him.

He paused, looking at his cluttered editing timeline and the minute of video left he still had to sift through and refine. He considered the dull ache in his brain and how horribly bright the screen was, and he considered the fact that the video wasn’t due until 11:59.

He considered the pack of cigarettes and lighter stashed in his nightstand.

Screw it.

He pushed his laptop to the side of his bed and stood on wobbly legs. He stretched for a moment (how long had he been sitting down? Three, four hours?), then rifled through his drawer, reaching under a conspicuously placed piece of paper for his cigarettes. He palmed the lighter in one hand and the pack in the other, then slipped out of his room and down the hall, taking care not to step on the creaky spots in the flooring.

As he passed Hera’s room, Eiffel thought he heard a slight noise. He paused, listening for a moment, but it was gone the second he stopped moving. Frowning, he continued down the hall towards the balcony.

He wasn’t sure why he’d done that. It wasn’t like he wanted to be around Hera, anyways. He was still trying to avoid her a little, though he had to admit his efforts had diminished significantly. It was hard to not want to be with her, every day, all of the time. He found himself thinking about her when they were apart - daydreaming about her smile, her jokes, the warm feeling he got when she was nearby. And especially at nighttime, on nights like these, he couldn’t ignore how much he wanted to be around her. Sometimes he would go and stand outside her door, trying to work up the courage to knock and have a conversation with her. It was all so difficult not to indulge in the idea of her.

Eiffel shook his head vigorously as he shut the balcony door behind him. Get ahold of yourself, Doug.

The night sky was clouded this time, leaving the backyard shrouded in shadow except in the places where the porchlight reached. Eiffel moved himself into the pool of light as he pulled a cigarette from the pack. He lit it, his lighter clicking loudly in the silent backyard, and took a drag, watching the smoke waft out into the darkened night air. It twisted over itself, turned towards the neighboring house, and then climbed higher and higher into the air before it finally dissipated.

Suddenly recalling his chance encounter with Hilbert a few weeks ago, Eiffel took a moment to squint down into the backyard and at the staircase, checking for any infestations of Russian exchange students. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Hilbert, but it was hard to trust the guy after he asked Eiffel to participate in a “medical research trial” that would cause “minimal respiratory damage” during his first week of freshman year. Ever since then, he’d been a little wary around him.

Satisfied with his search, Eiffel leaned forward on the balcony, resting his arms on the railing. It was getting colder outside lately, especially at night, but he didn’t particularly mind. A chill was just what he needed right now to ease the pain in his head.

Or was that warmth? He could never really remember. Either way, the cigarette probably helped.

As he took another drag off of his cigarette, he heard the telltale sound of the balcony door clicking open behind him. His heart sped up at the idea that it might be Hera, then plummeted at the thought that it could be Minkowski. As a precautionary measure, he held the cigarette over the railing, just out of view of whoever was behind him, and prepared to drop it.

“Relax, Doug,” Hera’s voice crooned as she padded across the balcony towards him. “It’s j-just me.”

Eiffel exhaled in relief, but his heart began to pound in tune with the pounding in his head. Cut that out, he told his biological systems, but they refused to listen.

“Hey, Hera,” Eiffel said, finally turning to look at her. She was leaning against the railing next to him. She still wore the T-shirt and sweatpants he’d seen her with earlier, as well as a pair of gray slippers, but her hair was damp and stuck to her face. “You just get out of the shower, or was there a pool party I wasn’t invited to?”

She smiled at his lame joke. It was a wonderful sight. “The shower. I would let you kn-know if there was a pool party.”

“Thank you. At least you’re on my side.”

Her smile widened. Before he could keep the joke going, though, her eyes strayed to his hand, still holding the cigarette over the railing. She pointed at it. “You know Minkowski would k-kill you for that, if I told her. If th-the lung disease and c-carcinogens don’t get you first.”

Eiffel held a hand over his chest melodramatically. “Oh, god, Hera, please don’t tell Minkowski. What will I do if she finds out I’m,” he glanced around, eyes wide, “smoking? Which is clearly against rule number twenty-one million in the student handbook?” To punctuate his statement, he took another drag off the cigarette. “I’ll be ruined.”

“Just saying,” Hera shrugged, watching the smoke unfurl itself into the air. “I hope she isn’t still awake. For your s-sake.”

“Eh, I’ll be fine. Appreciate the worrying, though.” He leaned forward onto the railing again and stared out into the backyard. Silence settled between the two of them.

Eiffel sat there breathing in the smell of smoke, taking a moment to appreciate her company. It was an incredible gift, to be here with her right now - one that he probably took for granted too often. He paused to revel in the fact that he was hearing her voice right next to him, in person, instead of through a phone.

There had never been any doubt that the two of them would go to college with each other. Hera was a certifiable genius, and her mother expected her to go to a top school, maybe a real Ivy like Harvard or Princeton. Of course, she was almost guaranteed entry at any of them, with her test scores and volunteering hours. But she'd sworn to Eiffel, one night at the end of junior year, that she wouldn't even consider them if he wasn't coming with her. Try as he might, he couldn’t get her to budge on that. Hera was smart, for sure, but she was also way too stubborn for her own good. (He liked that about her.)

So, in the end, Eiffel had applied to every school she did, plus a state school that he had a real shot at where Hera would receive thousands in merit scholarships. They submitted their applications together on a snowy, late-December night, and then waited.

He’d gotten lucky.

After a slew of well-anticipated rejections from the Ivies (all but two of which Hera was accepted to), Goddard’s decision came in early April. Eiffel expected disappointment. He was fully prepared to spend the next month talking Hera out of Bridgewater State and into a school without him, though he knew it would be a futile effort. She could do something incredible with the opportunities she had. He didn’t want to hold her back.

But as he opened the decision, virtual confetti poured down from the top of the screen. His hands tightened around his phone as he scanned the first few lines - we are happy to accept you for admission to Goddard University’s Class of-

He’d jumped up from Hera’s bed and swore so loudly that, as he heard later, the neighbors had complained.

They were actually going to college together. It was a dream come true.

Later, he’d realized it was probably his essays that got him in. His grades weren’t awful, but he was no 4.0 student, and his SAT score hadn’t been too good either. But he was pretty alright at crafting a narrative. Maybe “all that damn TV” had been good for something.

He turned and glanced at Hera next to him, a small smile on his face. Now here they were. Their second year at Goddard, and Hera was just as incredible as she’d always been. Eiffel was still just as mediocre as always, but this time, he’d fallen for the girl who was lightyears away from his league. Wasn’t that hilarious?

Her face was lit softly by the lambent porchlight, and there was a strand of her hair sticking to her face just underneath her eye. He resisted the sudden and compelling urge to brush it away.

Instead, he coughed. “What are you thinking about?” he asked quietly.

She looked over at him, eyebrows slightly raised. “A lot of things,” she said. “I’m always th-thinking about things. It d-doesn’t turn off.” She tapped the side of her head.

Eiffel admired that about her. Her mind was always such a busy place. His, on the other hand, only really thought about her lately. “Well, what’s one thing?”

Hera paused for a moment, her eyes darting across his face, searching for something. Then she sighed, “I don’t kn-know. This school, maybe. This house. You, m-me. Minkowski and Lovelace. A lot of th-things,” she repeated, emphasizing it so he’d get the point.

He pretended his heart hadn’t soared at her “you.” She thought about him. Well, obviously she did, but it was incredible to hear her say it.

“I’m thinking about this school, too,” he told her, pressing the tip of his cigarette into the wooden railing.

“Really?” She smiled at him. “What are you th-thinking about it?”

He shrugged. “Oh, you know. Just how insane it is that they let me in.”

“Of c-course they let you in, Doug. I was the one pr-proofreading your supplements.”

“Hey!” Eiffel laughed and elbowed her. “I got in on my own merits. I’m sure it had nothing to do with being best friends with their darling scholarship admit.”

Hera made a face at him, suddenly serious. “It d-didn’t. You know that, right? Th-that isn’t even how college admissions work, f-first of all-”

“Woah, woah, Hera, I know.” Eiffel held up his hands defensively. “Don’t worry. I don’t need a pep talk or anything. You can save that for finals week.”

“Okay. Good.” She paused for a moment to give him a final, stony look, then turned back to the backyard. “Well, I was thinking about the rest of the s-semester.”

“Oh, yeah? And?”

“Well, it’ll b-be nice t-to have a break. And your birthday. And Chr-Christmas,” she smiled. “In that order.”

Eiffel grinned. Hera hadn’t cared much for Christmas when they met, either - in fact, she had never really celebrated a holiday or birthday before she met Eiffel (her family, he learned later, was incredibly weird about that stuff). After he’d introduced the concept to her, they’d made it a point to celebrate both of their birthdays each year. Eiffel’s was always in defiance of Christmas, which everyone seemed to prefer over his presents and cake; Hera’s was to make up for the twelve birthdays she’d missed beforehand. “Yeah. God, a break sounds amazing. My classes are killing me right…” he trailed off, blinking a few times.

“Doug?” Hera tilted her head towards him. “What’s wrong?”

He reached into his pocket and fished out his phone, glancing at the time. It was 11:36.

“Shit shit shit shit shit,” he muttered under his breath, shoving his phone back into his pocket. “Sorry, sorry, Hera,” he said, backing towards the door, “I have an assignment due in, like, twenty minutes that I haven’t finished.”

“Doug! Oh my god, g-go finish that,” she chided. “I d-don’t understand how you can work up to deadlines like th-this.”

Eiffel shrugged, a sheepish smile on his face. “Me neither, baby. It just happens.” He pulled the door open an inch, his heart already aching at having to leave Hera’s company, and gave her a small wave. “See you tomorrow?”

She sighed, but a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. “See you tomorrow. Now g-go.” She waved him off, turning back to the railing and shaking her head disapprovingly.

He grinned and shut the door behind him. The second he did, he fell back against it, resisting the urge to slide to the ground dramatically. His heart was racing.

Talking to her was an incredible rush of adrenaline, even if it was just about the most mundane of subjects. Eiffel felt a bit like he was constantly floating around her. It was exhilarating.

I would let you know if there was a pool party. It’ll be nice to have a break. And your birthday. God, they were such simple sentences, and so silly on the surface. But they made his hands shake with nervous energy.

With a Herculean effort, Eiffel pulled himself away from the door and back to his room, if only to avoid letting Hera see him collapsed against the glass.

As he returned to his laptop, he realized his headache had disappeared.

Chapter Text

“Well, I said, ‘I don’t know, professor, but if you’re saying ‘corona’ is spelled with a ‘k’, I’m not sure what to t-tell you!’”

Eiffel burst into laughter, throwing his head back so violently that he nearly stumbled on the uneven sidewalk. That made Hera laugh, too.

“Be c-careful, Doug. It wasn’t that funny.”

“Yes, it was,” he said, grinning at her. He paused for a moment to kick at the sidewalk where he’d almost fallen, then continued with Hera down the street.

They were returning from Eiffel’s radio show, where he’d spent the hour waxing poetic about how much he truly hated video editing, trying not to wander too far off topic. It was hard not to bring up Hera on his broadcasts these days, especially when she was all he really thought about. Knowing she was listening - that she might be the only one listening - was too much to bear sometimes.

It was a chill November day, one where the breeze blew past their faces just often enough to be a little annoying and the clouds twisted in the sky overhead, promising but never delivering any rain. Hera wore a sweater, her hands tucked tightly inside the pockets. Eiffel wondered, in passing, if they were warmer than his hands.

Jesus. Stop that. Sometimes, it felt like he couldn’t control these weirdly affectionate thoughts. They just happened to him. He was starting to get tired of correcting himself when they did.

Just before they turned onto Leo Street, Hera stopped abruptly and held an arm out in front of his path, disrupting his train of thought. He walked right into her arm with a soft oof.

Eiffel leaned forward to look at her. Her brow was furrowed deeply, and her eyes looked troubled. “Hera?”

“Shhh,” she shushed him, glancing around.

He looked around with her, but found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. Houses, grass, asphalt, and a stop sign. Pretty standard fare for this intersection. “What is-”

“Shhh.” Hera turned, slowly, to face a row of bushes that lined the fence of the house on the corner. She stared at it, and Eiffel could see her mind working under her worried gaze.

There was a rustle in the bushes.

“There,” she hissed, grabbing his arm and pulling him down to a crouched position. His heart pounded as she pointed ahead at the bushes. “There’s s-something there.”

“It’s probably just a raccoon,” Eiffel whispered, unsure of why they were being so secretive. He hoped Hera’s straining ears couldn’t hear his heart nearly beating out of his chest.

“No, I saw it. That is n-not a raccoon,” she asserted, her eyes still trained on the bushes. Then, as if in agreement, they rustled again. “See? Raccoons don’t move like that.”

“Since when are you a raccoon biologist?”

“Doug.” She gave him a look.

Eiffel held his hands up defensively. “Hera!”

“Roof!”

They blinked at each other for a moment. Their disagreement forgotten, they both slowly looked up at the bushes to see the thing that was definitely not a raccoon.

Standing in the grass, head cocked curiously at them, was a dog. It was sizable, maybe coming up to Hera’s waist, and it had white-yellow fur that gleamed in the sparse sunlight. There were smudged patches of dirt on its muzzle and body, and it didn’t have any collar that Eiffel could see. That was a little odd - strays weren’t very common around Goddard.

The fact that it was a dog wasn’t what gave them pause, though. It was the things on the dog.

In a few spots across its body, there were what looked to be leaves tucked into its fur. A slender vine was wound around its tail, and on the crown of its head, between two flopped-over ears, was a large pink flower bulb.

“How cruel,” Hera muttered, standing up and stepping towards the dog.

“Hera, wait.” Eiffel held a hand up to pull her backwards, but decided against it, leaving his hand hanging sort of awkwardly in the air. Heart still racing, and a little miffed about being wrong on the raccoon thing, he scrambled for a plausible excuse. “Uh, what if it has rabies or something?”

“Oh, c-come on, Doug. Someone’s had their dog’s Halloween costume on for t-two weeks. It can’t be that bad.” She frowned, then held out a hand towards the dog. It approached her cautiously, sniffing at her hand.

Eiffel ran a hand through his hair. “Rabies is pretty scary, Hera. Maybe you sh-”

“It’s fine,” she insisted, stooping towards the dog. She ran a hand through its fur and gave it a smile. “Hey, b-boy.”

With a sigh, Eiffel took a few steps towards them. Might as well both get rabies. Wouldn’t that be a college experience?

Hera was peering curiously at the large flower on the dog’s head. She scratched it behind the ear with one hand, then reached up with the other and felt one of the petals between two fingers. “Huh,” she murmured.

She pulled on it, and it came off in her hand. Holding it up to Eiffel, she directed him (very seriously), “Feel th-this.”

He took the petal from her and rubbed it between two fingers. It had the same sort of light, almost leathery consistency that a lot of petals seemed to have. He furrowed his brow. “That’s way too big to be a normal flower.”

“And yet…” Hera moved a hand down to one of the dog’s forelegs, where there was an oval-shaped leaf tucked just above its paw. She stared down at it for a moment. Then, before Eiffel could even process what was going through her head, she tugged on it.

The dog yelped and jumped away from Hera, immediately moving its head down to lick at the leaf. Hera just stared, her eyes wide with shock.

“Hera? What the hell?” Eiffel asked, glancing anxiously between her and the dog. “What did you do?”

She stood, lips slightly parted as she turned to look at him. “It’s n-not a Halloween costume,” she said gravely.

He blinked at her. “What do you mean? Like, someone glued plants to their dog?”

“No, Doug,” she shook her head. “I mean, someone grafted plants onto their d-dog.”

Eiffel looked at her. He looked at the dog, which was still tending to the leaf. He looked back at Hera. “Who would…what…why…?” There were so many questions, and absolutely none of them were the right ones.

“I d-don’t know,” she said, “but we aren’t leaving him here.”

That was somehow more shocking than the freak of nature they’d stumbled upon. “You want to bring a dog back to Hephaestus? With Minkowski there?”

“Yes, Doug,” Hera replied. He took a second look at her face - she was serious about this. “We c-can’t just leave him here.”

Eiffel stared back at her for a moment. Minkowski would probably, no, certainly freak about having a dog in the house. They were definitely against the housing agreement, and there was at least one rule about pets being a distraction in the student handbook. The two of them would have hell to pay if they brought one back.

But there was no way Eiffel would be able to talk Hera out of this. She wasn’t one for giving things up so easily, and it seemed like she was already attached to the dog. Eiffel had to admit he felt bad for it too - not only because he loved dogs, but because some crazed biology major had probably done this to it and then abandoned it afterwards. Goddard students were nothing if not innovative, but that didn’t mean they did it in the right direction.

He sighed. “Alright, Hera. Let’s bring him home.”

Her eyes lit up, and the sight almost made whatever lecture they were about to get from Minkowski worth it. “C’mon, boy,” she chirped to the dog, patting the side of her leg. “Let’s go home.”

The dog followed after them as they rounded the corner, sniffing at Eiffel curiously. He smiled down at it. It was a very cute dog, if you disregarded the botanical oddities. He’d always sort of wanted a dog when he was younger, but his parents were opposed to pets. He’d had to settle for a rock.

“Good boy,” he tried, scratching the dog behind the ear. “Hey, we should call him Audrey.”

“Audrey?” Hera raised her eyebrows at him. “That’s not r-really a dog name.”

He frowned. “No, you know, it’s like Little Shop of Horrors!” He looked back down at Audrey, who seemed much more enthusiastic than Hera, and deepened his voice. “‘Feed me, Seymour,’” he intoned.

“Ruff,” Audrey concurred.

“See! He likes it.”

“Okay, okay. Audrey it is.” Hera cut across the grass and up the front stairs of Hephaestus, leading the two of them ahead. She glanced back at them with one hand on the doorknob. “R-ready?”

“Ready,” Eiffel said, reaching down again and petting the dog. He was actually beginning to love the idea of keeping him around, having a pet in the house. He could picture himself taking him for walks, throwing a ball across the yard… The only problem would be convincing Minkowski.

Hera pushed open the front door, holding it for Eiffel and Audrey to step through. They stood, awkwardly, in the foyer for a moment, straining their ears to hear if anyone else was home.

Before they could determine whether or not it was safe to leave the hallway, Audrey decided for himself that it was. He bolted into the living room.

“Shit!” Eiffel hissed, scrambling after him. “Audrey, no-”

“What the hell?”

Eiffel came to a halt in the living room, finding that it was already far too late to keep Audrey a secret. Minkowski stood, her arms folded and brow creased, watching as the dog sniffed at her jean cuffs.

To Eiffel’s relief, she looked … confused, more than anything, as she slowly looked up at the two of them. There was a brief silence where she stared at them, surveying their faces, before she asked, “Would either of you like to explain why there is a dog in our house? And why it looks like you bought it at a florist?”

They both started speaking at the same time. “Well, Minkowski, the funny story about that is…”

“We were j-just walking and he came up to us, so we c-couldn’t…”

“Alright.” Minkowski held up a hand, cutting off their hastened explanations. “You are both aware that owning and keeping a dog in an on-campus residential building is explicitly against Pryce and Carter’s Student Handbook and Code of Conduct?”

“...Yes, but consider, Minkowski,” Eiffel said, stooping down to the floor. Audrey came towards him, and he ran a hand through his fur and gave Minkowski a pleading look. “We love him.”

“And!” Hera added, leaning down towards the dog, “Someone’s done something t-terrible to him. These plants are surgically embedded. We weren’t just g-going to leave him outside.”

Minkowski looked entirely unimpressed with their pleas. Eiffel, in a desperate bid for her clemency, wrapped his arms around the dog in a hug. One of his hands brushed a leaf, which felt almost soft to the touch. “Please, Minkowski?”

Before she could open her mouth and tell them to take the dog out back, Lovelace appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “What’s going on?” she asked. Her eyes fell on Audrey. “Why is there a dog in our living room?”

“We found him outside and we’re keeping him,” Eiffel announced.

“His n-name is Audrey,” Hera chimed in.

“And what’s with the…?” Lovelace pointed at the flower bulb on his head.

“Gr-grafted on,” Hera answered.

Lovelace recoiled. “What the fuck?” She approached Audrey slowly, peering down at the vegetation, touching the side of the flower gingerly with a finger. She looked up at the rest of them. “You guys aren’t freaked out by this?”

Eiffel shrugged. “It’s Goddard. This is, like, the fiftieth weirdest thing we’ll see someone do this year.”

“We brought him home because we felt b-bad,” Hera said.

Lovelace ran her hand along the flower, frowning. “This is so … weird. Even for our STEM students. What kind of sick, evil bastard would do something like this to an innocent…” she trailed off, blinking a few times. Realization sparked in her eyes.

“What? What is it?” Eiffel glanced between Lovelace and the dog. “Do you know said sick, evil b-”

Then it dawned on him. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Minkowski repeated, her expression softening. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Of course,” Hera muttered.

“Hilbert,” the entire room chorused disdainfully. There never should have been any doubt in the first place. If something excessively creepy is going on, Hilbert should always be at the top of the suspect list.

“I swear,” Lovelace growled, straightening, “one of these days I am going to kill that little man.”

“He is becoming a bit of a public health hazard,” Minkowski agreed.

Eiffel pounced on the opportunity. “Does this mean we can keep Audrey? Since, you know, it’s kinda our fault our roommate did this to him? So it’s only right that we help him out?” When in doubt, he thought, appealing to Minkowski’s sense of moral superiority always works.

She stared at him for a moment, and he tightened his embrace around the dog. “It’s against the rules,” she protested, but her eyes were much gentler as she looked at Audrey.

“Please, Minkowski?” Hera tried, resting her hand on top of the flower. “We’ll t-take good care of him. We promise.”

“Yeah! And we’ll keep him a secret. Nobody will even know he exists,” Eiffel added.

Minkowski stared at them for a few moments, then finally gave in, her shoulders falling down at her sides with a sigh. “Fine. You can keep him.”

“Alright!” Eiffel cheered, holding up a hand. Hera high-fived him violently, leaving his palm stinging a little, but it didn’t matter. They were keeping Audrey.

“But if admin finds out, it’s not my fault,” Minkowski said sternly. “And I’m not walking him. Or feeding him. Deal?”

“Yeah, yeah, alright.” Eiffel ran a hand through the dog’s fur, surprised at how attached he’d gotten this quickly. Hera’s affinity for it certainly hadn’t hurt, he figured.

“I’ll pick up some food when I go to the store tomorrow,” Lovelace said. She reached down and scratched Audrey’s ear, smiling as he sniffed her hand. “He’s a good little guy, isn’t he?”

Minkowski averted her eyes, but Eiffel caught the slight fondness in her gaze as she looked at the three of them and the dog. “I’ll have a chat with Hilbert later about the ethics of animal experimentation in this household. Let’s keep him away from the dog.”

“Don’t worry, Minkowski.” Eiffel leaned his head against Audrey’s. “We’ll take good care of him.”

Audrey barked in agreement.

Chapter Text

The dining hall was crowded at this time of day with students coming in droves for lunch. It seemed like whenever they came here, there were always far too many people than there should be in the building, much less in only one room. There were other dining halls on campus, of course, but the one closest to Hephaestus was widely thought to be the best one, and so people flocked to it.

Personally, Eiffel thought the Goddard food wasn’t the best in the world, but it was certainly better than anything he could cook. When he didn’t feel like oatmeal or potato chips from the pantry and didn’t have the money to go out to Diane’s, the dining hall would definitely suffice. It did have its moments, though - the garlic bread was some of the best he’d ever had in his life. He would walk through hell for half a loaf of it.

Today wasn’t a garlic bread day, though, and so he sat cloistered away at a table in the corner with Minkowski and Hera, picking absently at a chicken breast. There was a mumbling din in the room as what seemed like half of the student body chattered to each other, occasionally broken up by someone laughing too loudly or a plate dropping to the floor.

Hera was halfway through the pile of noodles on her plate when she reached forward and picked up her cream soda. Eiffel watched, a small smile on his face, as she wrenched the bottle cap off of it, inspected it for a moment, then held it up proudly. “Orange flavor. Th-that’s a new one.”

“Awesome,” Eiffel exclaimed, more than a little enchanted by the way her self-satisfied smile brought out small dimples on her face. He averted his eyes away from her before he could stare too much. He didn’t see her smile drop when he did.

Hera had started collecting bottle caps with him in middle school. It had been her suggestion - she’d read some book over the weekend where the main character collected bottle caps, and on Monday she’d set her stuff down on their table and loudly declared that she had an idea.

Ever since, they’d bought every sort of drink they could that came in a glass bottle, kept the cap, and collected them in a small box in Hera’s room. It was a sizable collection by now, with caps from ciders to beer to regular coke to Hera’s favorite, cream soda. They tracked them in different flavors, as well, making sure they had completed sets of each. It was the perfect hobby for the two of them: Hera liked crunching the numbers on how long it would take to complete a set, and Eiffel liked looking at colorful bottle caps and turning them over in his hands. Win-win.

He returned to his lunch for a moment, still uninterested in the dry chicken he had before him. Minkowski’s noodles looked pretty good. He contemplated reaching over and taking some.

Before he could, though, Minkowski seemed to overshoot her fork’s stability, and a long noodle fell onto her T-shirt. “Shit,” she muttered, pulling it off and looking at the stain the sauce had left with contempt.

Eiffel stifled a laugh, and she glanced up at him and grimaced. “One second.” She got up and pushed her way past a group of students, heading back towards the culinary stations for a napkin.

Eiffel considered looking over at Hera to see if she’d found that as funny as he did, but he decided against it, choosing to look back down at his plate instead. He definitely wanted to look at her, but he was still clinging to his last shreds of self-restraint, despite how easily he’d let the whole emotion-suppressing thing slip.

Hera set her fork down suddenly. “Alright,” she hissed, her voice unusually sharp. Eiffel looked up at her in surprise and found her face contorted with something that wasn’t quite anger. “What’s g-going on with you lately?”

His heart leapt into his throat. Was it really that noticeable? I thought I was doing an ... okay job hiding it. Maybe not the best, but… “What do you mean?” he asked, playing as dumb as he possibly could.

“I m-mean, what’s wrong with you?” she frowned at him. In an effort to avoid her piercing eyes, Eiffel glanced down at her hands, which he noticed were clutching her upper arms so tightly they might have been cutting off circulation. “I c-can’t take it anymore. Are you mad at me for something?”

Her voice was shaking a little. Eiffel glanced back up at her, his mouth agape. “No, Hera, what? I’m not- do you think I am? Nothing’s wrong!” He tried to keep his voice down, but it raised slightly at the end, drawing a few looks from people seated nearby. It was hard to keep the panic from climbing up his throat. He tapped a foot nervously under the table to try and redirect some of the nerves, but that could only help so much.

“Well, th-then what is it? You k-keep acting so weird, and I feel like you d-don’t want to be around me anymore. If th-there’s something wrong, you c-can tell me-”

He leaned forward, trying to keep his voice low, “No, I swear, Hera. It’s fine. You’re fine!” He glanced around nervously at the stares their altercation was drawing from nearby. Even the people who were pretending not to be paying attention were obviously eavesdropping on their conversation. Shit.

He looked back at her and smiled nervously. “Maybe we could talk about this la-”

“No, Doug. T-tell me what’s wrong with you.” Her eyes were dark and troubled, but there was a note of real concern in her voice. It tore at Eiffel’s heart.

Unable to take the confrontation anymore, and sweating under all of the stares (but especially Hera’s), he stood. He got up far too quickly, and the chair he was sitting on toppled over. It was loud in the almost-silence that had suddenly descended around them as ears strained to listen to their fight.

Awkwardly, Eiffel stepped around the chair and picked it up. He pushed it back into the table, and the scraping of plastic on tile was excruciating in the quiet hall. He looked back up at Hera and recoiled at her face - still not quite angry, but definitely irritated, and hurt. It made him want to throw up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he managed, his voice trembling a little at the end.

Hera opened her mouth to say something more, but Eiffel turned away before he could start feeling even worse about this situation. He fled the dining hall, his sneakers squeaking loudly on the tile, and burst through the doors into the outside world.

He took a few deep breaths of the autumn air, then took off in the direction of Hephaestus, not bothering to check if he had even remembered his phone. He was pretty sure he left his jacket in the dining hall, but that didn’t matter right now. He just needed to get away.

I shouldn’t have freaked out. I shouldn’t have. But it felt like it was the only reaction he could have had to an accusation like that. He couldn’t tell her the truth, and he couldn’t go back to normal around her. Not yet, at least.

Feelings were so complicated. She was so complicated.

Hera was both intimately familiar to him and a complete mystery at the same time. He’d known her for years, and knew specific things about her like what she worried about, what she thought about in the middle of the night, and secrets she’d never told anyone before.

But he didn’t know how her hand felt in his - at least, not in the way he wanted to know. He didn’t know how to act around her. And he didn’t know how she felt about him.

That was the cruelest part about it all. If he knew how she felt, he could save himself a lot of time and agony. But despite everything he did know about her, he couldn’t be sure of where he fit into all of it.

Eiffel slowed as he crossed the street, his lungs burning from all of the running. A chill ran through his body, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the cold air or the guilt.

They’d had fights before, sure, and spats in their friendship. And they always got through them, maybe with a little struggling on both ends. But the playing field was different now. There were other sorts of feelings involved, and Eiffel had no idea how to navigate them.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. How was he supposed to get out of this one without ruining everything?

-

There were three hard, sharp knocks on his bedroom door. “Come in,” he muttered into his pillow, pulling himself into a sitting position.

The door opened, and Minkowski stood on the other side of it. Her arms were crossed, but for once, she looked more concerned than anything, her eyebrows furrowed deeply at him. “Hi, Eiffel,” she said.

“Hey, Minkowski. What brings you to this part of town?” Eiffel joked, but his voice scratched traitorously. He hadn’t been crying so much as ruminating dangerously hard, and he’d allowed himself a few screams into his pillow for catharsis.

“Can I come in?” she asked, glancing into his room and grimacing at the mess.

“As long as you don’t try to make me clean,” he replied, sitting back against the wall. “I swear it isn’t as dirty as it looks.”

Minkowski deliberated for a moment, then stepped inside and shut the door behind her. He could see now that she had his jacket draped over one arm, and she leaned forward and placed it on the end of his bed. “You left this.”

“Thanks.” He felt a rush of gratitude for her, knowing very well that if she’d left his jacket in the dining hall, he would have probably never seen his phone or wallet again. That would have been catastrophic.

Minkowski nodded. She was still standing uncomfortably by the door, her eyes darting around the room restlessly.

Eiffel sighed. “Here.” He reached over and smoothed out a section of his bed next to him, moving aside papers and books so that Minkowski could sit up against the wall. He patted the spot next to him invitingly.

She hesitated.

“You won’t catch anything,” Eiffel promised.

After a few more moments of mental debate, Minkowski gave in. She lifted herself onto his bed and sat back against the wall next to him, her arms still crossed and shoulders tense. Eiffel was pretty sure he’d never seen her relaxed.

She spoke before he could fire off any more bad jokes. “So, what was that about in the dining hall earlier?”

Eiffel glanced down at his hands, tapping two fingers together nervously. He knew this was what she was going to talk to him about. Maybe he had just been hoping she’d give him an easy out. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “She thinks I’m upset with her, and I’m not. And I feel awful about it.” Awful was an understatement - he still felt like he was going to retch up the contents of his stomach any minute now, and he could feel a headache coming on. But his physical symptoms were nowhere near as bad as the guilt that was still clawing at his gut.

“Ah,” Minkowski said, then went quiet. Eiffel didn’t dare look up to see that thinking face he knew she would have on right now. “She thinks you’re mad at her, you know. She was really upset.”

“Well, I’m not!” Eiffel exclaimed, maybe a bit too loudly. He grimaced at the harsh sound of his voice. “I mean, of course I’m not,” he continued in a softer tone. “I just … there’s just been a lot going on.” Technically not a lie. A crush was something going on, after all.

“You should probably tell her that,” Minkowski advised. She nudged him with an elbow, and he glanced up at her. Her face was serious but kind as she raised her eyebrows at him expectantly. “And you can tell her while you apologize.”

Eiffel frowned. Of course he was going to apologize, eventually. He hated fighting with people and being the “bigger person,” or whatever. Apologies were so difficult; not for any particular reason, but he was always so bad at them and couldn’t seem to get better.

On the bright side, Hera understood that about him. She’d probably be forgiving of his shitty attempt at reconciliation. “I’ll apologize,” he told Minkowski, slumping back against the wall. “Just not right now.”

“Yes, right now,” she urged. “You have to talk to her, Eiffel. It doesn’t feel good to have the people you trust not communicate with you.”

Eiffel smiled a little. “Speaking from experience, Minkowski?”

“Absolutely, I am.” He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes preferring to train themselves on his desk across the room, but he could hear the smile in her voice. “Come on. Go talk to her, Eiffel. She’s on the porch.”

He sighed, dropping his head for a moment. This was the part where he had to man up and admit that he shouldn’t have overreacted. It was also the part where he had to dance around the whole love part and pretend that things were perfectly fine between them. Which they were. He was the only one having issues.

He took a deep breath, steeling himself, and looked over at Minkowski. “Alright.”

She smiled. “Good. I don’t think this house could take you two fighting for much longer.”

“Minkowski, please,” he laughed and stood, holding out a hand towards her. She took it, and he pulled her to her feet. “C’mon. I’ve got an apology to make.”

-

He found her on the porch, right where Minkowski had said she would be. She was sitting on the porch swing that some long-past generation of students had installed once, looking down at her hands and rocking the swing back and forth gently. Her hair hid her face, so Eiffel couldn’t be sure if she was crying or angry or something worse.

He stood in the doorway for a moment, both feet on the threshold, and tried to force himself to take a step forward. Come on, Doug. Apologies aren’t that hard. Just say ‘sorry’ and hug it out.

His heart skipped a beat at the thought. Okay, don’t hug her then. Idiot.

He took another deep breath. It was just one quick apology. He would just explain it had been a weird past month and leave it at that, easy. This didn’t have to be difficult.

Finally, he stepped forward off the threshold and closed the door behind him, letting the sound announce his presence. Hera glanced up at him. An array of emotions crossed her face - Eiffel still couldn’t tell what, exactly, she was feeling about him.

He paused, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans awkwardly. “Hey,” he said softly, glancing away into the road. “Mind if I sit down?”

“G-go ahead,” Hera said, her voice much steadier than his.

He stepped around the porch swing and sat down, planting both feet on the old wooden boards below them. The swing creaked, and he stared down at his hands. “So, um … about…” he trailed off. He couldn’t say it. It wouldn’t help her, and maybe he’d really done it this time and ruined things for good. Maybe she wouldn’t believe him when he said he wasn’t mad.

He wanted to punch himself. That would at least get the words he needed to say out.

He inhaled, trying to fill his lungs to capacity. Just say it.

“Listen, Hera,” he started, looking at her. Her eyes were focused on her hands (a habit they both had, it seemed), but he could tell she was listening. “I’m not upset with you. I promise. If I had a problem, I’d probably just tell you, since you’re, y’know, my best friend.” That did not include problems that might tear their relationship apart. “So I swear, there’s nothing you need to be sorry for. And I’m sorry.” He relaxed a little, a weight lifted from his shoulders now that he’d finally said it.

Hera finally looked up at him, and he gave her a small smile. “I’m sorry for what happened in the dining hall and for how weird I’ve been. It’s just … there’s just…” Something I need to tell you.

Eiffel looked away, watching a car speed past on the road, going way too fast for a residential area. The words were stuck in his throat. He could just tell her right now, while he was already talking, and it would be so much easier. It would clear things up for both of them, and maybe assuage Hera’s worries better than promises that there was nothing wrong.

But something stopped him. There were too many things that could go wrong if he told her, and he knew he couldn’t go through with it. He wouldn’t jeopardize their friendship for something like that - not here, not now, at least.

He swallowed the words and looked back at her. Her head was tilted curiously at him, and he gave her a smile. “It’s just college, you know? Kinda hard when I’m not a supergenius like you.” He reached a hand up and tapped the side of her head.

Hera smiled at him, and it felt a bit like the sun had just broken through the clouds and warmed him specifically.

“Alright, Doug.” She sat back on the swing, pulling her hair away from her face. “Th-thank you.”

“Of course,” he said, pretending like it hadn’t taken him eleven different steps of unnecessary worrying to get that apology out.

She lifted up her hand. “Best friends?”

He grinned and reached forward. He meant, of course, to high five her, but something compelled him to grab her hand instead and shake it. She gave him a puzzled look, but grasped his hand back.

Her hand around his was warm and inviting, and it made his breath hitch in his throat. He floated for a moment in some weird sort of zero-gravity, and it felt like some of his vital functions felt down, his brain too lovestruck to spare any energy maintaining them. His heart, however, beat into overtime.

“What the hell was that?” she giggled, breaking the handshake and bringing Eiffel crashing back down to Earth.

Shit. He scrambled for an explanation for a moment. “New handshake,” he said breathlessly, giving her an awkward smile. “Secret handshake, actually. We’ve never had one of those.”

“It c-can’t be a secret handshake if there’s only one p-part to it,” she pointed out, giving him a familiar exasperated-but-kind smile.

“Oh, yes it can,” Eiffel retorted. “That’s what makes it so secret. Nobody else will ever guess it.”

“Okay, Doug.” She stood and stretched for a moment, reaching her hands up to the wooden overhang, her fingertips barely brushing the underside. “Do you wanna … play a r-round of Smash?”

“More than anything.” He couldn’t express how relieving it was to hear that she wanted to do something with him. Even an hour of knowing she was upset with him had been agonizing beyond belief. He stood with her, smiling and shoving his hands in his pockets again. “Dibs on player one.”

“We’ll s-see about that.”

Chapter Text

“Okay!” Minkowski exclaimed, her eyes lit up in that way they did when she had something to organize. Only Minkowski, Eiffel figured, could get this excited about making a spreadsheet for grocery shopping. “I think we’re finally ready.”

“Read it out one more time,” Lovelace directed from her perch on top of the coffee table.

“Turkey, cranberry sauce, bread, mashed potatoes, green beans, sticks of butter, french onions, sweet potatoes, gravy, and pumpkin pie.”

“Whipped cream,” Eiffel added. “You forgot the whipped cream. It’s a crucial component.”

Minkowski sighed and typed it into the spreadsheet, then held up her phone so he could see it. “Happy, Eiffel?”

“Very.”

“Did you get pecans?” Hilbert’s low voice asked from the doorway to the basement. “I will not recognize Thanksgiving unl-”

“Yes, Doctor,” Lovelace waved him off. “I’ll get your pecan pie. No need to go ballistic on us this year.”

Hilbert nodded once, decisively. “Good.”

“Any more suggestions?” Minkowski asked, glancing at each of the four of them in turn. When nobody spoke up, she looked at Lovelace. “I think we’re ready to go. And it only took us,” she glanced at the clock on her phone, “half an hour to decide what we wanted.”

“New record,” Lovelace said dryly, standing up from the table. “Alright, let’s get outta h-”

She paused, furrowing her brow. She looked down at the coffee table she had just felt around on, then glanced under it. Her dark eyes were muddled with confusion.

She put her hands in her pockets, then pulled out the fabric completely. She reached up towards her neck and touched it, then looked down at the ground again.

“You … need some help there, Lovelace?” Eiffel asked tentatively, exchanging a concerned glance with Hera.

“No, I…” Lovelace stopped, putting her hands on her hips. “I put my keys down right here,” she pointed at the coffee table, “like, fifteen minutes ago. And now they’re gone.”

“I’m sure they’re s-somewhere around here,” Hera said, approaching the coffee table and looking underneath it. She looked up, frowning, then checked under the couch. “Uh … did you ch-check your pockets?”

“Yes, I checked my-” a flash of annoyance crossed Lovelace’s face, and she shoved her hands into her pockets again. “I checked my pockets.”

“Are you sure you put them on the table?” Minkowski asked.

“Yes, because we were going out, but then Eiffel made you sit down and make a list.” Lovelace shot him a glare.

Eiffel’s mouth fell open. “Hey, I just wanted to make sure we were getting all the right stuff! It’s not my fault Minkowski’s immediate solution to everything is writing it down.”

“Okay, okay, hang on,” Minkowski muttered, rubbing her temples. “Let’s find the damn keys before this gets any uglier.”

There were murmurs of agreement from everyone except Hilbert, who remained stationed in the basement doorway to observe them. Eiffel moved towards the couch, running a hand between the cushions. He found three quarters and an empty bag of chips he was pretty sure he’d put there, but no keys. He checked underneath the couch, too. No dice.

“Okay, you shouldn’t be able to miss them,” Lovelace said, checking behind the TV. “I’ve got, like, seventeen keychains on there. There’s a bell on one, too, so it’s pretty loud.”

“I d-didn't find anything,” Hera said, straightening.

“Me either,” Eiffel added, sitting back down on the couch and leaning back. “Are you sure you didn’t take them somewhere, Lovelace?”

“No,” she insisted. “I haven’t left this room in the past half hour, and I know for a fact I put them down on that table.”

“Well…” Minkowski glanced around at everyone. Her face was troubled. “Is it possible someone picked them up? Maybe as a joke that can be finished now that we’re trying to leave?” Eiffel didn’t miss her pointed look his way as she spoke.

He put a hand over his chest, betrayed. “I don’t know where this is coming from, Mink-”

“Probably from all of the other t-times you’ve hidden something that didn’t belong to you,” Hera cut in.

“Well, it isn’t this time!” he exclaimed. “I wasn’t even close enough to the coffee table to take them. And even if I was, someone would have seen me grab them.”

“Not necessarily,” Lovelace muttered.

Eiffel groaned, tilting his face up to the ceiling for a moment. “Lovelace, I swear, I don’t have your keys. Where would I even put them?” He held out his hands to demonstrate their emptiness. “Honestly, I think if we’re accusing anyone, it should be Hilbert.”

“What?” Hilbert squinted at him from the darkened doorway. “That is impossible. What would I want with Lovelace’s keys?”

Eiffel shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know, Doc. Maybe you panicked when nobody asked to make sure we get your pecan pie. Maybe you wanted a hostage,” he accused, jabbing a finger towards him. “Is that it? You acted out of self-interest for your own nefarious Thanksgiving needs?”

“Okay, Eiffel,” Lovelace said, giving him a small pat on the shoulder. “I’m sure Doctor Hilbert didn’t take my keys. Because if he did I would have to evict him and tell the Dean about his several conduct violations.” She narrowed her eyes at Hilbert. He shrank away into the basement, but only minutely.

“I did not take keys,” he insisted. “And idea of using keys as hostage is nonsense. Eiffel is clearly deflecting blame onto me.”

“Deflecting?!” Eiffel got to his feet, glowering at Hilbert. “Maybe if you hadn’t taken the keys, we wouldn’t b-”

“Hey!”

Everyone turned to look at Minkowski. Her arms were crossed tightly across her chest, and she frowned reproachfully at Eiffel and Hilbert. “Both of you, calm down. There’s a logical way to go about this.”

“Minkowski’s right,” Lovelace nodded. “There’s a perfectly peaceful way to get through this that doesn’t involve shouting matches with each other. We just need to search through everyone’s pockets and bags.” She tapped the coffee table. “Start emptying ‘em, folks.”

“What? No, no, that’s … not at all what I meant.” Minkowski took a deep breath and held her hands up placatingly. “Let’s all just … take a moment to breathe. Everyone calm down. And nobody,” she emphasized, looking at a retreating Hilbert, “leave the room. Not until we figure this out.” She snapped her fingers. “Come on. Deep breaths, everyone.”

Begrudgingly, Eiffel inhaled, letting go of the tension in his jaw. He looked away from Hilbert, but not without a little grumbling under his breath. Minkowski smiled.

“There we go,” she said contentedly. “Now. We have to find Lovelace’s keys. So maybe … whoever took them could own up right now. We won’t be mad. We just need to get to the store for our Thanksgiving ingredients.” She clasped her hands together expectantly, her eyes roving across everyone gathered before her, each of them waiting for someone else to say something.

“Okay, listen,” she sighed. “Key thief, whoever you are, if you keep this going we might not have a Thanksgiving dinner. And that really wouldn’t be fun for any of us. So fess up right now, and you’ll get away with a slap on the wrist. I promise.”

Another silence. Eiffel looked at Lovelace. She looked back at him and gave him a half-shrug. Briefly, he wondered if she knew where the keys were.

“Minkowski,” Hilbert suddenly said. “Hera has been very quiet-”

“What?!” Hera gaped at him. “You’ve got to be k-kidding me. Why would I t-take anyone’s keys?”

“Why would any of us take the keys?” Lovelace chimed in.

“I don’t know, Lovelace. But maybe you do,” Eiffel said, injecting a bit of accusation into his tone.

“Are you serious?” She stared at him, and he suddenly seriously doubted any suspicions he’d had before. Oops.

Minkowski entered the fray, pushing the two of them apart gently. “Okay, everyone, let’s just calm d-”

“Minkowski, you have not cleared yourself of guilt. How do we know you did not take keys?” Hilbert emerged from the doorway and pointed at her menacingly.

She turned and gave him a baleful look. “I couldn’t take the keys.”

“Why not?!” Eiffel almost shouted, more than a little caught up in the excitement of it all. “Maybe- oh! Maybe you were upset we wanted canned cranberry sauce instead of the natural stuff. So you decided to take matters into your own hands, didn’t you? Because that’s what happens when we dare to cross Renée Machiavelli!” He was out of breath, and somewhere along the line he’d taken a few steps closer to her. It wasn’t until she turned and gave him the most frightening look he’d ever seen in his life that he realized what he’d just done and said. He backed up and shut his mouth.

Minkowski’s face was a thundercloud. The entire room was dead silent for a few terrifying seconds, until she finally spoke. “Right, Eiffel,” she sneered, her voice unusually quiet. “I definitely took Lovelace’s keys. I got up from where I was,” she pointed over her shoulder, “across the room, walked over to the coffee table,” she swung her finger around to point at the coffee table, “picked up the keys, hid them, and returned to my spreadsheet, all without any of you noticing. Even with all of your eyes on me for the entire time, I managed to steal the keys. Congratulations. You figured it out.”

Eiffel quailed, taking a few more steps back. She’s really going to kill me this time. “That, uh, may not have been my best idea.”

“Oh, really?” Minkowski growled. He could’ve sworn he saw her eye twitch.

“If I could add,” Hilbert began. He paused when Minkowski wheeled on him, her gaze fiery, but then he pushed ahead. “There are … hiding locations we have not checked. Shoes and socks. Shirts.” He looked down, almost guiltily, at his lab coat.

For a moment, everyone was silent as they considered what Hilbert meant. How far were they willing to go to prove their innocence? Was the sacrifice of dignity worth being cleared of guilt? Would it even be enough to convince everyone that they hadn’t taken the keys?

After that, where would they go? Maybe they would end up tearing down the walls or digging into the carpet to find these damn keys. Maybe they’d spend all night looking, or all week, or until Christmas break. Maybe they’d never stop.

It was a horrifying moment of contemplation for Eiffel. If the keys had made him honestly existential, what else could they do to him?

But, thankfully, nobody had to agree to Hilbert’s proposal. Before things could get any worse, they heard it.

A soft ringing noise coming down the stairs - the sound of a small bell, and keys jingling together.

Everyone’s eyes went wide, and they stared at each other for a moment. Who, or what, could possibly have the keys? Eiffel took a step behind Minkowski, a little afraid of what the answer would be (he hadn’t yet ruled out that the ghost of Hephaestus’s architect had come back for revenge).

The noise got closer and closer until, finally, a light yellow paw stepped onto the carpet. Audrey emerged from the stairway, tail wagging, holding a keyring with several keychains attached in his mouth.

A massive wave of relief washed over everyone in the room. Of course. Audrey had been the only one with the opportunity to take the keys. The mystery was solved. The dog had taken them, and they could still trust everyone in this room. For the most part.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lovelace said under her breath.

“Audrey,” Eiffel sighed, taking a step towards him. He scratched behind one of the dog’s ears and gently tugged the keychain away. “You almost tore this house apart, boy.”

“What is Experiment 34 doing here?” Hilbert asked, peering at the dog over the rims of his glasses. “I did not know you intended to keep-”

“He’s Audrey now,” Hera told him, frowning. “And you can’t experiment on him anymore. He’s our p-pet.”

Hilbert shook his head, a dark look on his face, but didn’t press the matter any further. “Okay. Keys are found. Can I go now?”

Minkowski dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “Yes. The rest of us are going to go to the store.” She paused, looking at each one of them in turn. “And we should never speak about what happened here ever again.”

Everyone nodded in agreement. Eiffel immediately got to work trying to forget that it had ever happened in the first place.

And all over something as insignificant as some keys.

Minkowski let out a world-weary sigh and nodded. “Alright. Let’s go buy our turkey, please.”

Chapter Text

In Eiffel’s esteemed opinion, Thanksgiving was right up there with Halloween as one of the best holidays of the year.

Everything about it was great. There was food, there was camaraderie, there were wonderful smells. You gave thanks, you hugged, you danced. Everything around you was in shades of yellow, orange, and brown, and the leaves crunched underfoot when you took discarded food out to the trash can. And at the end of the day, after eating more food than previously thought humanly possible, you got to sit and watch the harvest moon rise over the other houses.

The only thing that could possibly improve it was if he didn’t have to cook the food himself.

“Eiffel!” Minkowski snapped her fingers in front of his face.

He startled, feeling very rudely interrupted, and blinked at her. She was wearing an apron that looked a little too big for her, and there was a smear of cranberry sauce on the front of it. “Yes, Minkowski?”

She pointed at his hands. “What are you doing?”

He glanced down. He had a potato in one hand with strips of skin removed, and a peeler in the other that he was holding by the metal part instead of the handle. “Uh… peeling potatoes, I think?”

Minkowski closed her eyes and turned her face up at the ceiling for a moment like she did when she was not-mad-just-disappointed. She seemed to feel that way a lot. “Alright. Give me the peeler.”

Eiffel gladly passed her the peeler and potato. She frowned at him a little. “How about you go help Lovelace with the turkey?”

He gave her a messy two-finger salute. “Aye, aye.”

Again. One of the best holidays, if he didn’t have to cook the food. He preferred to lay back and let Minkowski do most of the work, a position she always seemed content to accept anyways.

She waved him out of the kitchen, and he exited gracefully, nearly hitting the wall as he spun around to leave.

He strolled through the front door and out into the yard, where Lovelace stood with her arms crossed. She was surveying a massive metal cylinder with smoke billowing out of the top. She seemed to be deep in concentration, but as Eiffel approached, she looked up and gave him a tight smile. “Hey, Eiffel.”

“Hey, Lovelace. Minkowski told me to come help you,” he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder. “So, um … what’s goin’ on and how can I help?”

She glanced at the fryer. “Well, from here it’s pretty much just making sure this thing doesn’t explode on us. But you can stay and ‘help’ if you want,” she said, adding air quotes.

Never one to pass up a chance to skip out on work, Eiffel smiled. “Sounds good to me.”

They were silent for a moment. Eiffel watched the white smoke pouring out of the top of the fryer, and wondered if it was supposed to be smoking that much. Lovelace didn’t seem all that concerned by it, so he figured it was alright, but it did seem like a lot. “Shouldn’t you be doing this in the backyard?” he asked, eyebrows raised.

Lovelace shrugged. “Our neighbors would probably like that. But that grass hasn’t been mowed in months, so I didn’t want to risk getting a tick or, you know, accidentally setting the entire house on fire.”

“Good judgment call, Lovelace.” Eiffel seemed to recall that, once upon a time, it had been his responsibility to mow the backyard every now and then. That hadn’t really panned out.

They were silent again, the oil bubbling in the fryer as Eiffel shifted from foot to foot. He tapped a hand against the side of his leg. This was the thing with quiet, when Hera wasn’t around. It felt like it had to be filled, or he had to be doing something. Recently, though, he’d started to just fill those spaces with thoughts of Hera, and he’d given up on trying to keep them at bay.

He thought about their trip to the grocery store the other day, and how Hera had laughed at some dumb joke he’d made about mashed potatoes. Just like that, the dreary inside of the store had become brighter. The dull packaging of the things on the shelves were suddenly Technicolor wonders, and Hera herself seemed to have an almost neon glow.

These feelings were changing the world around him. Not literally, like a color palette changing on a screen, but it certainly felt like it. When he woke up thinking about her, it felt like he’d had the best rest of his entire life; and when he fell asleep with her face in his mind, he dreamt of bright yellow beaches and crashing waves.

“So,” Lovelace said suddenly. Eiffel felt himself flush, and briefly worried that she could read minds before his rationality kicked in. Still, he looked up at the fryer instead of Lovelace, feeling like he’d been caught in a lie. “How are things going with your nemesis?”

Eiffel furrowed his brow at her. “My wh-” Oh, god, that’s right. I completely lied to her about what our conversation in her car was really about. Jeez, Doug, keep your story straight! “Right, yeah, my, uh… my Anakin. My nemesis,” he nodded. If he was inside, he would have leaned on something in an attempt to appear nonchalant. Luckily for his awful deception, the only structure out here was the scorching-hot fryer.

“Things are difficult,” he admitted, which was technically the truth. He paused for a moment, going over the past two months in his head. He considered Halloween, where he’d literally gotten lost in her eyes, where he’d felt like he was on another planet entirely. He considered rescuing Audrey with her, feeling a quiet sense of awe at her stubborn compassion for a strange dog. He considered all the little moments where he’d wanted to say something and didn’t. “I want to, uh … tell them how much I hate them, but it’s difficult. I don’t want to ruin anything.”

Lovelace scoffed. “Ruining things is the whole point of having an enemy. If there’s no risk, what’s the point?”

Shit, right. Mixing metaphors here. “Well, that’s not really…” Eiffel paused, struggling for a way to put this that didn’t outright reveal what he was really feeling about this “enemy” of his. “We’re friends, you know? And the whole enemy thing is…” he waved his hands through the air, ignoring Lovelace’s steadily rising eyebrows, “it’s new to me. I’ve never had a real nemesis before. So I guess I’m just … at a loss.”

She stared at him for a second too long. Just as he was starting to squirm under her unrelenting gaze, she averted her eyes to the fryer and watched it for a moment, thinking.

“Eiffel,” she began, slowly, “I get what you mean. Having such intense hatred for someone can be difficult at first. It’s confusing, and at first you aren’t sure what it means for either one of you. And committing to having a nemesis, well, that’s scary in and of itself. So I really don’t blame you for feeling like this.”

She turned her alert eyes up to look at him. Eiffel got the feeling he was about to be given a pep talk for the ages. “But when you feel a certain way about someone like this, there comes a point where you have to just go for it. You gotta - you know, you gotta take the bull by the horns, man!” She grabbed at the air, grinning, to demonstrate for him. Eiffel couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face.

“It doesn’t matter what risk you’re taking. What matters is how you’ll feel at the end of the day, when you finally have an enemy. That’s the sort of feeling you really can’t beat.”

“Well…” Eiffel ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. What if they don’t feel the same?”

She shrugged. “Not your problem anymore. That’s your enemy now. But if they want to talk things out peacefully, that’s up to you, I guess.”

He stared at her for a moment, letting her words sink in, not fully processing them or developing opinions on them yet. He figured they would probably haunt him later that night. Lovelace’s just-go-for-it attitude was so antithetical to the approach he’d taken with Hera, but maybe there was a bit of truth to it. If he did just go for it … what was the worst that could happen?

A lot of bad things, probably. If things went horribly south, he might end up without a house to live in. Actually, Hera would probably sooner move out herself, if she even reacted that way at all, but that didn’t stop Eiffel from worrying about it.

“Alright, Lovelace,” he nodded slowly. “That … actually really helped. Thank you.”

She smiled at him. “Any time, Eiffel. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do to help you out with that. I’d love to see you with a real enemy some day.”

He grinned. “Thanks, Lovelace. I really th-”

“Eiffel!” Minkowski shouted from the house. He glanced up to see her leaning out of the front door, looking more harried than usual (which was saying something). “Hera is requesting your help with the stuffing.”

“Oh, uh,” Eiffel glanced at Lovelace, knowing full well that she didn’t actually need his help. She nodded at him. “I’ll be in in a second.”

Minkowski disappeared back inside, the front screen door banging shut behind her.

He sighed. “Thanks again. Really, I’ll … see what I can do about my nemesis.” As he started for the front door, he pointed at the fryer. “Keep it up, by the way. Thanks for not burning the house down!”

She smiled at him, then gave the fryer a halfhearted kick. “No promises.”

He laughed, jumping up the stairs and into the house. As he turned into the kitchen, Minkowski rushed past him with a pot of water.

“Sorry, Eiffel,” was all he heard before she heaved the pot onto the stove with a loud clank. She started the burner, and Eiffel paused to survey the rest of the kitchen. While he’d been gone, Minkowski had apparently really gotten to work. There were various dishes in different states of preparation scattered across the counters, and the sides of Minkowski’s apron had several newly added handprint smears of different ingredients.

He found Hera leaning against the counter next to a large bowl. There was a loaf of bread on the counter, and as he approached, she reached into the bag and pulled out a new slice.

“So,” Eiffel said, leaning on the counter next to the bowl. “Stuffing, huh? What’s, uh- what’s the deal with that? I never really got it.” Jesus. New personal land speed record for making a conversation with Hera awful.

To his relief, she looked up at him and smiled. “It’s n-not my favorite, either,” she admitted, handing him a slice of bread from the bag. “But Minkowski says ‘tear bread into little p-pieces,’ and who are we to question her n-needs?”

Eiffel laughed, casting a glance over his shoulder at Minkowski. She didn’t seem to even notice their presence, too occupied with the potatoes she was currently salting to care about Hera’s joke.

She shrugged. “I d-don’t think I mind it. It’s better than letting Hilbert and Minkowski do the c-cooking.”

“Oh, god,” Eiffel shook his head, “I don’t trust Hilbert around any of our food after what he did to our coffee in April. We need to ban him from the kitchen.”

“I wouldn’t be opposed to th-that.”

“Hear that, Minkowski?” He looked over his shoulder again. “We’re two out of four on the motion to ban Hilbert from the kitchen. I’d reconsider it, if I were you.”

Again, she barely seemed to register that he was speaking, save for a quick disdainful look in his direction.

“She’ll come around one day,” he told Hera. “Mark my words.”

“I’ll look forward to it,” she said, selecting another piece of bread from the bag. Eiffel got to work shredding his, tossing the smaller pieces into the bowl with increasing intensity. After a few pieces, he started to make it into a game. The louder the noise it made on the side of the bowl, the better.

He tried not to think too much about Lovelace’s just go for it philosophy. Her words were still rattling around dangerously in his brain, but he pushed them away. He could think about what she had said later - not when the person she was unknowingly saying them about was right in front of him.

“Did you hear we’re eating off of your st-stolen dining hall plates?” Hera asked, her eyebrows raised at him.

“Oh, really?” Eiffel smirked, taking another piece of bread from the bag. “So someone did agree that they’re better than the ones we have already?”

“I think they m-might just be the closest thing we have to fancy ch-china,” she mused. “But maybe you’re right.”

“Yeah, well-” He turned to look at Minkowski, to make another snide remark about the plates. But this time, he neglected to look at where the rest of his body was positioned, and his elbow swung out a little too far.

The bowl clattered to the ground, the small pieces of bread spilling out across the tile floor. Hera and Eiffel froze, half-slices of bread still in their hands, and looked up at Minkowski.

She looked … well, not mad. Just disappointed, as usual. She stared down at the bread, then slowly raised her gaze to look at Eiffel.

Eiffel dropped his slice of bread and nudged Hera with an elbow. “Pretend you’re asleep,” he hissed, slumping back against the counter.

“But she-”

“Shh. Pretend like you’re sleeping.” He leaned his head back against the cabinets, crossed his arms, and squeezed his eyes shut. After a moment, he heard Hera set her head back against the cabinets as well.

“I just saw you awake, Eiffel,” Minkowski said, sounding exhausted. “Can you at least pick up the bread?”

He made an unconvincing snoring sound, and she sighed, “Eiffel, I swear to god…”

Again. Wonderful holiday, as long as he didn’t have to cook the food.

Chapter Text

“Will this be everything?” the cashier asked, giving Eiffel a dazzling customer-service smile.

“Yep,” he muttered, fishing his wallet out of his pocket. Idly, he realized that the cashier looked a little familiar to him, and wondered if he’d had a class with her before. Quickly, though, he wondered if he recognized her from his altercation in the dining hall a few weeks ago. He’d had too many people give him odd looks lately, only for him to realize once he got home that they probably knew him as the guy who’d run out of the dining hall in a panic.

His face reddened, and he looked down at his shoes, hoping against hope that she didn’t know him at all.

“Fourteen twenty-two,” the girl chirped.

Eiffel pulled a twenty from his wallet and placed it on the counter, then quickly found any other thing in the store to focus on. His eyes lingered on the cigarette cartons displayed behind the counter for a moment. He was doing pretty alright on his cigarettes for right now, as long as Minkowski didn’t get any ideas about confiscating them any time soon. He let his gaze drift back towards the floral section, where he’d spent ten minutes agonizing over which bouquet looked the best. Eventually, he’d given up and asked an employee for help. The ones he’d settled on were vibrant shades of red and pink, and they had a pleasantly sweet smell. He could only hope they would be good enough.

“Your change is six dollars and seventy-eight cents,” the cashier said, and he snapped his eyes back to her. She was holding out his change, and he took it from her, giving her an awkward smile. Please don’t recognize me please don’t recognize me. “Have a nice day!”

“Y- uh, you too,” Eiffel managed, shoving the change in his pocket and picking up the bouquet and chocolates from the counter. He speedwalked toward the exit, shifting the items around in his arms awkwardly.

It wasn’t until he was out of the store and the cool air washed over him that he exhaled in relief. He’d spent so long being indecisive over his purchases in there, pacing back and forth in front of the chocolate and trying to figure out which was the perfect bouquet. Usually, he wouldn’t even give these things a second thought. His trip would have been two minutes, in-and-out. But, as things always were lately, he gave everything involving Hera more than just a second thought.

The flowers and chocolate felt heavy in his arms, and he drew them in towards his chest as if hiding them from other people might make this next part easier. The air, with a chill that commanded his attention to the encroaching winter months, seemed almost hostile towards him.

He’d woken up that morning thinking about what Lovelace had said last Thursday. The importance of being honest and straightforward, of telling people how you really felt. Even if it was scary.

All through his lecture that morning, he’d ignored the lesson and instead began to ruminate on what Lovelace meant. And then, scarily, he’d started to believe that she was right. So after class, he’d done exactly what she told him to. He took the bull by the horns and went to the store.

It wasn’t a whole lot, on the face of the issue. The flowers and heart-shaped box of chocolates in his arms seemed almost pitiful in comparison to these huge feelings that had eaten up his last two months. But, hopefully, his words would make up for everything that he couldn’t just say with gifts.

He would have to compose a speech when he got back home. Something honest.

He wasn’t sure where this sudden courage had come from. Lovelace’s pep talk had been inspiring, sure, but it hadn’t hit him fully until this morning. Maybe that had been the final push.

He was just … sick of it. The feeling was nice to think about and indulge in, sometimes - it was a sweet rush of adrenaline to see Hera’s face, and hearing her melodious voice was like listening to music for the first time ever. The crush was great, but the way it made him feel with Hera was awful. He was always too nervous around her, focused on doing the right things and keeping himself composed and keeping this a secret. It worried him that this whole thing was impacting the way he interacted with her for the worse.

Eiffel took a deep breath, letting the almost-winter air fill his lungs. It was fine. He could worry about the logistics of it all later. Right now, he just had to focus on the fact that this would be over soon.

He loosened his tense grip on the flowers and chocolate, and turned his gaze upwards, where the sun burned overhead in the pale sky.

The sight of it calmed him and brought a small smile to his face. Up there just below the apex of the sky, shining on red-orange trees and fighting off approaching clouds, the sun looked a lot like the same one he’d seen a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away.

It had been a Monday afternoon just like this one, eight years ago, in a Boston middle school (basically another galaxy, right?).

Twelve-year-old Douglas Eiffel was not feeling very optimistic about the new school year.

He’d never liked school, really. The fluorescent-lit halls and looming lockers here reminded him of what he thought prisons looked like, and he hated having to sit still for hours on end while adults talked at him. Even elementary school, with its much friendlier-looking classrooms and hallways, had been boring to him, and seemed more like an inconvenience he had to get through each day than an enriching learning experience.

But seventh grade was shaping up to be the worst year so far.

He’d already been given an assignment by his new English teacher (Mrs. Klein, or something - he hadn’t been listening when she introduced herself) to write a paragraph about his hopes for the new year. It was a daunting task, and one that he was looking forward to procrastinating until much later that evening.

He didn’t even have any hopes, he mused as he stepped into his new Earth Science class. He just wanted to get through the year.

Eiffel paused by the door to his new classroom, eyes roving across the seats. It was a science classroom, so they weren’t organized in desks, but in pairs of two at long black rectangles that jutted out from the counters around the edges of the room. And, much to Eiffel’s dismay, it appeared at least one other kid had already claimed a seat of their own at every table, forcing him to sit with somebody else.

Man. He’d been hoping to sit alone, like he had in every other class. He had friends, of course, but they were class-only friends who he barely even said “hi” to in the hallways. Those types of friendships were always awkward, and he wasn’t looking forward to having another one.

With a sigh, Eiffel walked down the aisle between the tables, head swiveling back and forth to find someone who looked okay to sit next to. There was a kid who had put gum in his hair two years ago, so that was a non-starter. At another table, there was a girl who he remembered had laughed at him for misspelling “tomato” in second grade. He scowled at her and glanced away.

As he got closer and closer to the back of the room, he found his prospects only getting worse. The seats next to people he wouldn’t have minded being with had already been filled, and he was unwilling to place himself next to anyone else for the next year.

Finally, reaching the second-to-last row and out of other options, he found a seat. There was a girl already sitting at the table, her arms folded in front of her. He didn’t recognize her, which meant she could be either the best lab partner in history or the reason he would eventually fake an illness to get out of fourth period.

If it was fifty-fifty, compared to everyone else, he was okay with those odds.

Eiffel placed his books down on the black table and sat on the stool closer to the aisle, pretending not to notice when the girl next to him looked over and stared at him. After a few seconds, he still felt like he was being watched. It was weird, but he busied himself with reading the board to distract himself.

THE SOLAR SYSTEM, the board read. Below it, there was a diagram of the Earth, sun, and moon drawn in marker. A weird way to start an Earth science class, with space stuff, but Eiffel figured it kind of made sense.

“D-did you know the sun is actually a st-star?”

Eiffel blinked and turned to his left. He found himself face-to-face with the girl sitting next to him, who was staring at him intently, her eyes wide with inquisitiveness. She raised her eyebrows at him as if he was the one being weird.

“What?” he asked, bewildered.

“The sun is a star,” she stated again, matter-of-factly. “A lot of p-people think it’s just a big rock on fire, but th-that isn’t true. It’s a star.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. This girl seemed … strange. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember seeing her in any of his classes before. He definitely would have remembered her if he had. If it wasn’t her curious face or odd topics of conversation that would’ve stuck in his head, it would have been the way she was stuttering through the beginnings of her words and barely seemed to mind.

“You’re Doug, r-right?” she asked, smiling. “My name’s Hera.”

Eiffel stared at her, trying to keep his mouth from falling open. “How do you know my name?”

“Oh,” she shrugged, tilting her head towards the front of the room. “The teacher left his class roster out on his d-desk. I’m a pretty f-fast learner.”

“Uh…” Who was this girl? Eiffel shook off the shock and gave her a small nod. “Yeah, I’m Doug. I don’t think I’ve seen you here before, um, Hera…?”

“Oh, I j-just moved here from Florida. My mom said I n-need to make some friends my age here, since she c-can’t keep bringing me to her work conferences.” She paused for a moment, appearing lost in thought. “Do you like space, Doug?”

“Space?” he repeated, still staring at her. He felt almost entranced by how weird she was. “Uh, like Star Wars? ”

“I haven’t seen th-that.”

“What?!” This time Eiffel couldn’t keep his jaw from dropping. He slammed a palm down on the table for dramatic effect. “You haven’t seen Star Wars? Oh, Hera, you’re missing out! ”

She giggled a little. “Well, t-tell me about it! Does it have any r-red dwarfs?”

“I don’t know what those are.” Eiffel grinned at her. “What it does have is awesome action, cool special effects, and a super cool story.”

Hera leaned in, eyes wide. His smile widened.

Maybe this school year wouldn’t be so bad. Or, at the very least, fourth period would be alright.

Eiffel blew out a breath, a small smile crossing his face at the memory. After that first time he’d met Hera, the rest was basically history. The two of them were friends. That, to seventh-grade Eiffel, had been a miracle in and of itself.

All his life, he'd had a hard time making friends. He always talked too much or too quickly, or changed the topic too abruptly, or was too different from everyone else. His teachers left comments on his progress reports like “a distraction to other students” or “needs to learn how to focus in class.” He was just a little too much for everyone around him, plain and simple.

But when this new girl with a funny name came along, a girl who talked about interesting things as much as she listened to him, he finally had a friend. A best friend.

One of their teachers had said, once, that they got along like a house on fire. It hadn’t made sense to Eiffel at the time, but now it did. The force of two kids who finally had their first friend was a lot like a fire. They talked to each other in blazing combinations of inside jokes and long-winded explanations of pop culture or whatever beyond-smart topic Hera had picked up on Wikipedia that week. They burned through everything in their path at trivia bowls. Even the freezing Boston winter felt like a warm spring day when Hera was around.

Eiffel took a shuddering breath as he stepped onto Leo Street, shoving the box of chocolates inside his jacket for safekeeping. Here he was now, about to tell his best friend about the second fire she’d ignited without warning.

The closer and closer he got to Hephaestus, the more he felt himself start to shake. He couldn’t do this. He was just planning to ask her to hang out later, then offer the gifts as a display of … well, a sort-of confession. He’d get to the details that evening.

But he felt suddenly terrified of how she might respond, of how badly he could screw it up. Of the enormity of what he was trying to tell her here. As he stepped up to the rotting porch stairs, it felt like he was actually being kept out of the house by some invisible force field. He couldn’t step forward.

He took a deep breath, trying to fill his constricting chest with air. He could do this, if he just didn’t think about it. He was pretty good at not thinking, right? Why was this so different?

Before he could even attempt to answer that question, he instead turned to Lovelace’s words, which had been playing on repeat in his head during his class that day. She was right. He had to just take the bull by the horns, and he’d feel better about it afterwards.

He inhaled again, wiping off his sweaty palms on the sides of his jeans. Lovelace’s voice echoed in his head as he wavered in front of the stairs.

If there’s no risk, what’s the point?

Eiffel forced himself to walk up the stairs and into the house, trying his best to look nonchalant. He hid the flowers behind his back in an attempt to conceal them from anyone else. If he got caught, he had an explanation (they were for Minkowski’s performance that Friday, which was a ways off, but at least it was plausible), but he still wanted to avoid lying badly to one of his roommates.

Audrey came bounding into the hallway to greet him. Eiffel ruffled the fur behind one of his ears, then shooed him off, watching him disappear into the kitchen.

He kicked off his shoes by the door and took a few steps forward, peering around the corner into the kitchen. His heart stopped for a moment.

Hera stood leaning against the kitchen table, her face lit up in blue by the glow of her phone screen. She didn’t seem to notice him - he still had the chance to chicken out, and for a moment, he seriously considered taking it.

But then his famously misplaced confidence took hold with a surge of adrenaline, and Eiffel knocked on the side of the doorway. He used his other hand to hide the flowers behind the wall, just out of Hera’s sight, as she glanced up and grinned at him.

“Hey, D-Doug!” She set her phone down on the table. Her smile faltered for a moment as she looked at him. “Are … you okay?”

Oh, shit. He must have looked ridiculous, with the chocolates still tucked awkwardly under his coat and his left arm completely out of view. “Perfect!” He smiled weakly at her. “Perfectly fine.” Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead.

“Okay,” she said, her brow still furrowed in confusion. “D-did you just get back from class?”

“Yeah!” Eiffel lied. “Yup, just got back. Boring class, as always, you know. Not looking forward to the exam.” Okay, Doug, stop beating around the bush before you make this any worse.

She smiled. “Yeah, me n-neither. I’m ready for break.” She paused, her perceptive eyes analyzing his face again. It was unnerving, as always, and Eiffel glanced away, hoping she couldn’t tell what he was thinking.

“D-did you want someth-”

“Uh, I came to ask-” he paused, face burning, and laughed nervously. This is going awfully. This could not go any worse. “Sorry. You go ahead.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” she laughed. “What were you s-saying?”

He took another deep breath, his grip tightening on the flowers. He wasn’t sure what to do with his other hand, so he just let it tremble at his side. He trained his eyes on the dirtied kitchen tile at his feet, forcing himself to focus on anything but how much he wanted to turn and flee right now. Finally, he blurted, “I was wondering if maybe you wanted to hang out this afternoon. Maybe we could … make dinner or something, or go sit on the balcony, or…” he shrugged, “maybe Lovelace will lend us her car. I don’t know. Whatever you wanted to do.” The flowers shook in his hand.

When he finally found the nerve to look up at her face again, his hopes were immediately extinguished. She was wearing a small frown that couldn’t have been good news for Eiffel or his plans.

“Sorry, Doug,” she sighed, “but I have t-to help set up for Minkowski’s rehearsal tonight. It’s part of the theater tech st-stuff. But I’d love to tomorrow!”

Shit shit shit shit shit. Right. Of course, of course Eiffel had forgotten about Minkowski’s show she’d been telling them about, and of course he’d forgotten Hera volunteered to help set those up sometimes. It was so infuriatingly typical of him to not plan for something like this. Maybe he wasn’t overthinking this thing enough.

Well, there went his entire plan. He would probably never feel confident enough to try something like this ever again. He tried to keep the disappointment from showing on his face.

“No, that’s totally fine,” he lied, baring his teeth in an awkward approximation of a smile. Sweat poured down his face, and he felt his jaw clench. “Don’t even worry about it.”

She gave him a weird look. “Are you sure, b-because you l-”

“Totally! Totally copacetic!” He laughed and backed out of the doorway. His left arm ached from holding up the flowers behind the wall so tensely. “Uh, actually, I just remembered I have to go somewhere, anyways. So … no worries!”

Hera looked like she had more to say. She craned her neck forward to get a better look at him, and Eiffel darted behind the wall to keep the flowers out of her view.

Hastily, he stepped into his shoes and flung open the front door. “I’ve gotta go,” he called out, his heart pounding in his chest. “Seeya!”

As he fled the house, picking a direction and running in it, he crushed the flowers against his chest to hide them from view. Their stems made an awful crunching sound that he barely heard over his own rapid breathing.

It hadn’t worked out. That was fine! Most things, typically, didn’t work out for Eiffel. He wasn’t new to this at all. But this one made his heart twist in his chest and called forth traitorous tears to his eyes.

He wasn’t sure why he felt like he’d just been rejected. He hadn’t told her anything about his intentions, or even hinted at them. It was an honest mistake of poor timing and more impulse than planning on his part, but it felt bad. Dread settled over him like a thick fog.

“Okay, Doug, come on,” he whispered to himself, pausing on the sidewalk. His heart still raced underneath the flowers. “Come on. It’s not the end of the world.”

Then why did it feel like it was?

He shut his eyes for a moment, trying to force his mind to stop racing and panicking and focus for two seconds instead. He could think about how awkward he’d been in front of Hera later. Everything was mostly fine on that front, aside from the weird anxiety that was suddenly digging its claws into his brain.

Right now, he thought, his arms still wrapped tightly around the bouquet, I need to get rid of this stuff.

He opened his eyes and glanced around. He hadn’t run very far - he was standing on the corner where Leo and Virgo met, next to a copse of trees and a green electrical box. He considered, briefly, dumping the gifts just beyond the treeline, but then he recalled Minkowski’s three-hour-long lecture from last year when she caught him littering.

Eiffel turned away from the trees and looked up at the houses. There was definitely no going back to Hephaestus right now, not while his hands were still shaking and he’d just been so weird in front of Hera. That left him with very few options.

As his eyes roved across the houses in front of him, he had an idea. It was such a good idea that it actually cheered him up a little. It was the perfect balance of accomplishing his goal and handing his problems off to someone else.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. If only Hera could appreciate this with him.

Collecting himself a little, Eiffel walked down the sidewalk towards Urania House, slipping the chocolates out from under his jacket. He crept up the stairs to their front door and paused on their porch.

Kneeling, he placed the flowers and chocolate down on the welcome mat. They looked pathetic - the red box was slightly crushed, and the flowers were flattened from being held against his chest. He frowned at the sight. It had seemed like such a good idea in his head, when he had imagined giving them to Hera that evening. Now it just seemed … embarrassing. Impossible.

Misplaced confidence, for sure.

He straightened, taking a few breaths and staring down at the gifts at his feet. He probably would have stayed there and stared for a bit longer if he hadn’t heard something move inside the house.

His head shot up, and he bolted down the stairs, feeling a bit lighter now that he was unencumbered by the gifts. He kept his face away from Urania, and pulled his hood up over his head to keep himself from being recognized.

Behind him, he heard the unmistakable sound of a door being opened. “Hey!” someone shouted - not Warren, but the other guy who lived there, the racecar driver from Halloween. Eiffel put his head down and kept running, around the corner and back towards Hephaestus. Maybe he could hide out in the back of Lovelace’s car for a little bit, until he calmed down.

He thought about the flowers and chocolate lying limply on Urania’s doorstep, abandoned, and grimaced.

But at least they were gone. Now the only thing that remained of his plan was a large, heart-shaped imprint on the side of his torso.

Chapter Text

Goddard University was blanketed in white.

Eiffel trudged through the snow, keeping his head down and staring at his feet to make sure he didn’t slip. The snow had come like a thief in the night and ravaged the entire campus. It had been just enough to the point that it was annoying to walk through, but not enough to warrant sidewalk cleaners for the early morning classes. For Eiffel, that meant no leisurely strolls past the quad on his way home and freezing cold extremities.

It was a miracle it had taken this long to have an actual snowfall. Goddard’s location in the upper Midwest meant that the entire school was basically covered in snow from November to April. Apparently, nature had decided to give them November off, only for it to start snowing like clockwork on the first day of December. They’d had a few flurries drifting down from the sky in the past few months, but nothing substantial until now.

Must be a warm year, Eiffel thought bitterly as he passed the quad. Somehow, there were a few students out there in mittens and snow boots, laughing and lobbing snowballs at each other. Two of them were getting to work on a snowman, though they’d only gotten as far as the base. Someone was playing “Winter Wonderland” on their phone speaker. What a cruel joke.

He looked away from the quad as he came to the intersection, pausing to glance both ways before he hurried across the slick road. The trees lining the sidewalk were all completely absent of leaves now, and a light dusting of snow coated their branches. It was a dreary scene, but Eiffel couldn’t help but smile thinking about last year, when he’d tried to climb one of those snow-covered trees on the way back home from his radio show. He’d fallen flat on his back, and Hera couldn’t stop laughing at him.

Hera. Right. After his abortive plan to ask her out two days ago, he’d made a point to stop by her room that evening with an excuse to talk to her - asking her something about how Minkowski’s rehearsal had gone. She’d reacted normally, laughing and joking and poking fun at him, so he’d relaxed a little. Things were alright.

But still … the damage had been done. He’d probably never have the confidence to attempt something like that again. Maybe he’d ask Lovelace for another pep talk, but he doubted it would have the same effect.

It’s fine, he told himself as he stepped onto Leo Street. It was probably for the better that he hadn’t told her anyways. That sudden burst of confidence had been dangerous, and Hera being busy had been lucky. What if she had rejected him? What if she’d gotten angry? Would she think their friendship had all been a lie?

Ouch. Thinking about this stuff was like intentionally pressing down on a bruise. It hurt him too much to think around in circles like this about what might happen, but he did it anyway.

Eiffel shook his head to dislodge those thoughts. There was no need to panic about this type of stuff. He knew what kind of a person Hera was, and she wouldn’t do something like that. And he definitely wasn’t trying to betray her trust. He just … couldn’t tell her.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath as he stepped onto the porch, kicking the snow off of his boots. “Don’t be such a downer, Doug.” Trying to think about this crush thing was like torture, and it never lead to any good trains of thought. Just relax, man.

He stepped inside and pulled his boots off, dropping them next to the door. He made his way into the kitchen, pausing by the sink to glance out the window. There were twin rows of gray in the street where cars had driven past, but everything else was covered in the snow.

It was a little peaceful. When he’d woken up to his alarm that morning, he’d taken a moment to pause and process how quiet the world seemed. He’d figured out why when he got up and peered out the window.

That silence was sort of nostalgic. It reminded him of when he’d wake up to snow covering the city. Obviously, the noise was never silenced there, only a little subdued. He and Hera would throw snowballs at each other after school, laughing the whole time.

The house was similarly silent, and nobody had called out when he’d shut the door loudly, so he figured everyone was still at class. That left the entire place to himself for the next few minutes until Minkowski got home.

His hands were still a little cold, so he stuck them in his pockets to warm them. Actually, he realized, something warm to eat would be great. He wasn’t willing to go back out into the cold to get to the dining hall, and he didn’t have the extra cash to order anything, so that meant he would have to make do with whatever was in the house.

A lightbulb went off in his head. What I need, he thought excitedly, is a hot cocoa.

He reached up to one of the cabinets and retrieved one of his mugs, then rifled through their tea and coffee cabinet. They had to have some sort of hot cocoa in there somewhere, right?

Finally, his hand grasped a cardboard box shoved towards the back. He took a moment to fumble around for a packet, but eventually he fished out one glorious cocoa powder bag, which, according to the packaging, was complete with marshmallows.

“Sweet!” he exclaimed, setting it down on the counter. He stepped over to the fridge and picked up the milk jug (no water in his hot cocoa. What was he, some sort of animal?), then poured it out into the mug. Finally, he pulled the microwave open and placed the mug inside, setting it to run for thirty seconds.

Eiffel took a deep breath and settled back against the counter. This was nice, actually. Despite his problems with his feelings, his steadily approaching exams, and the grades he would have to pull up in the next month, things were alright right now. The world outside was muffled by a coat of snow, and the world inside was quiet except for whatever noise he wanted to make.

It was a wonderful silence that lasted all of ten seconds before the front door opened.

“Hey, Eiffel,” Minkowski greeted, shaking off her boots and closing the door behind her. “Enjoying the first snow?”

Eiffel shrugged. “I’d enjoy it a little more if I didn’t have to walk through it to get to class.” He eyed the empty spot where Lovelace usually parked her car with jealousy. “Maybe I’ll convince Lovelace to finally start that taxi service.”

Minkowski smiled at him. She seemed to be in an unusually good mood, even with all the cold and snow she’d just walked home through. He smiled back.

It was a rare peaceful moment between the two of them. They were both friends, of course, but Minkowski had a strange way of showing her care for people. For Eiffel, that mostly manifested in telling him to clean up his room when it looked like a mess and trying to keep him from committing petty larceny in the dining hall. He supposed she truly was doing it to try and help him, but he didn’t really operate like that.

Around eighty percent of their conversations included some sort of clash about Minkowski’s control-freak tendencies and Eiffel’s stubborn resistance to them. They were never really fighting, but still. It was nice to share a moment with her where they weren’t bickering with each other.

The microwave beeped next to Eiffel’s head. He straightened and pulled out the mug of hot milk, placing it down on the counter next to the cocoa packet, and began to hunt through a drawer next to him for a spoon.

“Oh, what are you making?” Minkowski asked, appearing at his side. “Hot cocoa?”

“Yep,” Eiffel replied, tearing open the packet and stirring it into the cup. “I figured it was perfect for our Antarctic temperatures outside.”

“You know, Eiffel, I think you’re right on that. I could really go for a hot cocoa right now.”

There was something odd about her tone. Eiffel blinked, then slowly turned to look at her. She had an unmistakable sly smile on her face. “Minkowski…” he started.

“I’m just saying!” She shrugged. “Might be nice to have a hot cocoa after everything I put up with around here.” She paused, crossing her arms. “You know, I don’t remember the last time our backyard was mowed. I seem to remember that was a specific roommate’s responsibility-”

“Alright, alright!” Eiffel sighed, pulling open the cabinet next to him again. “I’ll make you a hot cocoa. Get off my case, please.”

“Thank you, Eiffel,” Minkowski said, sounding satisfied.

He gave her a small frown as he set about making another hot cocoa, pushing his aside for a moment. He poured the milk into the mug, opened the microwave, and set it inside to warm for thirty seconds. What an ordeal.

“So,” Minkowski started, leaning back against the kitchen table and dropping her pack onto the floor. “What do you want for your birthday-and-Christmas?”

Eiffel hesitated, a bit taken aback by the question. His birthday-slash-Christmas always seemed to sneak up on him each year. All of a sudden, there were only twenty-four days until he turned twenty. He suppressed a shudder at the thought.

“Well, you know, Minkowski, the real presents are always the friends you make along the-”

“You won’t be getting a gift if you continue that sentence,” she deadpanned.

He smiled. “Alright, alright. Uh, I don’t know.” He shrugged, stopping the microwave a second before it beeped and pulling the mug out. “You know the stuff I like. Get me something cool.”

Minkowski sighed. “Well, what do you consider ‘cool’?”

“I don’t know. A desk toy, or something else lame. Don’t spend too much on me, I’m pretty easily entertained,” he joked, pouring the cocoa into Minkowski’s mug. “What do you want?”

She was silent for a moment until he turned around, mug in hand. “I think-”

For the second time that day, a nice moment was interrupted by the door opening. This time, it was Hera and Lovelace who came through it, both of them with smiles on their warmed faces.

“Good afternoon,” Eiffel greeted them bitterly, eyeing their ungloved hands. “How was the car?”

Lovelace shrugged. “Can’t complain. The heating works. If it gets any colder out, you two are gonna have to take the underground tunnels to class.” She grinned almost evilly, relishing in the plain malice on Eiffel’s face, then looked down at the mug he was handing to Minkowski. “Oh, is there hot cocoa?”

“No! There’s no hot cocoa. I’m not making anyone else a hot cocoa.” He crossed his arms indignantly.

“There’s hot c-cocoa?” Hera asked, peering over Lovelace’s shoulder.

“Come on, Eiffel. Spare two hot cocoas?” Lovelace smiled, holding up two fingers like he was some sort of bartender. It only deepened his frown.

Then again, if Hera was asking for one…

“Fine,” Eiffel sighed theatrically, making a show of reaching up to the cabinet and pulling out two more hot cocoa packets. “Two hot cocoas for the car-takers. Traitors in our midst, both of you.”

“Thank you, Eiffel,” Lovelace said, then pulled out one of the kitchen table chairs and sat down next to Minkowski. “So, what were we talking about?”

Packets, mugs, milk, microwave. Thirty seconds. “I was just asking Minkowski what she wants for Christmas.”

“And?” Lovelace looked up at her.

A smile crossed Minkowski’s face. “I was saying I think the best present would be if you all came to my show this Friday. I’m playing one of the leads, so it would…” she paused, taking a moment to tug her sleeve down. “It would really mean a lot if you guys showed up.”

“Aww, Minkowski,” Eiffel grinned at her. “We mean a lot to you?”

“I’ll take it back,” she threatened, jabbing a finger in his direction.

He laughed. “Yeah, alright. We’ll be there.”

“With a sign that says ‘Minkowski’s Number One,’ too,” Lovelace added.

“Oh, god, anything but that.” Minkowski shook her head, but didn’t bother to hide the smile on her face.

The microwave beeped, and Eiffel pulled both mugs from inside. As he set them down on the counter, he noticed Hera had moved onto the counter next to the sink. She was perched there cross-legged, a small smile on her face as she listened to the conversation. The light from the window next to her made her look particularly radiant. Eiffel forced himself not to stare at her.

“Are you going home for Christmas, Minkowski?” Lovelace asked.

“Probably. Are you?”

Eiffel picked up the mugs and passed one to Lovelace. He set Hera’s down on the counter next to her, a little afraid of brushing hands with her and feeling like he’d been burnt again. Then he lifted himself up on the counter adjacent to her, kicking his feet against the cabinets. He looked up and grinned at her.

She smiled back, and his heart fluttered.

“Yeah. I might go visit Sam while I’m there. He got a job not too far from NYC, you know.”

“Oh, really? That’s great, Lovelace.”

Hera’s smile faltered a little, and her bright eyes gave Eiffel a knowing look. They were both well aware he wasn’t going home for Christmas.

It wasn’t so much that he had a bad relationship with his parents, but they didn’t particularly have a great one, either. They’d raised him, occasionally, and that was about all he could say. They never seemed all that interested in his interests or what he was doing at college, and he only called home about three times a semester. He spent all of his breaks and long weekends at Goddard, usually with Hera, who also had what people would call a ‘complicated home life.’ Plane tickets to Boston were expensive, anyways.

He shifted uncomfortably and took a sip of his hot cocoa. Lovelace, ever-aware of what was happening around her, looked away from Minkowski and locked eyes with him.

She paused for a moment, glancing between him and Hera. “You guys know you can come with me to New York if you want, right? My family would love to have either one of you. Or both.”

Eiffel smiled. “Thanks, Lovelace, but … maybe next year. I don’t know if I’m ready to meet the Lovelaces yet.”

She shook her head. “Eiffel, you’d fit right in with my family. Seriously. But that’s alright. Hera?”

Hera hesitated. “...No, I think I’m going to st-stay on campus this year. But I’d love to meet your family sometime, too.”

Lovelace said something in response, but Eiffel couldn’t hear it. His heartbeat had suddenly kicked into high gear. Right. I spend my breaks here with Hera. Christmas break would mean two-and-a-half - basically three - weeks alone with her.

Christ, how had he not realized this before? They always stayed here on breaks. In fact, it had become almost-tradition for them to spend the first night without anyone else around sleeping in the living room, just for the hell of it. Just because they could, and there was nobody else around to tell them not to.

Hope fluttered dangerously in his chest. Anything could happen in those three weeks. Maybe he’d have the nerve to say something to her again, or she would finally figure it out on her own. Maybe he could be with her on New Year’s Eve.

His mug started to shake a little bit in his hands, and he set it down on the counter, wiping his sweaty palms off on his thighs. Three weeks. There wouldn’t be any classes he could conveniently excuse himself to study for, and there would be nobody around to help break the silence if he started awkwardly staring at Hera again. He would really, really have to shape up his social skills with her in the next few weeks, especially if he wanted any shot at telling her the truth again.

“Eiffel!” Minkowski shouted, snapping him out of his thoughts.

He looked up from where he’d fixed his gaze on his hands. Her face gave him the impression she’d been trying to get his attention for some time now. He gave her a weak smile. “Yeah, Minkowski?”

She held out Lovelace’s mug towards him. “Lovelace would like a refill.”

They all erupted into laughter. Eiffel could only manage a small chuckle as he got up and took Lovelace’s mug.

Now, complaining about his new bartending position was the last thing on his mind. He could only think about how thrilling and terrifying it would be to be alone with Hera on Christmas break.

He glanced up and saw her smiling as she took a sip of her cocoa. His pulse quickened a little more.

If I can even get through this to break in the first place, he thought miserably as he poured the milk.

Chapter Text

Eiffel was about halfway through his rewatch of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the lights in his room began to flicker.

He paused on a frame of Harrison Ford’s grizzled face, then moved the laptop to the side and stood up to look out of his window. It was dark outside, but the copious amounts of snow on the ground reflected the light from the streetlamps, allowing him to see that it was still snowing.

He groaned. If it kept up through the night, he would probably have to walk through two feet of it to get to class tomorrow. He was seriously considering skipping, even this close to exams, just to avoid trudging out in the cold and wet. The idea of settling down on the couch tomorrow morning with his phone, a blanket, and a hot cup of coffee was almost too enticing to ignore.

His light flickered again, and he remembered why he had originally looked out the window in the first place. Alright, Eiffel, focus. He squinted out at the darkness and snow, trying to see if a power line had been taken out or something.

As he watched, there was a sudden gust of wind, sending flurries of snow towards his window. He inched back towards his bed. Okay. Maybe we can just ignore the problem, and it’ll go away. That usually worked.

As if on cue, there was another loud gust of wind outside his window, this one stronger than the last. And his light winked out completely.

Eiffel paused in the middle of his suddenly dimmed room, glancing around. His laptop screen was still lit up, so he hoisted it onto his shoulder and squinted around in the darkness, using the screen as a makeshift flashlight. 

“It appears,” he announced to nobody in particular, “that the power is out.”

He shone the laptop light around his room for another moment before he sat back down on his bed. Well, this probably meant it would be an early bedtime for him tonight. On the bright side, though, if this outage was affecting the whole school, class might be canceled tomorrow. He grinned at the thought.

“Well, Indiana, it looks like it’s just you and me, buddy,” he said to his laptop, moving back against his headboard again. “Not that I’m complaining.”

He went to unpause the movie, but the sound of the wind still howling past his window made him freeze. It was an eerie, almost wailing sound, and it felt even creepier with all the lights off.

Come on, Doug, don’t freak yourself out, he chided himself. Still, though, he couldn’t bring himself to unpause the movie. He just sat there, finger hovering over the trackpad, staring into the darkness.

Hephaestus House creaked around him. Eiffel swallowed nervously, training his eyes on Harrison Ford’s face, as if looking out into the darkness would make something jump at him. “It’s just an old house,” he said aloud. “Just an old, old house, built by a crazy guy with no architectural knowledge. And the power’s out, so … there’s that.” He grimaced at the slight waver in his voice. He had to stop talking to himself when he was freaked out.

Creeeaakkk…

Eiffel stiffened. That one was definitely something outside his bedroom door. He felt around on his nightstand for his phone, unable to tear his eyes away from the door, and fumbled with it to turn the flashlight on.

A mercifully bright beam of light appeared from the back of his phone, and he held it up to the door just in time to see the handle starting to turn. The phone shook in his hands.

“Eiffel?” Minkowski’s face appeared around the door, squinting against the bright light from his phone. “Ouch. Can you turn that off?” She held up a flashlight and pointed into his room, illuminating the whole space. There was nothing crouching there waiting to get him, thankfully.

“Oh, Minkowski,” Eiffel sighed, turning off his flashlight. “I have never been happier to hear your voice.” He laughed a little to himself, scratching his neck. “I honestly thought I was about to get axe murdered or someth…” he trailed off at the sight of her concerned face. “Nevermind. Did, uh, the power go out…?”

“Yes, Eiffel,” Minkowski said pointedly, gesturing to the complete darkness around them. “The power has gone out.”

“Just making sure.” He gave her a sheepish grin.

“Well, this constitutes an emergency situation,” she told him, “so that means we have to have a house meeting.” Eiffel began to groan, and she held up a hand. “Come on, Eiffel. It’s part of our emergency plan for this exact situation. It’s all laid out in Pryce and Carter’s Student Handbook, which you would know if you read it.”

“Yeah, but, c’mon. A single downed power line is an emergency?” he asked incredulously, gesturing outside his window.

“We can’t risk anything in a storm like this. Especially not in the oldest house on campus.” She beckoned, opening his door a bit wider and stepping into the hall. “Let’s go, Eiffel. And leave the laptop.”

He frowned and set the laptop back down on his bed, then begrudgingly followed after her into the hall. In this more insular part of the house, the sounds of the storm outside were almost frighteningly distant. When he was in his room, the wind against his walls and snow pelting the roof had been scary, but here, there was a sort of otherworldliness to it. They could hear the wind howling above but didn’t feel it on the walls around them. Eiffel stepped a bit closer to Minkowski, thoroughly creeped out.

When they emerged into the living room, they found Lovelace, Hera, and Hilbert already seated around a flashlight that had been pointed upward at the ceiling to illuminate the room. Hilbert sat slouched in an armchair, his arms crossed and brows so deeply furrowed it was hard to see his eyes, though that also could have been the poor lighting. Hera was sitting on the couch next to Lovelace, who had her feet kicked up on the coffee table and was scrolling absently through her phone. Hera looked up and gave Eiffel a weary smile, which made his heart beat even faster than the terrifying winds outside had.

“Everyone here?” Minkowski asked, sitting down in the other armchair. Audrey quickly appeared at her side, and she gave him a quick scratch behind the ears (despite her initial resistance, Eiffel had noticed, she was starting to warm up to the dog). Eiffel made his way over to the couch and settled in next to Hera, kicking up his feet on the coffee table with Lovelace.

“Should be.” Lovelace held up her phone. “Looks like it isn’t just us. Everyone in a ten-mile radius is complaining on Twitter.”

“This is nonsense,” Hilbert piped up. “Was in the middle of extremely important experiment when I was interrupted. What is the point of this meeting?”

“Because, Hilbert,” Minkowski began, leaning forward in her chair. She cleared her throat, making eye contact with each of them before continuing, “I am calling this house meeting to order in accordance to Hephaestus House Emergency Protocol Number four hundred and sixty-eight, in compliance with the Pryce and Carter’s Student Handbook and Code of Conduct rule of the same number.”

Eiffel glanced over at Hera and rolled his eyes. She always took these things way too seriously.

Minkowski cleared her throat again, and when Eiffel looked back at her, she was staring straight at him. “As I was saying, the emergency protocol calls for us to stay put in a central location until the storm is over and the house is safe to navigate once again. I’m sure admin will be in touch any second now through some means, but until then, we’re going to stay here.”

“What?!” Eiffel groaned. “Can I at least go get my laptop so I can fini-”

“No.”

“This is inane,” Hilbert commented, his frown somehow deepening. “Is just minor snowstorm. No need to interrupt experiments for this.”

Minkowski sighed. “Listen, everyone, it’ll probably just be for the rest of the night. We have enough provisions to last us for the next week if things get any worse, which they could,” she emphasized, giving everyone pointed looks. “But don’t worry. When you prepare for things like this, you’re always fine.”

“So - just to be clear - we’re sp-spending the rest of the night here?” Hera asked, pointing down at the ground.

“Yes,” Minkowski said. “I’ve got blankets in the closet if anyone gets cold, but for now, we should prepare to bunker down.”

Eiffel and Hilbert both groaned loudly.

“Oh, come on, guys,” Lovelace said, standing up from the couch. “Minkowski, you could definitely try chilling out a little. Trust me, Goddard’s been through worse than this. But, you know, this doesn’t have to be a lame emergency protocol.”

“Hey,” Minkowski frowned.

“We can make this fun, probably!” Lovelace exclaimed, shoving her phone in her pocket. “It’s like a … a big sleepover. We’ll have a pillow fight, talk about girls, see who falls asleep first…”

“Good lord,” Hilbert muttered, sinking further into his chair. He managed to look even more dejected than he had previously.

“Oh,” Eiffel snapped his fingers, “you know what we should do? We should play a board game.”

“Yes,” Lovelace pointed at him, grinning, “that’s the spirit. Let’s play a board game.”

“Oh, I have a board game we could play,” Minkowski smiled. “Someone from my show last Friday gifted it to me. Okay, it’s like D&D, but we’re on a space station eight light years away from Ea-”

“Boo!” Eiffel interrupted, giving her a thumbs-down. “Completely unrealistic.”

Hera elbowed him. “Really rich coming from the Star Wars f-fan.”

He made a face at her. “Uh, yeah, but Star Wars takes place in a galaxy far, far away. It’s completely different!”

“Alright!” Minkowski said, exasperated. “No board games.” She shut her eyes and took a deep breath, then blew it out slowly. “Let’s all just … calmly … have a nice discussion. Or we can start going to sleep. It is,” she checked her phone, “eleven P.M., after all.”

“So the night is still young,” Eiffel remarked.

“So, what, are we t-telling ghost stories?” Hera asked. “There’s this great one I know about a murderer on the loose during a snow st-storm.”

Eiffel’s skin crawled, and he shot Hera a look. She grinned back at him. “Afraid of the d-dark, Doug?”

“No,” he muttered, scowling at her. “It would be about ten thousand percent less creepy if we didn’t live in this haunted-mansion house, though.” As if to demonstrate his point, Hephaestus creaked loudly above them. The wind howled on.

“You know,” Eiffel said suddenly, desperate to think about anything other than the snowstorm that was threatening to blow their house down, “there’s some really great stories from our very first week here.”

“Oh, yeah,” Lovelace said, sitting back down on the couch. “Like the time you slipped and fell in the cafeteria.”

“Okay, that was one time. But, no, I was thinking about…” He sifted through the memories of that first week of freshman year. The multiple times he got stuck or lost in Hephaestus House, his first time trying Cowbell’s ice cream, or maybe when he’d walked into the wrong class on three separate days. All of it was covered in a haze of the giddiness he’d felt that whole month - at the fact that his dream of going to college with his best friend had come true, at the change of pace and scenery from Boston to a small college town, at the head-spinning prestige of Goddard. That August was certainly high on the list of some of the best months of Eiffel’s life.

One important memory suddenly stood out to him among the stream. A small smile spread across his face. “I was thinking about how we started using our last names with each other.”

“No,” Minkowski said flatly.

“Oh, come on, Minkowski, it’s a great story!”

“No, it isn’t, and I forbid you from telling it.” She pointed at him and raised her eyebrows threateningly.

“Aw, let him tell it, Minkowski. It’s fun,” Lovelace frowned at her.

The two of them stared at each other for a tense minute (Clash of the titans, Eiffel thought) until Minkowski sighed and broke eye contact. “Go ahead, Eiffel.”

Grinning, he leaned forward towards them and splayed his hands wide. “Alright. So, it was the first week of classes last year. Minkowski, Hera and I had just moved in here-”

“I was unaffiliated with you,” Minkowski commented.

He ignored her. “And, anyways, I’m trying to get to know everyone, and I find out Minkowski’s a theater major. So I asked what her favorite play was, and she said Les Mis. And I said, ‘I’ve seen that movie!’”

“No, Eiffel. What you said was, and I quote, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a great movie,’” she corrected him, glowering in his direction. Eiffel shook his head at her awful impression of his voice. “And I said, ‘Well, it was actually a novel first, and then a stage adaptation,’ and you said, ‘Uh, no it wasn’t,’ which was completely wr-”

Eiffel waved a hand through the air. “It doesn’t matter who was ‘technically right’ about it. What matters is that that was the first roommate fight we ever had.”

“I thought about asking Lovelace to kick you out,” she murmured.

He grinned. “Well, thank god that didn’t happen. So, one thing led to another, and to employ a little psychological warfare, I started using Minkowski’s last name like they do in Les Mis. After Lovelace brokered a peace treaty between us, it just sorta … stuck.” He shrugged. “I think I like it better than Renée, anyways.”

“Yeah, well, the important thing is that you lost that fight,” Minkowski reminded him. “And we never could get the last name thing to stick with Hera, so in the end, you didn’t get all of us doing it.”

Hera shrugged. “C-calling Doug Eiffel just felt … wrong. And my last name is pretty bad, anyways. It’s for the b-better.”

“It’s fine, Hera,” Eiffel assured her. “Better than being named after something French. Those bastards.”

“I like the last names,” Hilbert chimed in from his armchair. “And the titles. I did not get three PhDs here to be called ‘Alexander’ by everyone.”

“Oh, save it, Doctor. Kuan and Victoire were working on PhDs, and you never heard them insist on being called doctors,” Lovelace said. Hilbert frowned at her, but looked away, unwilling or unable to beat her in this argument.

The five of them were silent for a time, listening to the snowstorm raging on just outside. The snow pelted against their windows loudly. Eiffel spared a glance outside to see how bad the damage was, and grimaced at the near foot-and-a-half of snow that had piled up. He knew it was a futile effort to hope classes would be canceled the next morning, but he crossed his fingers anyway.

Audrey got up from Minkowski’s side and curled up by the TV. Minkowski pulled out her phone and began scrolling, presumably checking for any sort of update from the administration. Eiffel leaned back into the couch and stared up at the darkened ceiling, forcing himself to focus on his own breathing and heartbeat instead of the tempestuous wind outside.

“You know,” Lovelace suddenly said, “I really missed my old roommates when they graduated. I thought that my social life at Goddard was over before it even began, and I’d never find a group of people like that again. I kind of didn’t even want new roommates, since I knew it wouldn’t be the same.” She paused, looking around at the rest of them, and smiled. “But I’m really glad I got you guys. You’re all pretty okay.”

“Aw, Lovelace,” Eiffel grinned. “I think you’re ‘pretty okay’ too.”

“We’re glad you gave us a chance,” Minkowski added. Hera made a soft noise of assent, and when Eiffel glanced over, he found her leaning back against the couch with her eyes shut.

Nearly asleep, there was a sort of calmness to her features that she didn’t often have when she was awake. She was always thinking, feeling, doing. He loved that about her, that her brain never truly shut off (his never really did either, but it ran in a much less intelligent way than Hera’s). Still, though, it was almost breathtaking to see her with such a rare peace on her face, and she didn’t even realize it. She was just tired, and somehow that had made Eiffel’s heart beat louder than the wind outside.

Lovelace seemed to notice Hera at the same time Eiffel did. She glanced around at Minkowski and Hilbert, pointed back at Hera, then reached forward onto the table and clicked the flashlight off. “I’m gonna try to sleep in case they don’t cancel class tomorrow,” she whispered. “If they don’t, we’ll talk about rides in the morning.”

“Thanks, Lovelace,” Eiffel smiled at her, though he knew she couldn’t see it in the dark.

“I’ll stay up and wait for updates for a little longer,” Minkowski’s voice said somewhere in the dark. “Goodnight, guys.”

Various murmurs of ‘goodnight’ agreed in the darkness. Eiffel leaned back into the couch, shifting around a little in an attempt to find a comfortable sleeping position. The floor might’ve been more conducive to an actual good night’s sleep, but he hadn’t vacuumed (another one of his roommate tasks) since last year, and he’d spilled far too many things on the carpet for it to be even a little hospitable. So, begrudgingly, he settled into a leaned-back sitting position with his head resting on the top of the couch.

He shut his eyes and tried to tune out the wind and snow that continued on outside. He tried to distract himself from it with the mental image of Hera next to him, looking peaceful, but his heart began to speed up again. Instead, he shut it all out and just stared at the darkness behind his eyelids, a night sky devoid of stars or anything even remotely interesting.

Eventually, after a few more minutes of no sleep, he thought maybe his position was the issue. He shifted around again, pressing his shoulders back into the couch.

In a long series of making mistakes in his life, that one was probably one of the only ones that had a slightly okay outcome. He must have changed the way the couch was supporting Hera’s head, because the next thing he knew, there was a soft weight falling onto his shoulder.

He froze, not daring to move a muscle or even breathe. He could feel the slow in-and-out of Hera breathing right next to him, felt the crown of her head against his neck and her hair brushing his face. He’d gone completely still out of equal parts shock, fright, and desire to keep her from waking up so she didn’t move. Maybe she wouldn’t - she’d probably just see it as a best friend thing, but with Eiffel’s panicked breathing and racing heartbeat, she’d put the pieces together all too easily.

He took a deep breath and tried to relax at least that shoulder. Oh my god was about the only phrase running through his head right now. It was the only one that seemed adequate to describe the situation.

After a few minutes where Hera didn’t stir, Eiffel exhaled in relief. His heart was still pounding hard in his chest. Okay, Doug, it’s okay. This is the sort of thing you want, right? To do couple things with her?

Yes, he did. But that still didn’t change the fact that the most incredible girl in the world was asleep on his shoulder. How were you even supposed to handle something like that?

Well … there was one way.

Hesitantly, holding his breath, Eiffel leaned his head to the side. He moved it inch by inch until he felt a wisp of her hair touch his cheek, then he gently settled his head on top of hers. Something buzzed with an intensity in his brain as he did. For right now, he could pretend that they were a little more than just best friends.

He would probably wake up with a crick in his neck in the morning, but it felt so entirely worth it. He sucked in another deep breath and hoped that she couldn’t hear his heart racing in his chest.

He might have eventually reconsidered putting his head on hers and thought himself into circles about it for the rest of the night, but in less than a few minutes his heartbeat had calmed and he’d fallen asleep, breathing slowly in tandem with the girl next to him.

Chapter Text

My name is Douglas Eiffel and I’m completely in love with my best friend.

The words were written all over his face, he realized as he stared into the shop window. He had the look of a man with something to hide, even though he desperately wanted to say it out loud. He wanted to scream it from the backyard balcony, or announce it on his radio show. Not that many people would hear it there if he did.

Yeesh. He turned away from the glass and walked down the street, trying not to ruminate too much on his reflection’s bright but all-too-knowing eyes. Instead, he put a smile on his face and glanced down at the bags he was carrying, both of them full of Christmas gifts for his roommates. For Hilbert, he’d found a book that had a title where only half the words were remotely comprehensible, and the back made it seem vaguely science-y, so it was the perfect gift for the doctor (what else were you supposed to get for a person who only ever asked for things like nitroglycerin?). Lovelace was getting a cool pen he’d found that could allegedly write underwater, though he couldn’t think of a circumstance where she’d need that; for Minkowski, he’d picked up a candle that was supposed to smell like the beach.

He … wasn’t the best at picking out gifts for people.

Hera, though, was always the worst one out of all of them to find a present for, since she hadn’t celebrated any holidays growing up. Since she’d only begun celebrating when she and Eiffel became friends, she had twelve years of asking people for gifts to catch up on. That complicated things when it came to getting her the right stuff.

But this time, he was pretty sure he’d figured it out. He was hesitant to call it the perfect gift, but it was pretty high up there.

As he walked down the street, a flash of red between two of the buildings caught his eye. He stopped and backed up, craning his neck to see into the alleyway.

Spray-painted onto the concrete side of the building was a simplified artwork of two people, featureless but energetic as they held up a large red heart in the air. LOVE ME, someone had written in large, dripping letters next to it.

Fitting, Eiffel thought, a small smile appearing on his face. He set down his bags for a second, fumbled around in his pocket for his phone, and took a quick picture. Briefly, he had the impulse to text it to Hera, but he stopped himself before he actually could. Sometimes he had some self control.

He picked the bags back up and continued down the sidewalk, still seeing that graffiti floating in his head. He thought of Hera (then again, when wasn’t he thinking of her?). He thought about how she would have smiled at that art, how she might have stopped to take a picture of Eiffel standing next to it. Maybe she’d have some obscure knowledge about it that she’d spend the rest of the walk telling him about. He couldn’t help but smile at the thought.

He paused again near the end of the street, right at the edge of downtown. Diane’s Diner was positioned just on this corner where campus ended and the town began, making it the perfect place for starving college students like himself. It was a bit pricey, so he only got to have a real meal here once or twice a month, but every resident of Hephaestus championed it as the best restaurant in the world.

He lingered just outside the door for a moment, trying to remember how much money he had left. He’d just spent a ton on Christmas gifts, but Diane’s pastries were relatively cheap and always worth it.

Tapping nervously on his pocket that held his wallet, Eiffel finally stepped forward and pushed through the door into Diane’s.

“Doug!” A woman exclaimed from behind the counter, grinning at him as he approached. “Well, don’t you look great today? Doing some shopping?”

He smiled back at her. Diane, he had to admit, had quite the successful business model - set up near a small college full of kids with rich parents and credit cards, learn all of their names, and play up her southern drawl of an accent to give the whole place an artificial hominess. Lovelace had pointed it out to him when she’d first taken him here and Diane had asked for his name. It was respectable.

Plus, she had a pretty sweet supply of workers at the ready from the college. She’d let Eiffel do some work taking orders when he needed cash, and they got along pretty well. He figured he might have to take a few more shifts after all of his present-buying today.

“Yep,” he said, leaning forward on the counter. “Just buying some Christmas presents for my friends.” He widened his eyes in fake shock, “Oh, man, I forgot to get you one. Sorry, Diane.”

She howled with laughter, putting one hand on her chest. “Oh, Douglas, you are a hoot! Now, what can I get you?”

“Uh…” Eiffel peered around the counter at the glass case full of pastries, running his eyes over the golden-brown bread and white icing. “How much for five danishes?”

“Well, normally fifteen dollars, but for you?” Diane winked at him. “I think I can bring it down to fourteen.”

He grinned. “Thanks, Diane. I’ll take five of those.” One for everyone in the house. Maybe it was the Christmas spirit, but he was feeling a little generous today. He pulled out his wallet as Diane wrapped up his pastries and fished out his last twenty-dollar bill.

They exchanged the pastries and money, and as Diane handed him his change, she gave him another wide smile. “You tell your friends in Hephaestus I’m excited to see them all again, alright?”

“Will do.” Eiffel smiled at her and turned back towards the door, holding the warm bag of pastries tightly to his chest as he stepped back out into the cold air. He clamped his hands down on the top of the bag to keep the heat from escaping, then put his head down and started back towards Hephaestus.

The streets were mostly empty, since it was a weekday morning and Goddard’s student population were all either asleep, studying, or attending a lecture. Technically, he was supposed to be in class right now like the rest of them. Christmas shopping and pastries, however, seemed like a much better use of his morning than sitting and listening to his professor drone on for an hour and a half.

He hurried out of downtown and back onto the residential streets. The faster he could get home, the better. Somehow it seemed to be getting colder as the sun climbed higher in the graying sky, and his jacket felt a bit too light for the ever-dropping temperatures.

Luckily, Hephaestus was relatively close to downtown, especially compared to how far some of the dorm buildings were. He turned down Leo Street, almost jogging, and rushed up the stairs and into the house.

“Honey, I’m home!” He called out, stepping into the kitchen. Before he could even set his bags down on the kitchen table, someone shushed him loudly from the living room.

He paused, putting the danishes on the table and shrugging off his jacket as someone stood in the other room. Minkowski appeared in the doorway, frowning at him.

“Hera’s studying upstairs,” she explained, then glanced at his bags. “I take it you didn’t go to class today.”

“Nope,” Eiffel smiled at her. “Not at all. But, hey,” he opened the bag from Diane’s and pulled out a pastry, “I got us some food. All on me, no need to thank me.”

For once, Minkowski didn’t seem to bother keeping the frown on her face from turning into a smile. “Thanks, Eiffel,” she said, stepping forward and taking the danish. “That’s actually … really nice of you.”

He shrugged. “It’s nothing. I just felt like it.” Maybe it had something to do with his higher spirits lately. Love really could make you nicer, huh?

He noticed Minkowski’s eyes straying towards his other bags and pulled them away from her sight. “Nice try,” he laughed. “You’ll get it on Christmas. Don’t get your hopes up, though.”

“I’m sure it’ll be great, Eiffel,” she said, taking a bite out of her pastry. “And even if it isn’t, this danish more than makes up for it.”

He smiled and lifted the bags up again, then reached forward and picked up another danish. “You said Hera’s in her room?”

“Mhm,” Minkowski mumbled. “She’s studying, though, so don’t interrupt her. I even have Hilbert under strict orders so she can concentrate.”

“Got it,” Eiffel said, with full intention to interrupt her. It would only be for a few seconds, of course, not long enough to seriously derail her studying. He’d seen her when she got really into these hyper-focused studying sessions, and it truly was a sight to behold. In high school, she’d done entire pages of integration equations in the time it took Eiffel to finish one paragraph of an essay.

He doubted one snack would knock her out of the zone. Just one fast delivery, then he’d go study himself while the house was still quiet.

With his bags and Hera’s danish in his hands, he left the kitchen and headed up the stairs, careful to keep his footsteps light. After a quick stop by his room to hide the Christmas presents, he headed down the hall to Hera’s room and paused just outside the door. He knocked softly, with one finger, then pushed it open.

“I know you’re studying, but I-” Eiffel paused, one foot on the threshold, and stared. Hera was slumped over on her desk just inside the room, her head placed on top of her arms. Her face was obscured by her hair, but he could see her back rising and falling abnormally quickly. She didn’t look up at him. “Hey, woah, Hera, are you alright?”

For a moment, she didn’t respond. Instead, she pulled herself upright and looked away from him, towards her back wall. Eiffel shifted uncomfortably, his concern growing by the second.

When she finally turned towards him, her face and eyes were red and puffy. He could see fresh tear tracks on her cheeks, though it was obvious she’d tried to brush them away. “I’m f-fine, Doug,” she said hastily at the sight of his worried expression.

“Hera,” he frowned, stepping inside her room. He closed the door behind him with a foot, then set down the pastry on her desk. It seemed a little awkward to have it now. “Are you- did something happen?” he asked tentatively, a bit worried it was something to do with him.

“No, n-no, I’m fine,” she insisted, wiping her eyes. “It’s- it’s fine, okay, I just need to…” she looked away from him, fixing her gaze on the papers scattered across her desk. “I just need to focus. I n-need to learn all of this by tomorrow.”

“Hera,” Eiffel repeated. He crouched to be a little closer to her eyeline. “C’mon. You aren’t getting me out of here that easily.” She didn’t respond, and he saw her eyes flickering back and forth on the papers. “Just … tell me how I can help.”

Hera stared ahead for a few more seconds. And then her eyes began to fill with tears again.

“I c-can’t do this,” she finally mumbled, her hands balling into fists at her sides. “It’s not- It isn’t working, Doug, there’s just t-too much. And I-” she paused, blinking hard. Tears spilled from her eyes.

“I don’t think I’m m-meant to be here. Or in this class, or th-this school.” Her voice broke violently, and she glanced down. “It’s all- I’m not g-good enough. It’s so st-stupid, but I’m g-going to fail this final and then I’ll n-never graduate and I’ll just be … a failure.” The tears were pouring down her face now, and she took a shaky breath, looking at anything in the room besides Eiffel.

He stared at her for a moment. He honestly couldn’t imagine being in her position - so much pressure on her to do well, since the day she was born. His parents had been surprised he’d even wanted to go to college.

This wasn’t about him, though. Right now, Hera needed him to be there for her, and he wanted nothing more than to help her with this. Somehow.

Impulsively, he reached up towards her face and brushed a few of her tears away with his thumb. It felt like it would have been the right thing to do even if he didn’t have a huge crush on her. He would have done it either way, as long as it was Hera.

She actually laughed a bit at that, through her tears. “Doug,” she said quietly, not particularly going anywhere with it. She just said it.

“Hera,” he answered, smiling at her.

There was a moment of careful, tear-filled silence between the two of them before he continued, “You know you’re the smartest person in this entire fucking school, right?”

“Th-that’s not true,” she frowned, taking another shaking breath. “People here have won Nobel prizes at f-fourteen years ol-”

“So what?” Eiffel interrupted. “Who cares? I definitely don’t. You know, some of those Nobel prize winners have walked right into me on the sidewalk and didn’t even apologize.”

Another laugh from her, clear and sweet-sounding. “St-stop making me laugh,” she murmured, swiping at her eyes again. “I’m supposed to be feeling awful.”

“No, you’re not,” he said simply. “I don’t know why you think you’re not supposed to be here. I mean, you got into Harvard. Harvard!” He threw his arms up in the air incredulously. He was putting on a bit of a show for her sake, but he also genuinely meant it. Hera underestimated herself way too much, and he could only see her as the most intelligent person he’d ever known. It didn’t make any sense to him. “You’re going to kick that final’s ass, Hera. Trust me. And if you don’t,” he shrugged, “who cares?”

“I do,” she frowned. “I care a lot.”

He gazed up into her face, her usually bright eyes still red and puffy. This final was really doing a number on her, huh? She’d cried over academics in the past, but it always, always worked out for her. Because she was Hera.

After a few moments of silent staring and his mind wandering back to (then lingering on) when he brushed the tears off her face, Eiffel noticed his heart starting to race, which felt wholly out of place for this situation. Embarrassed, he glanced up at her ceiling instead.

Her ceiling had little plastic glow-in-the-dark stars taped up, each of them scattered about in clusters and what Eiffel could only assume were accurately reproduced constellations. Above her bed was a small collection of blue stars, directly in view from her pillow.

Hera had always loved space, planets, and the stars. It was, actually, the first thing Eiffel had learned about her when they’d met. In middle school, they would spend long hours in the library together while Hera checked out books about astronomy. She would read him the most interesting facts from them, and he would nod and pretend he understood what a quasar was.

Before Eiffel had even known communications was a field, Hera had declared to him that she knew she wanted to major in astronomy. Her mom’s job had something to do with space, so she’d quite literally been around the stars her entire life.

She’d told him one night, whispering like it was the most well-kept secret in the world, that she wanted to name a star one day.

He’d known about the stars on her ceiling before, of course. He’d been the one to help put them there, hoisting her up on his shoulders before Lovelace brought them a ladder. But this time, with Hera so unsure and worried in front of him, they struck him differently. It was as if he’d been looking up at the stars for his whole life, and one of them had suddenly fallen down between his feet.

Suddenly energized, Eiffel stood. “Stand up,” he told Hera. She gave him an odd look. “Trust me.”

She did, pushing in her desk chair and folding her arms. “Why?” she asked, the corner of her mouth quirking upwards.

“Repeat after me. ‘I’m going to do well on my finals.’”

“What?” Hera gave him a look. “Doug-”

He held up a hand. “Say it with me, Hera. ‘I’m going to do well on my finals.’”

She stared at him for a moment, then sighed. “I’m g-going to do well on my finals,” she repeated, her voice monotone.

“No, like you mean it,” he grinned at her. “Come on. Oh, you know what?” He snapped his fingers, “Shout it.”

“Doug, I d-don’t think-”

“Okay, fine. I’ll go first, if you want.” He knew this wasn’t Hera’s thing - she was more of a results person than Eiffel, who had passed all of his high school exams on three cups of coffee and a wish. But doing stuff like this always motivated him, so it was certainly worth a shot.

He took a deep breath, puffing his chest out. Hera watched him curiously, then jumped as he shouted, “I’M GOING TO DO WELL ON MY FINALS!” It was as loud as he could conceivably produce sound. He thought he heard some birds take flight, startled, outside Hera’s window.

He turned back to her. “Just like that.”

She was staring at him. “Th-this won’t work,” she told him sternly.

He shrugged.

He watched as she sighed, then sucked in a deep breath, drawing herself upright. She paused for just a moment, shutting her eyes tightly, then shouted. “I’M GOING TO DO WELL ON MY FINALS!” It sounded less like a lie than her last one. This time, she might have believed it a little, deep down.

Eiffel smiled. “There you go. Feel better?”

She turned back to him, a small smile on her face. It was a reassuring sight. “A little, I g-guess.” She exhaled, and her shoulders slumped, visibly untensing. “Thanks, Doug.”

“Of course, darling. I j- oh!” He stepped back over to her desk and picked up the danish, which was now much cooler, but still a little bit warm. “I, uh, stopped by Diane’s on the way home. I was coming up here to bring you this.”

She stared at the danish for a moment, then looked up at him, her expression unreadable. Suddenly, she stepped forward and flung her arms around him, so tightly he wheezed out the air in his lungs. She squeezed him in closer to her.

Eiffel felt dizzied. His heart began to pound in his chest, and he was distantly terrified that she would be able to hear it. Hera’s room practically fell away from him, and it was all he could do to fix his eyes on the cluster of blue stars above her bed to keep him grounded. It was just him and Hera and the stars for one incredible second, so blissful to him that he forgot to actually hug her back.

It was over far too soon. Hera stepped back, and Eiffel tried his best to change his expression to something that didn’t look incredibly lovesick. He managed a weak smile, but no words.

“I r-really appreciate it, Doug,” she said, taking the danish from his hand. He’d forgotten he was holding it. “Seriously.” She took a bite of the pastry, then mumbled around it, “Thanks for being there.” A few crumbs fell onto the carpet. It was somehow insanely endearing to him.

“Oh, no big deal,” he lied. It was a huge deal. “You can repay me the next time I’m crying about finals.”

She laughed, then stepped back over to her desk. Eiffel knew that was a sign he should get going - she had to get back into the studying zone. That was just how she worked.

“Let me know if you … need anything else,” he said quickly, returning to her door. She lifted her hand in a wave, smiling at him. His pulse quickened as he shut the door behind him.

He had to study as well, he knew. He had four exams in the next week, and none of them were going to be easy. But he doubted he could get any information to stick in his brain right now, with his head still spinning, stuck back in Hera’s room with her arms wrapped around him.

Chapter Text

Eiffel opened his eyes for the first time in about twenty minutes, and was content to find that his carpet fibers had not suffocated him to death yet. He was lying face-down on the floor of his bedroom, which might not have been the best idea, considering how long it had been since he’d vacuumed or dusted the place. Still, right now it was the only place he could stand to be. On the floor, away from any sort of academics, breathing in as much grime and dust as he wanted to.

His last final had been grueling. It took him almost the entire three hours to finish it, and he had been all over the place at the beginning, unable to get his thoughts straight to complete even one question for twenty minutes. The five cups of coffee he had in the morning certainly hadn’t helped.

Plus, he had no idea how he had done. It wasn’t exactly the end of the world - as long as he had an alright GPA, they couldn’t kick him out - but it was just another thing on top of how exhausting the final had been. If he failed the class, he’d have to retake it to graduate, and there was no way he was going through all of that boring research and video editing again.

Eiffel groaned and rolled over, laying on his back right next to his desk. He stared up at the ceiling, which was slowly darkening as the sun dipped closer and closer to the treeline. He shut his eyes again and tried not to think about the one final he had left.

He only had about five seconds of peaceful rest before there was a loud knock on his door. He groaned, loudly, to tell whoever it was to leave him alone, but he heard the hinges squeaking anyway as his door opened.

“Eiffel?” Lovelace’s voice asked, sounding curious but not at all surprised. “You’re lying on the floor again.”

“I am,” he mumbled, still keeping his eyes shut in the hopes that he would fall asleep and not have to think about finals. “Shocking, right?”

“Was it that bad?” Her voice was a little closer now. He felt the carpet sink in to his right, and he opened his eyes to look. Lovelace was sitting cross-legged next to him, her chin cupped in one hand. “Because, let me tell you, the one I took yesterday for my historical literature class? Absolutely horrible.”

Eiffel sighed and pulled himself, reluctantly, into a seated position. “Yeah, it was pretty bad. Remind me not to stay up until two in the morning before my next final, please.” He gave her a weak smile.

“Roger that.” She tapped a finger on the side of her face, glancing around his room for a second, then continued, “So, Hera and I thought we could all go for a little walk. To de-stress, you know? We’ve all had some … rough ones, these past couple of days.”

Eiffel grimaced. As much as he wanted to stay here and lay on his dirty carpet forever, he knew that a walk would probably be at least a little good for him. Nobody in the house was getting enough sleep, food, or relaxation, and that included him. Lying on the ground in his dark room probably wouldn’t help at all.

“You’re right,” he admitted. “But walking is so … difficult. Can’t we just look out a window together, or something?” The sweet embrace of the floor was far too welcoming to give up without a fight.

“Come on, Eiffel,” Lovelace smiled, standing up. She held a hand out to him. “The sooner you go, the sooner you can come back and lie on the ground in the dark, if that’s really your thing.”

He let out one more sigh, then reached up and took Lovelace’s hand. She pulled him to his feet with a violent jerk, and he made a short little noise of surprise. She snorted.

“Ouch,” he said pointedly, rubbing his shoulder.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t kick a man while he’s down.” She guided him towards the door, pausing to let him step out first.

The two of them made their way down the stairs and into the living room. Eiffel paused at the foot of the stairs when he saw Minkowski sitting dejectedly in her armchair, with Hera standing next to her, her arms folded across the front of her Goddard sweatshirt. He raised his eyebrows at her.

“We pr-practically had to drag her out of her room,” Hera explained, glancing down at Minkowski. “She d-did not want to give up her st-studying time.”

“If I wanted to go for a walk,” Minkowski muttered, looking over at Lovelace with fire in her eyes, “I would.”

“It’ll be good for you, Minkowski, trust me,” Lovelace told her, crossing the room to her chair and tugging on her arm. “Come on. Let’s go.”

As she got to work hauling Minkowski to her feet, Eiffel joined Hera to watch them. “So, a midnight stroll?” he asked, smiling at her.

She didn’t look at him, her eyes trained on the scene in front of them. “N-not midnight. It’s barely even six o’clock.”

“Basically midnight,” he quipped. That earned him a small smile from her, and he looked down at his socks to hide the way his face flushed.

“Alright, we’re ready,” Lovelace declared, having finally pulled Minkowski out of her chair. “Let’s go.”

“Really, I need to study for this one. I can’t come with you guys,” Minkowski protested.

“You can study when you’re dead,” Lovelace retorted, leading her towards the door. “Let’s move, people!”

Eiffel followed close behind her, stepping into his sneakers by the door. As they emerged onto the porch, he squinted out at the waning sunlight that burned just below the houses across the street. There was still a little light left, but the darkness was approaching quickly as they walked through the front yard and onto the sidewalk.

Hera strolled at his side, her eyes on the trees in the distance and her hands stuffed in the pockets of her jeans. He tried to imitate her, appearing as nonchalant as possible and staring out at the houses around them as they walked.

“So, finals, huh?” Lovelace asked aloud to nobody in particular.

“You can say that again,” Eiffel muttered, recalling the sweat pouring down his face during the test earlier that day. “After tomorrow, I’m going to crawl into bed and sleep for the next three weeks.”

“Agreed,” Hera chimed in. “I th-think a break will be good for all of us.” She kicked a pebble lightly and watched it clatter down the sidewalk. “And- oh!” Her eyes lit up, “Are we g-going to have dinner at Diane’s after we’re all finished?”

“Oh, yeah, Hera’s right. Diane’s is definitely in order after all of this,” Eiffel agreed, not-so-subtly leaning forward to look at Minkowski. She was the only one of them who had a real part-time job at the moment, making her the de facto bill payer when they wanted a night out.

Minkowski glared at him, though he could tell she wasn’t actually upset. Probably just grumpy from being forced away from her precious studying, Eiffel figured. Another thing he didn’t get about Minkowski’s prepared approach to life.

She shot back, “Maybe if one of you got a job for a change, I wouldn’t be the only one buying groceries and dinner whenever you see f-”

“Hey!” Eiffel objected, frowning. “I have a job, kind of. When I feel like working, which, you know, isn’t often, but still.” He had to be incredibly thankful that Diane let him work whenever he saw fit.

“I had a job,” Lovelace grumbled.

“Oh, d-don’t beat yourself up, Lovelace,” Hera said as they crossed the street. Surprisingly, Lovelace led them across the intersection to the right instead of straight ahead to the quad. They followed her without protest. “The librarians were d-definitely in the wrong th-there.”

“Yeah, you’re right, Hera. They were.” She sighed. “But it’s alright. I’ve got some money saved up, I’ll pay for Diane’s.”

“Thank you, Lovelace,” Eiffel grinned. “And, seriously, you should start that taxi service I keep telling you about. You could make bank.”

“I’ll think about it,” she replied, a small smile on her face.

They were passing the large glass-and-steel-box STEM building now, a hall where Eiffel had only had a few classes so far. It looked very out of place compared to the older, more castle-y halls, all sharp metal and no brick. He hadn’t had much occasion to walk by it in the past, since beyond it there was little more than the forest their school butted up against, but Lovelace seemed to have gone in this direction for a reason.

He figured out what it was when they emerged from the side of the STEM building and Lovelace began striding into the snow-covered grass. She was heading straight towards the large lake just behind the hall, which, in the freezing December air, had frozen over completely. The last vestiges of the sunlight glinted off of the ice, giving the whole lake a mystifying glow. The fronds that usually bent over from the banks were dying, now, leaving the entire lake visible. It was one large, misshapen circle of ice.

“Lovelace,” Minkowski said, suddenly alert, “what are we doing here?”

Lovelace turned around to face them, continuing backwards toward the lake, and grinned. "Oh, come on, like you've never wanted to?"

“Wanted to?” Minkowski sounded alarmed now, and Eiffel watched her eyebrows shoot up high on her forehead. “No, no, absolutely not. We have no idea how thick that ice is. It might start to crack while we’re out there.”

“It won’t,” Lovelace assured her as they arrived on the bank. “Trust me, it’s been cold enough for long enough to stay intact. Sam and I did this once, and he gave me a whole lecture on it.”

Eiffel glanced at Hera. Her brow was slightly furrowed in concern, and she squinted against the sunlight that lit up her face, almost making her look like she was glowing. She looked … stunning was the only word that came to mind.

He decided he would be perfectly fine walking out on the ice if she came with him.

Lovelace and Minkowski were still bickering, and Eiffel tuned back into their conversation, glancing over at them.

“Come on, Minkowski, it’s just a lake,” Lovelace said, exasperated.

“It is specifically outlined in Pryce and Carter that going on the lake while it’s frozen can lead to severe inj-”

With a roll of her eyes, Lovelace stepped forward and took hold of Minkowski’s hand. Before she could protest, Lovelace was pulling her out onto the ice, laughing at the surprise on her face.

“Lovelace!” Minkowski shouted, wobbling on the slick ice. Lovelace only laughed again and pulled her out farther onto the lake, gripping her hand tightly the entire way.

Eiffel blinked a few times as Minkowski’s protests got quieter, both because the pair was getting further away and because Lovelace had shushed her playfully. He could feel beads of sweat starting to form on his forehead - could he do something that bold? His eyes strayed towards Hera’s hand, then up at her face. She glanced over at him, wonderfully, and his heart stopped for a moment.

“Up for a little ice skating?” He managed, giving her an unsteady smile.

To his relief, she smiled back. “I’d s-say we deserve it.”

He laughed, inching his way towards the ice. It was a light gray color, shimmering in the light of the sunset, and the dark water of the lake lay just underneath it. He tried not to think about it too much.

Eiffel watched as Hera stepped onto the ice, pausing for a moment to test her weight on it before she did. Triumphantly, she stood with both feet on top of the lake and grinned at him. “Come on, Doug. It’s n-not so bad once you’re on it.”

“I know that,” he mumbled. It wasn’t so much the ice that he was afraid of.

Finally, he stepped onto the lake, taking a moment to find his balance. Once he did, though, a warm laugh bubbled up in his throat, and he grinned at Hera. “Ha! Look at that!” He struck a confident pose. “Breakin’ the rules with Minkow-”

Unexpectedly, one of his feet slipped a little, and he found himself wavering on the ice for a split second. His eyes went wide, and he flung his arms out to the side to try and catch his balance.

But before he could fall and possibly incur that serious injury Minkowski had warned them about, he felt Hera’s hand grabbing onto his. She pulled him upright sharply, but not unkindly, then gripped his hand a bit tighter as he struggled to regain his sense of balance.

Her hand was warm and gentle, a welcome respite from the freezing air around them. Eiffel felt the blood rush to his face as he glimpsed his hand in hers. It seemed, almost, that they fit together perfectly, the way puzzle pieces or magnets were designed to be together. He watched as his fingers curled around the edge of her hand, feeling entirely out of control as they did. His heart beat so hard and fast that he was a little worried the ice might start to crack underneath them.

Sometimes, it truly felt like he was the first person to ever experience love. It seemed impossible that anyone else could ever feel someone else’s hand in theirs was something so important, so dire and necessary. It seemed like he was the only one who had ever felt his pulse quicken at the sight of another person, or that rush of adrenaline when they laughed at a joke.

He knew it wasn’t really true. But at the very least, this moment here on the ice was wholly his and Hera’s. Who else could claim something like this, with a girl like her?

“Doug?” Hera’s voice dragged him, kicking and screaming, out of his own thoughts. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah! Yeah,” Eiffel laughed nervously, unwilling to pull his hand away from hers yet. “Just, uh … a little spooked about the ice. Thanks for catching me.” He willed his voice not to waver on that last sentence, and miraculously, it didn’t.

“Oh, n-no big deal. I just s-saved your life, that’s all.” She grinned and gave his hand a light squeeze. He felt a bit like he could faint at any second.

“I’m a little dizzy,” he mumbled, forcing himself to look away from her and out at Lovelace and Minkowski, who were laughing out further on the ice. The sun was gone, now, but it wasn’t completely dark out yet, leaving the pair looking like two shadows dancing on a wall. He had the strange inclination to say something more than how he was feeling physically, but he couldn’t muster the words.

“Th-that’s okay,” Hera said, taking a hesitant step further out onto the ice. “You won’t fall.”

Eiffel let her lead him out to where Lovelace and Minkowski were, trying not to stare at his hand in hers. He did feel dizzy, he hadn’t been lying about that - but it was less from the ice and more from the fact that Hera was holding his hand. He tried to tell himself to get a grip, but even the most rational part of his brain couldn’t get past what was happening.

He took a deep breath and looked up ahead at his friends, trying to focus on them and not falling on the ice. Hera’s hand warmed his.

Finally, just when he thought he couldn’t take it any longer, they joined the others on what seemed like the center of the lake. Hera released her grip on his hand - too soon, far too soon - and smiled at them. “We made it!”

“See, Minkowski? And nobody died!” Lovelace crowed.

Minkowski had a rare bright smile on her face, and to Eiffel’s surprise, she actually laughed at that. “Oh, god, we can’t tell anyone about this.”

“What’ll they do, take the lake away?”

Eiffel joined in on the laughter that ensued, trying to bring himself back to the present moment. His brain wanted so badly to linger on Hera and the warm imprint her hand had left on his.

“Oh!” Lovelace leaned forward into their throng. “Have you guys already registered for courses for next semester?”

“Yep,” Minkowski answered. “I’ve got a lot less on my plate next semester, too, thank god.”

“I j-just finished yesterday,” Hera said proudly. “I’m taking an entire c-course on Mercury.” From the way she smiled and widened her eyes at that, Eiffel could tell this was a topic she was very excited about, for reasons he’d never get. It made his momentarily distracted brain start thinking about her all over again.

“What about you, Eiffel?” Lovelace asked, raising her eyebrows at him.

“Oh, uh…” he trailed off, trying desperately to remember what classes he had registered for. A lot of the communications classes kind of sounded the same, and he really just took whatever was required for the major. He hadn’t taken the time to commit their names to memory yet. “I think … a couple of requirements, then something called Modern Studies in Interpersonal Relationships, whatever that is.” He smiled. “Please, hold your oos and ahs. Communications is a very interesting field.”

That one got a small laugh from everyone. Eventually, they were silent again, glancing around at the end of the sunset, which was now giving way to dusk. Some straggling bird who hadn’t yet migrated called out from the trees. Eiffel looked down at his hands, then stuffed them in his pockets, unsure of what to do with them.

“How many finals d-do you guys have left?” Hera asked. Right, Eiffel thought, deflating a little. He’d almost completely forgotten he had more finals to take.

“One,” Lovelace and Minkowski said at the same time. They looked at each other and exchanged smiles.

“Just one,” Eiffel added.

“Lucky. I have two,” Hera groused.

“Well, I wouldn’t worry about them, you guys.” Lovelace grinned. “We are, after all, the most competent group of students at this school. How hard can they be?”

“We’ll say good luck, anyways,” Minkowski said. She crossed her arms, shivering a little in the cold, and frowned. “Now, can we please go back home so I’m not just relying on being the ‘most competent’?”

“Like you didn’t have fun.” Lovelace nudged her. “But alright, fine. Let’s get out of here before Cutter himself shows up to expel us.”

Chapter Text

“Eiffel, give me a hand here,” Minkowski grunted. Lovelace’s suitcase was beginning to slip from her grasp as she hoisted it into the trunk, threatening to spill its overstuffed contents all over the road.

Eiffel stepped off of the sidewalk, where he had been spectating the whole process, and picked up the other end of the suitcase. It weighed much more than he’d been expecting, and he staggered for a moment, but eventually the two of them were able to toss it into the trunk.

“Jesus, Lovelace,” Eiffel panted, leaning forward on Lovelace’s car (well, unofficially, Minkowski’s car, at least for the next three weeks). “What did you put in there, a ton of bricks? How do you even own that much stuff?”

Lovelace looked up from her phone and smiled at him. “I don’t like to limit myself.”

“I think you should worry about the weight limit on the plane, at least.”

The three of them laughed. It was a refreshing sound to hear, after the past week of finals and studying that they’d all endured. For Eiffel, it had especially been hell to get through his last exam, after which he’d taken an almost twelve-hour-long nap. Everyone was exhausted.

But they were beyond that now, and break had officially begun. Across campus, students were packing their things to head home and getting any ride they could to the airport in the city. A few of them - Eiffel and Hera included - were preparing to settle in for three weeks of snow, gloom, and limited dining hall availability. Not that those things were on Eiffel’s mind, of course. He had far more personal things to worry about.

“Oh, g-good, you haven’t left yet!”

Speaking of personal things… Eiffel turned and smiled at Hera as she came bounding down the front yard, clutching something in her hand. She ran up to Lovelace and pressed it into her palm.

“Here’s my sleep m-mask. For the plane,” she explained, seeing Lovelace’s deeply confused expression.

Recognition crossed Lovelace’s face. “Hera, I mentioned sleeping on the flight like, two months ago. How did you…?”

She shrugged. “I have a pretty good memory.”

The exchange was punctuated by Minkowski slamming the trunk shut. Eiffel jumped a little at the sound, and he turned around to see her slump over the back of the car, looking as though she hadn’t slept in days (which, after that finals week, was entirely possible). “Are we ready?”

“Yeah, yeah, we’re going,” Lovelace said, stuffing the sleep mask into one of her pockets. “Thanks, Hera.”

Minkowski stepped back onto the sidewalk, and Eiffel joined her, kicking at a patch of snow by his feet. “You two sure you don’t want to come? My parents’ place is just an hour away, if you’re worried about the drive. I’m in charge of the music, though,” she added with a look at Eiffel.

“Yeah, or I could try and get you two tickets at the airport. They might not be sold out,” Lovelace said.

Eiffel already knew his answer, but he exchanged glances with Hera nonetheless. While three weeks at Minkowski’s lake house or in New York City sounded great, he wasn’t going to pass up this time to hang out alone with Hera, even if he was a little nervous about it. And, besides, he was never that good at making good impressions on families anyway.

“Nah,” he shook his head, “we’re good. Thanks, though.”

Minkowski shrugged. “Alright. Suit yourselves.” Her gaze suddenly hardened as she looked at him, square in his eyes. “Eiffel, If you two need anything, call me. I’ll be here as soon as I can. But, just-”

“Oh, ye of little faith,” Eiffel smiled, elbowing her. “We’ll be fine! Right, Hera?”

“Completely fine,” Hera agreed. “D-don’t worry about us, Minkowski. We’ll take good care of the house.”

Minkowski sighed, but she seemed to relax at least a little bit. “Okay. But, still, if you need me, call. I’m serious, Eiffel.”

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you,” he waved her off.

They stood, awkwardly, in silence for a moment. None of them were sure what to say. It didn’t feel like the time for ‘goodbye’ and ‘see you later’ and ‘fly safe’s, but they had already covered all of the other bases.

Eiffel sighed. He really had to do every cliché sitcom line around here, didn’t he?

“Alright, guys, bring it in,” he declared, opening his arms. Minkowski was his first victim, since he pulled her right into his side, and Lovelace joined shortly after. Hera threw her arms around them last, and they all stood there on the sidewalk for a moment, group-hugging.

Eiffel would probably never say it out loud, but he loved his roommates. Even Hilbert, who had disappeared mysteriously in the early hours of that morning, could have been included in this group hug if he wanted. They were an awesome group of people to have in his life. His mind strayed for a moment to wondering how he would have fared at Goddard without them, and a chill ran down his spine at even the concept.

Minkowski was the first person to break from the hug, wriggling out from Eiffel’s arm, but she couldn’t hide the small smile on her face. “Alright, guys. We should go before Lovelace misses her flight.”

“Oh, we’ve got a little time.” Lovelace glanced at her phone. “I still have … about an hour before takeoff.”

They exchanged individual hugs quickly, at Minkowski’s insistence. As she pulled away from Eiffel, though, she put both hands on his shoulders and stared him down. He broke out into a sweat, a little scared he was about to be yelled at for something.

Then she smiled. “Don’t burn the house down.”

He exhaled in relief and grinned at her. Dodged a bullet there. “I’ll do my best.”

She gave him a look, but her smile didn’t falter. “Alright, Eiffel. And thanks again for the gift.”

They’d exchanged Christmas (and birthday) presents earlier that morning, with Lovelace and Minkowski insisting that theirs remained unopened until Christmas. Eiffel’s presents had gone over pretty well, much to his relief, and they’d all had a round of thank-yous and hugs afterwards.

Before he could respond, though, Minkowski was turning away and rushing towards the car, apparently done wasting time on pleasantries. “Okay, Lovelace, let’s go!”

Eiffel and Hera stood on the sidewalk together as they left, waving them off and shouting goodbyes. As they started to drive off, Eiffel ran alongside the car for a moment, still waving and shouting far louder than was necessary. The wind whipped at his face, sending strands of his hair right into his open mouth, but he didn’t care.

When they drove beyond the house, Lovelace stuck her hand out the window and waved, receding farther and farther from them as they drove. Then the car turned a corner and they were gone. Eiffel missed them almost instantly.

He stood on the sidewalk for a moment, breathing heavily, listening to Hera’s footsteps as she came to a stop next to him. Right. It was just the two of them now.

“So…” Hera began, dragging out the word. He turned to look at her and found her smiling at him. That made catching his breath a lot harder. “Ready for br-break?”

He grinned at her, still sweating a little. His twentieth birthday was only a handful of days away. There would be Christmas, and presents for him and Hera. Hot cocoa and Christmas songs and the little plastic Christmas tree from the attic. A lot of snow, then New Year’s. And the whole time, it would be just him and Hera alone together. He almost couldn’t stand it.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” he managed, hoping it was at least a little bit true.

Chapter Text

Campus seemed so … empty during break.

Well, obviously it would feel like that. Nobody was really around besides a few straggling winter breakers, but it was so noticeably lifeless to the point of being jarring. There were fewer and fewer cars racing past Hephaestus in the early morning hours. The quad was empty, with a blanket of snow over it that silenced any noise that would have dared to break the silence. Sometimes it felt like nobody had ever gone to school here in the first place.

Hephaestus House, though, was far from quiet, much to Eiffel’s joy. He’d kicked off the break with Hera on the day everyone had left with their traditional living room camp-out, where they’d turned on The Princess Bride and microwaved some popcorn. It had gone off mostly without a hitch, save for a few times their hands had brushed in the popcorn bowl and sent a frisson up Eiffel’s arm.

In the days following, they’d spent a lot of time together - what else was there to do, really? They went to the dining hall, walked around downtown with Audrey, laughed and smiled. Eiffel tried his hardest not to pour out his heart to her at every turn.

And he was actually doing surprisingly well! So far, he’d only counted three incidents where he stared at her for longer than he should have, and one where he’d zoned out in the middle of conversation thinking about how in love he was. All in all, not too bad for the first few days of break.

Now they were out for a post-lunch walk around the empty, silent campus, which was a welcome reprieve from the nearly empty, nearly silent dining hall. Somehow, that was the weirdest part of break, since the dining hall seemed to always be crowded no matter what time of day it was. Walking in to see only a few tired-looking students scattered at different tables always felt so strange.

Both of them were wearing jackets to combat the pervasive Midwest chill, but it was still freezing enough with them on that they were sticking close together as they walked. Eiffel was thankful for an excuse to be next to her (and his racing heartbeat definitely helped warm him up a little bit).

The two of them had been quiet for a few minutes, giving Eiffel time to take in the totality of the deserted campus and dead air around them. But now, as they passed the theater where they’d watched Minkowski perform just a few weekends ago, Hera spoke.

“Do you ever think about how far we’ve c-come?” she asked cryptically.

Eiffel turned so she could see his raised eyebrows. She had a winter hat pulled down over her head and a blue scarf wrapped around her neck. They were the exact same winter accessories she’d worn for all of middle and high school, and she’d brought them to college with her despite how much Eiffel had asked her to buy new ones. For a moment, against all of the snow around them, they made her look just like the smaller, younger Hera who he’d walked in the park with during winter.

They had come far, he had to agree. But at the same time, they hadn’t really changed.

“Sometimes,” he said, looking away from her. He focused on his boots, watching them leave shoeprints in the mostly untouched snow. He focused on his shoulder against hers as they walked. He focused on how it felt like they were the only two people around for miles, recalling the same feeling from the nights he’d spent with her on the floor of his room in Boston.

He glanced up towards where the sun shone from behind a feeble cloud cover, where the promise of more snow lingered. It warmed his face a little. “Yeah, I don’t think little middle-school Doug could’ve dreamed he’d end up here. It’s pretty nice, I have to say.”

“Only pretty nice?” She nudged him lightly. He looked back down at her, and found her smiling at him, sending a flutter through his stomach.

“Maybe a little better than that,” he smiled, taking in the soft glow of her face amidst all the snow. A lot more than pretty nice.

Hera glanced away, focusing on a hall that was still covered in ivy, even in the winter. The leaves were dusted with snow, giving the place a look that Eiffel had to admit was … well, pretty nice.

“I think I like it b-better than Boston,” Hera declared, her eyes still trained on the building. She paused to look up ahead at the library, then continued, “I mean, the education’s d-definitely better. And it’s a lot … n-nicer, in some ways.”

Eiffel scoffed. “Yeah, right. You’re telling me you really prefer quiet mornings and pretty buildings to cars going past at every hour and crowded blocks wherever you go?” He gave her a light push with his shoulder, “You’re lying.”

She laughed. “I could be wrong, b-but when has that ever happened before?”

Eiffel opened his mouth.

“No, I d-don’t need examples. They’d all be from you asking me m-movie questions, too, so that’s unfair.”

He closed his mouth, smiling. “Alright, alright.”

He paused for a minute to glance around at their surroundings: up at a lamppost that somebody had wrapped holly around, over at another residential hall he’d been to for a party once or twice. “But I get what you mean,” he added suddenly, unaware he had planned to say the words until they were already coming out of his mouth. “It’s … cozy here. Maybe that’s just the location, or the energy, or the … people…” he trailed off, glancing back at her and away just as quickly. “I don’t know. What I mean is, I like it.”

“More than Boston?” Hera prompted. He could hear the smile in her voice, and his pulse quickened.

“Jury’s still out on that. Ask again later.” He kicked at the snow and watched pieces of it go flying through the air.

All this talk of Boston, especially in the cold and the snow, felt nostalgic. Even the streetlamps with the thin coats of snow were giving him a weird sort of déjà vu for Christmastime back home.

And before he could stop himself, he was being pulled back into a winter halfway across the country, his vision blurring with shades of red and green.

Eiffel’s present was messily wrapped, and he grimaced at it a little as he pulled it from his closet. It looked like a child had attacked a roll of wrapping paper and then found a tape dispenser shortly after. But, unfortunately, it was actually his best wrapping job out of four previous attempts.

He spun around and held the box behind his back, grinning at Hera as he did. “Ready? ”

She smiled. The box in her hands was a little flatter than his, but still sizeable. Eiffel, who was still young enough to judge presents based on how large they were, was quite excited to open it. “Ready, ” she nodded.

“Okay. Let’s open them at the same time, ” he decided, producing her present from behind his back and holding it out to her. They exchanged boxes, and Eiffel noted (with a pang of envy) that hers was much more neatly wrapped than his. She’d never wrapped a present in her life, and somehow she’d managed to make it look better than his! Unbelievable.

Nevertheless, Hera seemed enthusiastic about the gift, her eyes lighting up as she took it from him. “Wow, D-Doug,” she muttered, staring at it from a few different angles.

“On three? ” he asked, slipping one finger into a fold of the wrapping paper. Hera nodded, and he excitedly counted up. “One, two … three!”

Eiffel tore open his gift, while Hera took a more methodical approach to unfolding the mess of paper he’d wrapped around her present. Right - she’d never opened a present before, either. He would have to teach her the proper way to do it, with wild abandon.

He stopped as he tore away enough of the wrapping paper to see what the gift was. It was a gray box, taped shut at the top, but it had a photo of a pair of sleek black headphones on the front. They weren’t too expensive-looking, but they were certainly better than the janky pair of earbuds Eiffel was using for music at the moment.

He held up the box, open-mouthed, at the same time Hera lifted his gift into the air.

“Hera, this is-” he paused, struggling for the right words. “This is awesome. Where did you find these?”

She smiled at him. “Someone was selling th-them secondhand. I thought probably anything would be b-better than those earbuds you have.”

“Ouch!” Eiffel laughed and gave her a small push away. “Well, these are great, Hera. Thank you.” He picked at the tape with a fingernail, smiling.

It was really, really nice to have a friend to do Christmas with. Like, better than he’d ever thought Christmas could be.

He glanced up, eyes wide. “God, I almost forgot. Do you- uh, do you like your gift?” he asked, a bit nervously.

Her eyes went wide too. “Oh, Doug, it’s great.”

Eiffel let out a sigh of relief. He had been worried for the past week that she might hate it. “Really?”

She lifted up the present - a small ornament in the shape of an atom, complete with red protons and blue electrons around it. He’d thought it was fitting, considering they’d met in science class and he’d been the one to explain ornaments to her. “I really do like it,” she said, not sounding the least bit ingenuine.

Eiffel grinned. “Awesome. I thought it could be, like, something to commemorate your first Christmas. With your first ornament, you know?”

She nodded emphatically. “That’s a gr-great idea. Oh!” Her eyes shone, “We can put it on the tree next year!”

“Oh, yeah, we will.”

As Hera got to work picking up her present’s packaging, Eiffel leaned back against his bed frame, staring down at the headphones box in his hands. The wrapping paper was discarded on the floor, and he nudged it away with a foot before he settled his head against his mattress, shutting his eyes for a moment. He took in the warm and, yes, Christmassy feeling that had settled between the two of them. It was reminiscent of how Christmas movies made the ‘holiday spirit’ sound - all cinnamon and pine scent, red and green and bonding with people you cared about. The two of them were content in camaraderie, and that felt like all Eiffel could really ask for for his birthday.

As if she had read his mind, Hera suddenly spoke, breaking the silence that Eiffel had actually felt comfortable in (that was certainly new for him). “Happy birthday, Doug,” she said quietly.

He looked up, eyes wide. People didn’t typically remember his birthday. It didn’t help that it always happened while they were on winter break, and he never really had any outside-of-school friends. He usually got an extra present from his parents each year, plus some cake on the day after Christmas. That was about it.

He swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. “Thanks, Hera,” he managed.

He wondered if she would ever figure out how much that meant to him.

“Oh, look at that!” Hera suddenly exclaimed, bringing Eiffel back to the present. His warm bedroom was replaced by the chilly, unforgiving Goddard air, and he shivered a little as he glanced up at what Hera was pointing to.

He stopped cold in his tracks.

Evidently, while Eiffel had been caught up in his memories, he’d kept walking along with her. At some point, they’d come up to the stone arch that led up to the library, which they were now standing directly underneath. And at the very top, there was a tuft of leaf-green against the gray and white of the sky.

His heart pounded in his chest. Someone had tied mistletoe to the top of the arch.

Hera was looking at him - expectantly, but only in the way that she was waiting for him to do or say something stupid that she would laugh at. He could already see her fighting back a smile as he stared at her, mortified.

Goddamnit. If only she knew how fast his heartbeat was right now. If only she knew how difficult it was not to lean forward and kiss her, to feel her almost-smile against his lips.

He almost physically shook his head to free himself of the thoughts. Idiot! Oh, my god, say something already, before you make this more awkward than it already is. Come on, Doug!

An incredibly nervous, shaking laugh tore itself forward from his mouth. “Yeah, look at that, huh?” His brain, for what was certainly not the first time, threw up its hands in equal parts defeat and disappointment. Terrible. Terrible. You’re doing terribly.

He forced another laugh. “Ha, ha! Man, unlucky! They- um,” he looked up at the mistletoe, his face burning like it was on fire, “you’ve got the wrong people!” His voice was shaking a little. God, this is awful.

He kept his eyes up on the mistletoe even when Hera began to laugh, unwilling to face her yet. “Yeah, the wrong p-people,” she repeated, her tone unreadable.

Then, she let out a small gasp. Eiffel squeezed his eyes shut, terrified. Please don’t let this be it. Please tell me she didn’t put the pieces together now. It’s supposed to be more romantic than this.

“Oh,” she said, her voice thankfully sounding more jovial than shocked. Hesitantly, he looked back down and found her pulling out her phone, a wicked grin on her face. “You kn-know who would find this funny?”

“Hera, I don’t know if-” Before he could come up with a conceivable excuse, Hera was pulling him in to her side and grinning at the camera. She angled her phone upwards, capturing the mistletoe in frame. Eiffel barely had enough time to force a smile before she took the photo.

She let go of him, tapping on the screen and smiling to herself. His ragged breaths came out in short puffs of fog as he stepped back against the arch, trying and failing to calm his racing heartbeat. Okay. That could have gone a lot worse. Not that it had gone well, but it certainly could have been worse. For one thing, he could have really tried to kiss her - that would have been the nightmare scenario.

Eiffel’s phone buzzed in his jacket pocket just as Hera looked up from her screen. “I sent it to the group chat,” she smiled.

As he fumbled for his phone, more buzzes came through, and his home screen lit up with follow-up messages from Minkowski and Lovelace. Before he read them, though, he tapped on the picture Hera had sent above.

It was the two of them from about the chest up, clad in their winter jackets and surrounded by gray and white. Above them was the small sprig of mistletoe, but the camera was focused on their faces. Hera was grinning over the top of her scarf, her eyes crinkling so much that she was almost squinting at the camera. Eiffel looked considerably more awkward, but if he didn’t stare at his own face too much, it almost looked like he was wearing a normal smile. Hera’s arm was wrapped around him.

It sort of looked … well, if you squinted and unfocused your eyes a little bit, it almost looked like they were together. Together together. It looked like a picture of two people who were aware of exactly where they stood in each other's lives, and that was firmly over the “friendship” line and into the “relationship” territory.

It looked like they were actually in love.

Eiffel felt out of breath. With a slightly shaking finger, he closed out of the picture and scrolled down to see what the peanut gallery had to say about it.

Lovelace: lmao

Lovelace: did u kiss?

Minkowski: We leave for five days and everything changes

He scowled and typed back a response.

Doug: very funny you two

If only they knew, he thought, looking back up at Hera, his heart still racing in his chest. He really loved her smile.

Quickly, he downloaded the picture from the group chat and shoved his phone back in his pocket. He suspected he’d be looking at it for quite a while after this, the image of his and Hera’s smiling faces still burned into his retinas.

Chapter Text

Christmas arrived like a buzz after two beers: way faster than Eiffel had expected.

He woke up that morning, twenty years old, to his door being pushed in and the sound of a noisemaker. He opened his bleary eyes to find Hera standing in his doorway with a Christmas sweater on and a smile on her face.

“Happy twentieth birthday, D-Doug!” she exclaimed, leaning against his door. Audrey stood at her heels, tail wagging, excited to be included in something. “You are officially no longer a t-teenager.”

“Yay,” Eiffel deadpanned, pulling himself out of bed and fumbling around for his phone. His lockscreen flashed up at him - Jesus, he’d forgotten he changed the background to that picture of him and Hera under the arch on campus. He blushed and shoved it into his pocket.

“I’ll meet you downstairs,” Hera chirped, then blew the noisemaker one more time. “No t-time to waste, Doug, there’s presents to open!” And with that, she and Audrey were gone from his doorway.

Eiffel couldn’t help but smile at how much she enjoyed Christmas. She’d been fascinated by the concept when he first told her about it years ago, and ever since, it hadn’t seemed to lose that sense of wonder for her. Even in high school, she’d call him on Christmas morning to excitedly wish him a happy birthday and a merry Christmas, her voice infused with equal amounts of cheer for both of them.

That sense of wonder had never really existed for Eiffel, he mused as he got changed into something Christmassy (white T-shirt, jeans, and socks with red and green on them). Christmas overshadowing his birthday was hard to get over, even as a kid, so it was one of his least favorite holidays. But having Hera around to celebrate both with him helped him understand the ‘magic’ of it all, at least a little bit.

He paused in front of the mirror leaning against his wall, studying himself for a moment. He ran a hand through his messy hair, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and smoothed out his shirt a little bit.

“I am twenty years old,” he announced to his reflection. The statement made him shudder a little. It definitely didn’t feel right.

He tore his eyes away from the mirror and left his room, heading downstairs. How was he twenty years old when he still felt like he was waking up in his childhood bedroom some mornings? How did he even make it into college, into his twenties, into the honestly pretty sweet life he was living right now?

And, damningly, how was he twenty years old and still acting like a middle schooler with a crush around a girl he liked?

He chased away the thoughts, which felt far too existential for Christmas morning, as he stepped into the living room. The sight of Hera seated next to their small plastic Christmas tree with Audrey replaced the musings on his age immediately, and a smile spread across his face as he joined her on the carpet.

Now that he was more awake, he could see her sweater clearly: it was a garish red-and-green affair with a reindeer on it and small LEDs threaded through the bottom. It seemed like exactly the sort of thing Hera would wear to show off her Christmas spirit, and Eiffel couldn’t help but laugh at it.

She frowned. “What’s so funny?”

“Your sweater,” he said, stifling another full-throated laugh, “it’s, uh…”

“I r-really like it!” She pulled the bottom of the sweater out, displaying it to Eiffel. “Look, it even has lights on the bottom. I bought it at the thrift st-store for today,” she beamed.

He put a hold on his snickering to marvel at her smile. Also, she was actually excited about the sweater, so it seemed a little mean to keep laughing at her about it. “It’s a great sweater, Hera.”

“Thank you.” She inclined her head a little as she looked at him, and he had to avert his gaze before he could get stuck staring into her eyes again.

“Alright!” He clapped his hands together, looking ahead at their Christmas tree. It was tiny, barely enough for ten ornaments. The atom he’d gotten Hera eight years ago glimmered on one of the highest branches. There were only a few gifts underneath it - Minkowski and Lovelace’s presents, a package from Eiffel’s parents, and his and Hera’s gifts to each other. “Let’s open some presents, shall we?”

He reached forward and picked up the box from his parents, shaking it a little. He had to admit, he’d been a little curious about what it was ever since he’d received it in the mail a week ago. DON’T OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS was scrawled on the side, and there was a short note on the bottom wishing him a happy birthday-slash-Christmas. He would have to call home and thank them later.

“I’ll make this quick,” he promised Hera, tearing the tape off the top of the box.

She shrugged. “D-don’t worry. We have all morning to open presents.”

He smiled at her. With the tape discarded, he opened the top of the box and found it filled with black fabric. He picked it out and let it fall open, revealing that his gift was a shirt.

His smile dropped. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“What?” Hera asked, moving her head around the shirt to look at him with raised eyebrows.

He turned it around for her to see. It was a T-shirt with the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail on it, a quote emblazoned below - the exact same shirt he’d received for his birthday-slash-Christmas last year.

Her mouth fell open. “Th-there’s no way.”

Eiffel sighed. “You know, I think it’s just because it’s the only ‘thing Doug likes,’” he added air quotes as he tossed the shirt aside, “that they’ve ever actually seen.” He didn’t really mind getting the same gift two years in a row - he supposed it was kind enough that his parents took the time to send him one in the first place. But it still stung a little bit.

“Sorry, Doug,” Hera said softly. She reached forward and placed a hand on his arm. “I promise my g-gift is a lot better.”

He managed a small smile, willing her not to move her hand yet. “‘Tis but a flesh wound,” he declared, waving her off. She pulled away with a laugh, leaving his skin almost buzzing where her hand had been. 

“Well, Hera…” He reached forward and pushed the small, badly wrapped box with Hera’s name on it towards her. “I think you should open mine first. I’ve got a feeling you’re going to like it.” He was still unsure if it was the best gift ever, but Hera would love it. He was ninety-nine percent sure.

Her eyes lit up as she picked up the box, giggling a little at the shoddy wrapping job. She held it to her ear and shook it a little. “Interesting,” was all she had to say.

Eiffel leaned forward as she began to open it, desperate to see every detail of her reaction. He wasn’t sure if he’d gone too far with it - he hadn’t had that much to spend, but it was more than he’d dropped on presents for her in years past. There was a reason for that, this year, but she didn’t have to know that.

She gasped as she lifted the cardboard lid off of the box. “Oh, wow, D-Doug.” He watched hopefully as she lifted the silver necklace out of the box, then scrutinized it with wide eyes.

“The- uh, the bottom part,” he reached forward and touched the small chamber attached at the bottom of the necklace, “is supposed to have a diamond, or something. But, you know, I don’t know when diamonds got so expensive,” he joked.

Hera laughed, then pointed at the small gray rock inside the chamber. “So th-this is…?”

“That,” Eiffel said, smiling at the ridiculousness of it, “is a cool pebble I found on the ground. You can take it out if you want, but it seemed weird without something inside.” He was starting to second-guess the rock. It looked very out of place, but he couldn’t afford anything better than a bit of gravel, so he had decided to just roll with it.

To his relief, Hera smiled at him. “N-no, I like it. It’s very … you.”

His heart fluttered, and he barked out a short laugh. “In a good way?”

“In a g-good way. Now,” she fumbled with the clasp for a moment, “help me p-put this on.” She passed him the necklace and turned her head away.

He just about stopped breathing for a moment. She wanted him to help her with the necklace he’d gotten her, which she liked. It was dizzying enough already, and now he had to do something that felt almost scarily intimate. Of course, he’d done more for her in the past, but things were different now. There was a new layer to it all.

Carefully, he lifted the necklace over her head, his brain focusing on trying not to shake too much as he did so. He messed with the clasp for a moment, his nails bitten a little too short to pull it back properly. It felt like an eternity before he was able to hook the necklace back together, and he moved away from her with a barely contained sigh of relief. “There.”

“Thanks,” Hera said, turning back to the tree. “Now…” she moved a rectangular, more neatly wrapped box towards Eiffel, grinning at him. “Open yours. I’ve g-got a feeling you’ll like it.”

He shot her the customary grateful smile, then tore open the wrapping paper almost violently. Opening presents may not have been the true meaning of Christmas, but for Eiffel, it was definitely one of the hallmarks.

His mouth fell open when he glimpsed what was inside. It was … beyond anything he’d expected, for sure. It was the fulfillment of a years-old wish of his.

He fought back tears as he lifted the DVD case out of the remnants of the wrapping paper, holding it like a delicate artifact he’d just unearthed. “It can’t be,” he whispered.

Hera nodded solemnly. “I’m finally g-going to let you show me one. One, Doug, okay? We c-can discuss the rest later.”

There it was, in his shaking hands - a DVD Blu-ray copy of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. Hera had never seen the movies, and had always refused to, finding it much more entertaining to listen to Eiffel explain the plot to her several times over. He’d been begging her to let him show them to her for basically their entire friendship, but Hera never caved. Until now.

He looked up from the DVD, his eyes welling up with actual tears. Hera made a sort of surprised laughing sound. “You don’t have to cr-cry! Oh, my god…”

“I do,” he said resolutely, blinking and letting a few tears roll down his face. “I have to cry. This is the best birthday and Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten. Thank you, Hera.”

A soft smile spread across her face. The LEDs on her sweater glowed, casting red and green hues across her skin. “Happy b-birthday, Doug,” she said quietly, not quite a whisper, but still like she didn’t want anyone other than him to hear it. It was a sentiment that was only for him, on his birthday.

He reached up and wiped his eyes, putting a little more effort into fighting back the new tears that threatened to appear at Hera’s statement. “Thanks, Hera,” he mumbled, setting the DVD down on the carpet. “And Merry Christmas.”

That sweet smile of hers didn’t leave her face as she leaned forward, and before Eiffel knew it they were embracing over discarded wrapping paper and boxes. It was a little awkward, since they were both sitting, and the LEDs of her sweater poked into Eiffel’s stomach, but he didn’t mind at all. It was his birthday, and she’d gotten him something that meant a lot to him. She wanted to share in something that he liked. A surge of appreciation shot through his chest, and he forced himself not to cry any more than he already had. He mumbled another thank-you into Hera’s shoulder, but she didn’t seem to hear it.

The hug was ephemeral, though, and Hera pulled away far too soon. He felt a pang of longing as he moved away from her - he wanted to always be in her arms. Even if it was on the living room floor, with blunt LEDs stabbing him in the gut.

“Alright,” Hera said, disrupting Eiffel’s thoughts before he could daydream too much. “Let’s open M-Minkowski and Lovelace’s gifts, and then … maybe we c-could watch Star Wars?” Maybe he’d imagined it, but it seemed like there was a bit of hope in that question.

Eiffel was pretty sure this was the happiest moment of his life so far. He was going to watch Star Wars with Hera, on his birthday, which was a day just for him. He could have cried again, but instead he choked out, “Yeah. Sounds good.”

-

Star Wars was over and there was a beer in his hand.

He wasn’t completely sure how that had happened. He’d come up with a rule for himself - no drinking around Hera, especially not alone, when he could say any number of things to blow his cover. He didn’t get particularly secret-spill-y when he was drunk, but he wasn’t exactly a master of deception, either. But when Hera had mentioned the case of beer they had in the fridge, he had agreed and headed into the kitchen without a second thought.

The can in his hand was his third, he was pretty sure. He was sitting on the couch next to Hera, who also had a can in her hand. Back To The Future was playing on the TV. He could feel his head getting a little fuzzy as he watched Doc Brown send the DeLorean off for the first time, and he leaned into the feeling, shutting his eyes. It was a little nice, being drunk in the comfort of your own home, with someone around who you liked. He couldn’t think of a better way to spend his birthday.

“You know,” Hera said suddenly, her voice soft. Eiffel opened his eyes to look at her and found her with her legs pulled up to her chest, her arms draped across her kneecaps. “I think … I th-think I’m glad I’m not home right n-now.”

He straightened up a little, moving his back against the couch cushions, so he could get a better look at her. Her face was flushed, and in the light of the TV, where flames from the DeLorean’s return trip danced across the screen, Eiffel thought she looked almost angelic. “Yeah?” he managed, staring far more than he should have.

“Yep.” She looked at her drink like it was something new to her, then took a sip and looked back at the TV. “When I was a k-kid, I didn’t understand why people p-put up decorations around this time of year. I felt really…” she paused, searching for the words, “left out. Other kids thought I was … r-really weird.” She laughed.

“But n-now I know what it is. And I know when my birthday is, and sometimes I g-get cake.” She turned to look at him, her eyes oddly intense. “It’s great, Doug.”

His breath caught in his throat as he held her gaze, but he forced himself to look away swiftly. Even with his decision-making capacities a little hindered, he knew that being captivated by her eyes again would only make his situation worse. “That’s really good, Hera. Really.” He laughed a bit, “God, one of my favorite memories is, uh … that time we went and got milkshakes for Christmas. Remember that one?”

“Oh, yeah!” Hera grinned. “I d-don’t think I could ever forget it.” She shifted backwards on the couch, leaning her head against the cushions and staring up at the ceiling. “P-personally, I liked the t-time we went ice skating. And you fell down r-right in front of a girl.”

Eiffel laughed and gave her a light push, which made her start laughing. The sound was more intoxicating than the beer he was holding. “Not my best moment, I’ll admit,” he giggled, taking another sip of his drink.

Their laughter died down and was quickly replaced by the sounds of the movie, but Eiffel’s mind was elsewhere. His head felt staticky, but he didn’t mind. He thought about what Hera said, about the memory of them ice skating together, about this Christmas morning…

He swallowed, feeling a sudden truth rise through the sea of thoughts and hit him in the side of the head. Normally, he would have kept it to himself. It sounded far too close to how he really felt about Hera, and he didn’t want her getting the right idea anytime soon.

But he was drunk, and she was drunk, and it was his birthday. He had enough plausible deniability for feeling a little sentimental. So, with an unnecessary surge of bravery, he said it aloud.

“Hera, uh…” She looked over at him, and he paused for a moment, hoping the words wouldn’t get stuck in his throat. “You know, you’re one of the best things to ever happen to me.” Another nervous pause. “I mean, without you, I wouldn’t have gotten into Goddard, or started doing my radio show, or…” He stopped to search her face. Her expression was unreadable, but definitely not negative, so he pushed on ahead. “Or made a real friend. So…” he trailed off, unsure of how to finish that sentence. His eyes darted across Hera’s face, looking for some clue as to if he had said the right things or not.

To his relief, she grinned at him. “Me t-too, Doug. You were my first friend ever, you know.”

“Unfortunate for you.”

“Maybe.” She leaned her head against the couch, still smiling. “But I really … it’s gr-great. You’re great. I’m going to have to k-keep you around,” she joked, as if they hadn’t been inseparable for the past eight years.

His heart raced. She thinks I’m great. She said I’m great! He gave her a weak smile, trying to contain himself. “Thanks, baby. I guess I should keep you around too.”

Hera laughed and turned back to the TV. Before she could get engrossed in Marty McFly’s time traveling, though, her attention was caught by something outside. “Doug, look!” she almost shouted, reaching out a hand and grabbing onto his arm.

He leaned forward and glanced out the window. “What is…” It took him a moment to see it, but there it was - small snowflakes drifting through the air outside, falling onto the neighbors’ house and the grass below.

“It’s a white Christmas,” he muttered, watching the snowflakes intently, like a man bewitched. “Just like the song.” And, without prompting, he sang a little, “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas…”

She smiled at him and settled back against the couch, keeping her eyes trained on the snowfall outside. Eiffel watched a little bit, too, then turned his attention back to his beer. He drank what little remained of it, then set the empty can down on the coffee table.

He looked at Hera, still watching the snow. She was turned away from him.

“Hera,” he began, the question coming out of his mouth before he could stop it. “You don’t, uh, secretly hate my guts, right?”

“What?” She whirled around to look at him, her eyes searching his face. “N-no. Why would I?”

Eiffel shrugged, already starting to regret saying something like that. “I don’t know. I was just wondering, I guess.” He paused, moving his feet up on the coffee table to get more comfortable, then added, “I don’t hate you, by the way. I think you’re pretty alright.”

“Only pr-pretty alright?” she grinned, nudging him with an elbow. “I g-guess I can settle for that.”

“That’s not what I meant!” He smiled. From where he was on the couch, he could see Hera and, just beyond her, the window where the world beyond was being covered with snow. “You’re more than pretty alright. You’re better than most of the people here, at least.” He barely even processed that those were words he wouldn’t usually say out loud when he was sober. It was fine, as long as he didn’t say too much.

Surprisingly, Hera’s face darkened a little. She looked back up at the TV, then out the window, then down at her hands. She was silent for so long that Eiffel began to wonder if he should say something.

“Doug,” she finally said, so quietly he had to lean in to hear the rest of the sentence, “what if I’m n-not?”

“What?” He moved a bit closer to her on the couch, pausing for a moment to settle unsteadily back into the cushions. “What’s- what do you mean?” he asked carefully.

“I don’t kn-know. It’s stupid.” For a second, she went silent, and Eiffel thought she was going to stop there. But then she continued, “Sometimes, I feel like … everyone here knows what th-they’re doing. And they d-deserve to be here, and g-go to these classes, and learn about everything they want. But … I don’t.”

“Woah!” Eiffel exclaimed, perhaps a little bit too loud. Hera looked up at him, eyes wide. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No! Why would I j-joke about this?”

“What? Hera- Hera, are you hearing yourself?” He gaped at her for a moment, analyzing her flushed face as if it contained a clue to this puzzle. “You worked your ass off to be here! I saw it myself. If anyone doesn’t deserve to be here, it’s me.”

“No, it’s not like…” Hera sighed. “I don’t kn-know. It’s just a me thing. I don’t think like th-that about anyone else.”

His head felt light as he stared at her, then out at the snow through the window. It didn’t make much sense to him, in this state. Hera was the most intelligent person he knew, flat-out. How did she not see that?

His eyes slipped back to her face. He probably knew her face better than he knew his own, at this point. He was so familiar with how her eyes lit up when she was excited about something, or the way she bit her lip a little when she was frustrated, or any other number of quirks she had, that it felt like he’d been born with her features memorized.

“You know, Hera, sometimes I think the two of us are the only people in the world who understand anything,” he said.

“...Me t-too,” she replied, moving a little closer to him on the couch. His heart rate picked up again as she pressed her shoulder against his and kept it there, leaning her head back on the couch.

“And you understand a lot more than me. So … I’d say you deserve to be here more than anyone else.” He turned to smile at her, and nearly jumped at how close their faces were. Oh, my god. She’s right there. She’s right here.

She smiled, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment. “Thanks, Doug.”

“Don’t mention it,” he whispered, feeling a heavy pull on his eyelids, too.

He didn’t want to fall asleep - he loved just talking to Hera, about anything. But the drinks were finally enacting their revenge, and before he could fight off the fatigue, he was passing out on the couch next to Hera for the second time that month. That was a new record.

Chapter Text

“Two minutes!” Hera announced from the living room, cheery as ever. “B-better hurry up, Doug!”

“Two minutes until eleven, Hera,” he responded, pulling a soda out of the fridge and stepping out of the kitchen. “It’s not actually the new year yet.”

She frowned, setting down the noisemaker she’d salvaged from Eiffel’s birthday. “I know. Why does N-New York get to decide when midnight is? They c-could at least let us do it.”

“If only I’d gotten into Harvard.” Eiffel sat down on the couch and cracked open his soda, taking a long sip as he looked at the TV. The camera was panning over the crowd gathered in Times Square, their eager faces lit by digital blues and pinks as they waited for midnight. People were wearing those plastic glasses with the new year’s number on them - every year, they managed to get more creative with those. Eiffel never understood how they did it.

It was dark outside, and campus seemed extra quiet tonight. In fact, Eiffel was pretty sure he hadn’t seen or heard a single car drive down the street all day. It was a little bit freaky, but he wasn’t complaining. It was nice to have quiet on a day for new beginnings.

Speaking of new beginnings … he’d been thinking over potential resolutions for the new year all day, but he hadn’t managed to come up with anything concrete. There were the academic ones - keep an A in every course (impossible), study for every exam (unlikely), try not to fail any classes (doable, but probably not lofty enough). He’d had one idea to pick up an instrument, maybe find a guitar secondhand, but there was no way he’d be able to keep up the ‘practicing’ part of something like that.

There were also the other, scarier ideas he’d had. Say something to Hera this year about how he felt. Be honest with her more. Talk to her without feeling nervous all the time.

He knew none of those would ever work out, though. He told himself that was the reason why he wasn’t committing to any. It definitely wasn’t because he was scared.

“Oh, here we g-go,” Hera exclaimed, leaning forward on the couch. On the TV, Times Square counted down from twenty, and the camera focused in on a clock. The massive glowing ball was beginning to descend just above it.

“Ten, nine…” the crowd chorused.

“You know, that ball moves a lot more slowly than I thought it did,” Eiffel pointed out.

Hera shushed him. “Ready?”

He fixed his eyes on the screen. “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready,” he muttered into his soda can.

“Three … two … one! Happy new year!” Hera threw her hands in the air and reached for her noisemaker, blowing on it a couple times.

“Happy new year to New York,” Eiffel corrected her. The ball drop felt a lot more underwhelming when he was in the wrong time zone for it. He glanced at his phone - it was only eleven o’clock, and still December thirty-first.

“Well, I think it’s st-still exciting.” She leaned back into the couch and watched the TV, where the camera was showcasing fireworks being lit off into the air. It changed to a scene of the crowd, which pulsed like a living thing, everyone shouting out of joy that they’d made it into a new year. There was a sudden close-up of two people sharing a New Year’s kiss. Eiffel glanced away, trying not to think about it too hard.

“So, now what?” he asked, taking a long sip of his soda. Hera picked up the remote and turned off the TV, the image of celebrating New Yorkers disappearing from the screen.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I was hoping you had a g-good idea.”

“Hmmm…” he tapped on his can, pretending to think. “I wonder if Cutter’s throwing a party.”

“He is, but you g-get suspended if you show up.”

Eiffel burst into laughter. “It’s a trap!”

The two of them laughed for a moment, and as they began to quiet down, Hera suddenly gasped. “Oh, you know what we can do? We c-could go to the clock t-tower and watch it hit midnight.” She gave him a look, “If that would be exciting enough f-for you.”

“I like the ball drop,” Eiffel insisted, “it’s just annoying to see it at eleven. But, the clock tower…” He paused to think for a moment. It would be cold out for sure, especially this late at night, but there would probably be nobody around. They could watch the minute hand tick over into the new year together. And maybe there was a possibility that he could make good on some of those resolution ideas. With the campus dead and silent around them and the world celebrating beyond Goddard, he might find a little courage to be honest with her.

“Yeah,” he grinned. “That sounds like a great idea. Let’s do it.”

-

They left the house at 11:50, at Hera’s insistence - an overabundance of time to get to the clock tower and meditate on the new year together. The tower was right near the quad, so it was quite a short distance from Hephaestus. They were both wrapped tightly in their winter jackets, shivering a little against the freezing temperatures of the night. Eiffel pressed in towards Hera a bit as they walked, eliciting laughs from both of them, even though it wasn’t really a joke to him.

It was pitch-black outside, a moonless night with a few clouds blocking anything of interest in the sky. Still, though, Hera had turned her face up to look as they walked, her eyes searching the heavens. Eiffel would probably never understand the stuff she learned in her classes, but she certainly seemed to grasp it all, reading the sky the same way he would read words on a page. It was fascinating.

They shuffled onto the grass below the clock tower at exactly 11:55, their breaths coming out in short puffs of fog as they laughed to themselves. There was something so funny about how silent campus was, on a night like this, and they couldn’t help but giggle about it. It was nice, too, almost peaceful, but Eiffel kept that part to himself.

“Well…” he began, digging his hands deeper into his jacket pockets. He looked up at the old, stone-and-mortar clock tower, the minute hand inching closer and closer to midnight, then beyond it at the darkened sky. Trees without leaves stabbed up towards it, creating jagged shapes against the night. It was a stark scene, almost scary, but it didn’t feel like it. It felt nice here, like it was a place apart from all of the cold and gloom of winter.

He looked down at Hera, who had a small smile on her face as she stared up at the clock. Though it was dark, he could still make out her silhouette, and he stepped a bit closer to her to see her better.

She turned back to him and smiled. The moon broke through some of the cloud cover at that moment, shedding a small amount of light on the two of them, and Eiffel’s heart began to pound. There was a specific sort of charm to her - in her smile, in her eyes, everywhere - that he suddenly noticed. It shone through in the moonlight as she turned to look up at the moon, and her smile widened.

“Full moon,” she commented.

Eiffel glanced up at it with her. “Yeah. It’s, uh…” he allowed his eyes to drift back to her face, “really pretty.”

If he had still had any fraction of a fraction of a chance of denying his feelings for her, it disappeared in that moment and left him completely on his own.

She looked back at him, and he scrambled for a moment for whatever topic of conversation he was going to bring up. “So, Hera,” he said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He gave her what he hoped was a confident smile, “Any resolutions for the new year?”

She furrowed her brow for a moment, thinking. “I’m n-not sure. Maybe … do better in my classes. Think about g-getting a job.”

“Go a little easier on yourself?” he suggested. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he backpedaled. “I mean, you have enough on your plate without a job. And you do pretty good in your classes already, y’know.”

Thankfully, her eyes softened a little. “Yeah, m-maybe you’re r-right.” She paused to glance up at the clock tower. “Two minutes,” she said, echoing herself from exactly an hour ago.

“I’m excited,” Eiffel announced suddenly, nodding towards the tower. “You know, I think this year is going to be our best one yet. Finishing up our classes, then summer, then junior year…”

“Exactly like th-this year was?” Hera smiled.

“Yeah, exactly.”

They stood in silence for a moment as the minute hand ticked over onto the fifty-nine mark, both of their eyes trained carefully on the second hand. The world around them felt completely still - no wind stirred up around them, every animal and person was silent, and even the chill in the air seemed to disappear for a second. Everything felt like it was made of glass, and one wrong move would shatter reality. Eiffel drummed his fingers nervously on the side of his thigh.

He could go for it now. This was his chance to make his move, to be honest with her. To fulfill a resolution right as the clock struck midnight. Of course, he didn’t have the added benefit of alcohol like he’d had on Christmas, which mean he couldn’t brush anything off as a stupid, drunken idea. But maybe that was better. It left him no room for take-backs.

“Hey, Hera?” He forced the words out before they could get stuck in his throat. She turned to look at him, a small smile on her face. “Can I tell you something?”

“Of c-course, Doug.” The moonlight on her face was almost overwhelming. It felt like they were the only two living things in the stillness of campus right now, just seconds before the clock ticked over into a new year. A new chance to get things right, to say the correct things to the correct girl.

Eiffel felt his hands shaking at his sides. He felt like he would die if he really said it out loud, but this was his moment. There had never been a more perfect time than right now to tell her everything about how he felt, and he needed to just do it. Come on, Doug.

He opened his mouth, but choked on the words. He couldn’t tell her. She didn’t feel the same way. It would ruin everything. His mind raced with reasons not to do it, keeping him completely and horrifyingly silent like the rest of the world around them.

And then the minute hand moved over, the sound booming across the quiet campus, and it was a new year. Hera’s eyes lit up, and his chance evaporated.

Eiffel moved his awkwardly opened mouth into a smile. “Happy new year, Hera.”

She grinned back at him. “Happy new year, Doug.”

He considered, briefly, attempting a new year’s kiss. But she looked far too beautiful right now, and he was far too scared to try anything like that at all. So instead, he opted to reach out one arm and pull her into a brief squeeze of a side-hug. She laughed a little and leaned her head against his shoulder, making his heart skip a beat.

Eiffel cleared his throat loudly, pulling his arm away and stuffing his hands back in his pockets. Then, quietly, he warbled out, “Should old acquaintance be forgot…”

Hera raised her eyebrows. “What are you singing?”

He gaped at her. “‘Auld Lang Syne’?” She shook her head, and he groaned in frustration. “Come on, Hera, have you ever seen a movie in your life?”

“Mostly just the ones you’ve m-made me watch.”

“Oh, my god. Okay, we are going to have a serious talk at home about changing that.” He smiled and started across the grass towards Hephaestus, knowing Hera was following close behind. And he began to try and forget how close he’d been to saying something, to making a real move.

It felt like the right time, with the right amount of courage and confidence in her answer, would never, ever come.

Chapter Text

The party was in a dorm building Eiffel had never set foot in before, almost clear on the other side of campus from Hephaestus. It was almost a twenty-minute walk in quickly diminishing sunlight, and as he stepped through the doors on the first floor, he was shivering a little.

Mostly everyone who had left campus for break had returned that morning, and word quickly got around that there was a sort of combination welcome-back and New Year’s party happening in one of the dorms. Third floor, Eiffel reminded himself as he stepped into the elevator, pressing in the ‘3’ button with his thumb.

He couldn’t talk Minkowski and Lovelace into coming, since they were still busy unpacking. So was Hilbert, though Eiffel wouldn’t have invited him to a party if his life depended on it. After Audrey had happened, he couldn’t be certain Hilbert wouldn’t try to poison the entire student body just for some ‘research’ of his. Hera was busy, too, preparing for the new semester, though she’d seemed at least a little disappointed she couldn’t go with him. At least there was that.

So Eiffel was going alone to this party where he was pretty sure he didn’t know anyone. That wasn’t really an issue for him, but it did mean he wouldn’t have anyone around to crack jokes about other people with. It was a minor loss, but one he was willing to take for the promise of free alcohol and college students making fools out of themselves.

As the elevator doors slid open, he found that the party had already spilled out of the dorm (one of the larger ones, it looked like, given almost exclusively to seniors) and into the hallway. Music pulsed loudly from inside the dorm. A girl who looked heavily intoxicated pushed right past him as he stepped out of the elevator, chasing after her friend.

College students making fools out of themselves, he reminded himself as he fought down the hallway to the dorm. He had to wonder how long it would take for campus security to show up. Really, who had the bright idea to hold a party this massive in a dorm room? Even the bigger ones were incapable of holding this many people. Hephaestus could take them all, though, he thought as he pushed his way into the room itself.

The room was completely packed, and the scent of inebriated students hit him like a slap in the face as he flattened himself up against the wall. He could see, just beyond the mass of bodies, what looked like a makeshift refreshments table, and he began to snake through the crowd towards it. He muttered apologies and ‘excuse me’s as he moved through people, trying his hardest not to get knocked to the floor by someone getting too confident with their dance moves.

Finally, he found himself standing at the edge of the refreshments table. There were a few assorted snacks, most of which didn’t seem to belong together at all. Eiffel figured it had started as some kind of potluck event, and people had brought whatever they could find or pick up from the store.

He scanned the food and grimaced at the sight of a fresh-fruit platter, laden with stacks of green honeydew slices. “Gross,” he muttered, turning to the cooler next to the table.

He rooted through it for a moment and came up with a can of ice-cold beer. He cracked it open, trying not to think too hard about how grimy the inside of the cooler looked, and returned to a wall to stand next to it for a while.

The party continued on in front of him, loud and fast, and he watched the crowd as he started to drink. Other people he knew (Minkowski and Hera, primarily) didn’t like how overwhelming these sorts of parties could be, but he was fine with the noise and the heat and flashing lights. It was sort of nice, in a way, to be in a place where you could be as loud and annoying as you wanted and have people love you for it. Maybe that was why he liked doing radio so much.

But he was fine with standing on the porch or in a quieter room if Hera wanted to. She didn’t mind how loud he was, individually.

Before he could really start to think any more about Hera, Eiffel noticed a silhouette moving towards him out of the corner of his eye. He hesitated, unsure if they could see him or not, and prepared to move out of the way of some drunken dancer. But as the person got closer, he could see they were coming towards him intentionally, sidling up towards him with a drink in their hand.

“Some party, huh?” The person asked, taking a loud sip of their drink.

“Yeah,” Eiffel replied, squinting at the figure. It took a moment for the features of their face to come into view, in the dim light of the dorm, but when he could just about make out the outlines of eyes and a nose, he was overcome with recognition. He struggled for a moment to figure out where he recognized the man from, and then it hit him - Urania resident. Racecar driver from Halloween.

“Hey, you live in Urania!” Eiffel shouted to be heard over the music, raising his eyebrows at the other man. “I’m from Hephaestus.”

He looked at Eiffel for a moment. He didn’t look like he was confirming Eiffel’s statement at all; rather, he was staring at him like he’d done something wrong. “Yes,” he said slowly, “you are.” He paused and took an unnecessarily long drink, then continued, “You left a bouquet and a box of chocolates on my doorstep right after Thanksgiving.”

Eiffel felt his face flush with embarrassment, and he was suddenly thankful for the darkness of the dorm. He’d completely forgotten that someone had seen him discard his gifts for Hera two months ago. Someone had shouted after him, and … it was the guy standing in front of him.

He forced out a laugh. “Yeah, that was me. Sorry about that. …Were the chocolates good?”

“They were great!” the man exclaimed, grinning, and Eiffel relaxed a little. It appeared he’d successfully joked away any potential issues. Thank god.

“I’m Doug Eiffel,” he said, sticking out his free hand towards the man.

“Daniel Jacobi,” Jacobi said, taking his hand and shaking it once, firmly.

Great. It had only taken a year and a half, but Eiffel finally knew one of his neighbors’ names besides Warren Kepler.

“So, Jacobi,” Eiffel started, letting his hand fall back to his side, “what’s your major?”

Jacobi raised his eyebrows at him. “You can just call me Daniel,” he smirked. “You don’t have to fight for the first-name basis.”

Shit. “Sorry,” Eiffel smiled uneasily. “It’s, uh, force of habit.” Jacobi was silent, staring at him again, his eyebrows still raised. Eiffel had only known him for a few minutes, but he got the impression that Jacobi tended to stare.

He sighed. “In Hephaestus, we have this thing going … it’s kind of an inside joke, but we all call each other by our last names.” He realized it sounded sort of weird when he said it out loud, but it didn’t really matter. It was their thing, and they had fun with it.

Thankfully, Jacobi laughed. “Oh, that’s great! I love that. Fun for you guys.” He paused for a second to sip on his beer, then told Eiffel, “I’m an engineering major. Goddard has a pretty great program for guys like me. Lots of fields around here to do practically anything we can with hunks of metal and chemicals…” His eyes glazed over for a second, like he was recalling a distant memory. Then he blinked and focused on Eiffel again, smiling. “What’s yours?”

“Communications major. I get to make speeches and, well, study communication, I guess.” He shrugged. “It’s alright. I do get access to the radio equipment, though, which actually rocks. That’s our fun part.” He held off on telling Jacobi about his radio show for now. It would take a few more drinks and a little more conversation before he’d be able to rope in another listener for his next broadcast.

“Nice.” There was a brief not-actually-silence between the two of them where Jacobi looked out into the crowd. The music had changed to something a bit quieter, a pop song that had people singing along to the lyrics. Eiffel had never heard it before.

“So, what brings you here tonight?” Jacobi asked suddenly. “Because I’m sure it wasn’t just to stand against a wall in a dark room for three hours.”

“Oh, uh, you know.” He shrugged. “Free alcohol and free entertainment. Two things I will never pass up a chance for.”

“Without any of your good friends from Hephaestus?” Jacobi’s tone meandered somewhere between sarcasm and sincerity, and Eiffel wasn’t sure how to respond to the question. It crossed his mind that Jacobi was a little odd, but then again, who at Goddard wasn’t?

“They were busy,” he said. “And this isn’t really their type of gathering, anyways. They’re awesome, but … more academically inclined, I guess."

“Mmmm.” Jacobi took a very long drink, then stared out into the crowd again. Eiffel looked away towards the windows, where occasionally a person’s head would bob out of the way and he would catch a glimpse of the dark trees, their branches touching the stars.

“So, if you don’t mind my asking,” Jacobi began, pausing and giving Eiffel an expectant look.

“No, go ahead.”

“What was with the flowers and chocolates?” There was a smirk on his face. That was another thing Eiffel was learning about Jacobi - he was definitely a smirker.

Eiffel sucked in some air through his teeth, looking down at his drink. He tapped his fingers on the aluminum, the sound barely audible under the noise of the party. “Well, Daniel, to tell you the truth, I’m having some…” he struggled for a good phrase to use for it, “difficulties with romance.”

“Tell me about it,” Jacobi muttered. “Dating is impossible here. I mean, I haven’t really tried, but you’ve seen the guys that go to this school.” He settled back against the wall, arms crossed. “But who are you having problems with? Girl, boy, other?”

Eiffel smiled a little. “A girl this time,” he sighed, letting his eyes drift up to the ceiling. He was nearing the end of his drink, and a familiar light buzz was starting up faintly in his head. “We aren’t even dating,” he laughed, “and she doesn’t know about my … feelings.”

He glanced at Jacobi for a moment and found him actually paying attention. It occurred to Eiffel that this was the first time he’d actually told anyone about his crush on Hera, if you didn’t count his veiled remarks to Lovelace that she didn’t even know the full meaning of. It was kind of liberating, in a way, like he was putting down a weight he’d had on his shoulders for months. Speaking the words out loud made them real, which was scary, but it also felt really good if he wasn’t saying them to Hera.

So he kept talking. “I think she’s great. I really don’t know what I’d do without her, Daniel. But we’re friends, well, best friends, actually, and we have been since middle school. I can’t risk…” he trailed off and tightened his grip on his drink. “I don’t want to ruin everything by telling her how I feel.”

Jacobi was silent for a moment. The music got louder as the song changed, and Eiffel grimaced, realizing they’d have to go back to almost shouting to have a conversation.

“So,” Jacobi finally said, “is it just … you wanna hook up with her, or what?”

“No, no.” Eiffel shook his head, his cheeks suddenly burning. He was once again grateful it was too dark for Jacobi to see his face. He said his next words carefully, enunciating every word. “I mean, like, I’m in love with her.”

Huh. It was definitely the first time he’d said that out loud. The words felt volatile in his head, like they had to be handled with a special set of gloves, and even a gust of wind would cause an explosion that could flatten a metropolis. But he’d just … said them. And they felt right. They felt good.

“Well,” Jacobi smiled, his eyebrows raised, “you don’t hear that often.”

Eiffel laughed a little and drained the rest of his beer, resolving to get another one soon. Not yet. He had more to say - now that he was talking about how he felt, and finding what a relief it was, he realized there was so much he could say. And Jacobi, for his part, seemed content to listen. So he went on again.

“She’s just … I don’t know, she’s just great. She’s awesome. She laughs at my jokes, even the stupid ones, and then she makes jokes back, and- and they’re good! And they’re just as stupid, and they’re great. She’s hilarious. And … god, she’s really pretty, too.” He took a moment to fiddle with the tab on top of his beer, feeling the blush steadily creep up his face again. He felt energized, though, as if just talking about Hera was enough to kick his head into high gear. “But, you know, she’s also so much smarter than me. It’s actually a little scary. She has, like, a brain the size of a planet, but for some reason, she doesn’t see that.” He shrugged. The words were just coming on their own now, tumbling out of his mouth unstoppably. He wasn’t sure if it was because of the drink or how nice it was to say this stuff aloud. “I don’t know. It’s more than just her, though. Sometimes it’s the way she looks at me, or how she smiles, and it’s like I’m completely helpless. I just end up loving her all over again, I guess.” He grimaced a bit at how cheesy that sounded - too many rom-coms, Doug - but it was the truth. “I … really like her.”

“Yeah, I think I got that part,” Jacobi deadpanned, smiling. He stared at him through the darkness of the dorm, and Eiffel was certain he could tell how genuine he was being. His entire face was burning, after all. “Wow, Doug. You’re really into this girl.”

“Some might say that,” he joked.

“So why haven’t you told her all of this stuff?” And there was the kicker.

Eiffel grimaced. “That’s, uh … that’s the hard part, Jacobi. We’re friends, so I can’t…” He stared out at the window for a second, away from Jacobi’s curious look.

It had to be his best friend. Nobody who he could just tell and get it over with, and maybe never see them again if they took it badly. No, it had to be Hera, because of course it was. There was nobody else like her.

“I can’t tell her,” he sighed, looking back down at the floor. “I’d love to. Really, I’d like to risk that for even the remotest possibility that we could be … together, you know?” He gestured. Jacobi nodded. “But I can’t. She’s incredible, and I need her in my life because she always has been. I’m scared if I told her I’d ruin things.” He sighed. “I’m sure she’d do perfectly fine without me around, anyways. So I can’t risk it. I can’t tell her.” It was the first time he’d put that into words, too. It sounded especially bleak when he spoke it aloud.

“That sucks,” Jacobi said, eloquently. He looked thoughtful for a moment as he finished what was left of his drink. “You’re actually in love with her, huh?”

Eiffel smiled. “I don’t know if ‘love’ is even the right word for it. It’s like … more than that. Different.” He shrugged. “But what do I know about love?”

“Mmm.” Jacobi shook his empty can, then pointed at Eiffel’s. “I think you need another drink, Doug.”

“Yeah. I think so too.”

-

Oh, goddamnit. Eiffel was beginning to wish he’d swallowed his pride and called Lovelace to pick him up in her car, or at least spent five bucks on an Uber to take him and Jacobi home. If it was cold during the day at Goddard, it was utterly freezing right now, at what had to be … maybe two A.M. He wasn’t completely sure.

The alcohol had sort of warmed him for the first few minutes of the walk, but now, just down the street from Hephaestus, the cold was almost unbearable. He was shivering in his coat, fumbling around in his pockets every now and then to make sure he hadn’t forgotten his phone at the party. The stars twinkled overhead, almost watchfully, as he stumbled down Leo Street with Jacobi at his side.

Jacobi was laughing, for some reason. Maybe it was because they had both had more drinks than normal (they were both on number five or six when they finally left), or maybe it was because of the way they were both having trouble walking upright. Or maybe it was because Eiffel had spent the past few hours telling him about his feelings for Hera, and had certainly said some overly maudlin things. He hoped that wasn’t why he was laughing. Jacobi seemed like an alright guy, all things considered.

“Shhh,” Eiffel grinned, his words slurring a little as they started to slow down near Hephaestus. “You’ll wake my roommates.”

For some reason, that only made Jacobi laugh harder. Eiffel shushed him again and reached out a hand to shake him by the shoulder, but that made him start to laugh. It seemed like they were way too loud for a residential street at this time of night, but Eiffel couldn’t stop. They only fell silent when there was a noise from Hephaestus, and Eiffel froze, afraid he’d woken up Minkowski.

When no lights came on and nobody came through the front door, he allowed himself a small chuckle, then turned back around to look at Jacobi. He was grinning.

“Well, D- Eiffel,” he corrected himself, barely holding back more laughter, “it was nice meeting you. I guess I’ll … see you around!”

Eiffel lifted a hand to wave him off as he turned and staggered down the sidewalk towards Urania, where there was, inexplicably, a light still on on the second floor. He tried to remember if Jacobi had said anything about his roommates waiting for him, but between the drinks and the people and the music, the night had sort of blurred together.

He watched Jacobi’s silhouette recede into the night, then turned and headed into Hephaestus. It was nice to meet him.

Eiffel was pretty sure he would never see him again, but it had been pretty great to talk to someone about Hera. He’d needed that.

Goodbye, Jacobi.

Chapter Text

The next morning brought Eiffel a minor hangover and a lot of yelling from downstairs.

He groaned, rolling over to check his phone. The screen scorched his eyes - great, a headache - and the clock blinked back at him in blinding white. It was almost noon.

He fell back onto his pillow for a second, unwilling to haul himself out of bed just yet. He definitely needed to get some water when he went downstairs, and maybe a painkiller for the dull ache in his brain and eyes. The shouting from down there certainly wasn’t making him feel much better, though.

He paused for a moment and focused on that part. That was weird, actually. There wasn’t usually that much shouting on a weekday at noon, especially when classes didn’t start up again until tomorrow. There was really nothing to have conflict over yet.

He strained his ears to try and catch what was being said. It was Minkowski’s voice shouting, and occasionally she would fall silent for a period of a few seconds, then start up again. That was definitely weird. Minkowski didn’t yell this much, and she certainly never paused to let anyone else speak.

Suddenly motivated by this spark of curiosity, Eiffel forced himself to sit up and stand, taking a moment to wobble on his feet before he left the room. He was still wearing his clothes from last night, and probably looked like a mess, but that wasn’t what was on his mind. He could worry about his appearance after he sorted out what was going on downstairs.

He made his way down the stairs, each one of Minkowski’s words hurting his head a little more as he got closer. She was saying something about the house, about moving in … what was going on, then? Difficulties with unpacking?

At the bottom of the stairs, Eiffel blinked sleepily and peered at the scene before him. It took him a moment to figure out what was happening, but when he did, it was enough to send a jolt through his body and wake him up completely.

Student President Warren Kepler was standing in their hallway, hands clasped in front of him, wearing a well-ironed dress shirt and a thin smile. He took up the entire space he was in with his tall stature and wide shoulders, a fact which he was almost certainly aware of and using to his advantage. He looked, as always, like he was experiencing this situation in a very different way from everyone else.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Eiffel almost yelled, looking towards Minkowski for some sort of guidance. Her eyes flickered back to him, and he could see her attempting to hide her surprise at his disheveled appearance.

“You look like shit, Eiffel,” a familiar voice said. Before his sluggish, tired brain could place where he’d heard it before, he saw the face leaning out from behind Warren.

His eyebrows shot up high as the name from last night surfaced from his memory. “Daniel?”

“You two know each other?” Lovelace chimed in. Eiffel suddenly realized that she and Hera had been standing to the side this whole time, both of them looking none too happy about this situation. He suddenly felt much more embarrassed about his appearance.

“It’s Jacobi now, Eiffel,” Jacobi said smoothly, an almost vulpine grin on his face. “We’re moving in!”

Eiffel paused. He blinked a few times, rubbed his eyes for good measure. He took in every face around him - all of his roommates (minus Hilbert), Audrey, Jacobi, Kepler, and the third Urania resident: Doctor Robotnik from Halloween, who was currently going through their kitchen cabinets.

“Sorry,” he said slowly, “I think I just woke up in a parallel dimension where everything and everyone around me has gone fucking crazy. Can we … can you run that by me again?”

Kepler cleared his throat loudly. It was a noise that, unfortunately, commanded attention, and he knew it. That creepy smile of his didn’t move as his eyes locked onto Eiffel’s. It was disconcerting. “The residents of Urania House are moving into Hephaestus House,” he said deliberately, like he was explaining the concept to a child. “You folks certainly have plenty of rooms here. It won’t be too much of an issue.”

Eiffel couldn’t keep his mouth from falling open. “You’re what?!”

“Exactly, Eiffel,” Minkowski cut in, turning back to Kepler. “You have no right to impose yourselves upon our residence like this. You can try again when the housing lottery goes around for next year.”

“Well, Minkowski,” Kepler began. Eiffel’s skin crawled at the way he said her last name. That was a tradition reserved for Hephaestus residents, not them. “I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear that Dean Cutter has authorized this … peaceful transition of power.”

“You’re lying,” Lovelace said, her cold eyes trained on Kepler’s. “Even Cutter’s not that insane.”

Kepler shrugged. “I am in the student government. We work pretty closely.”

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Eiffel was already sick of this guy and his stupid, trumped-up role, and now he was going to have to live with him?

“He c-can’t be serious,” Hera whispered to Lovelace, who was still staring Kepler down. “...Is he serious?”

“No,” Eiffel said. “You can’t just … come in here and take over like this. This is our house.” He drew himself up a little, running a hand through his hair to look at least a bit more formidable as Kepler turned to look at him. “In fact, we don’t care what Cutter said! So, uh…” He floundered. Usually Minkowski was the one making the big hero speeches in the house. He wasn’t sure how to end this one. “So get out.” Good enough.

Kepler only stared at him. It felt like he was one of those cheetahs on a nature documentary, and any slight movement from Eiffel would set him off. He stared for an uncomfortably long time, maybe an entire ten seconds where the room was utterly silent.

And then Kepler smiled. It was a wide, unnatural grin, very different from the small curve he’d had on his face when Eiffel first came downstairs. And then, even more unsettling, he chuckled.

Everyone watched as Kepler reached into his pocket. Eiffel didn’t miss the way Jacobi’s expression changed into thinly veiled excitement, and even the Doctor Robotnik girl stopped what she was doing to watch. Uh-oh.

When Kepler lifted his hand, he was holding a square, shiny object that glinted in the light from the window. It had a small cap on the top, and it took Eiffel a few seconds to realize - it was a flask.

“Do you know what this is, Eiffel?” Kepler asked, and didn’t wait for a response. “It’s a flask of scotch. Balvenie single malt.” He paused, shook the flask a little so they could hear the liquid splash inside of it. “Expensive, but worth the price. It’s good whiskey.”

“But the thing I really enjoy about this scotch, Eiffel.” There was a burning intensity in his eyes that made Eiffel take a step backwards, even though they were at least ten feet apart already. “The thing I really enjoy is that it’s contraband. Prohibited from campus. If they catch you with alcohol, it’s academic probation at the least, even if you’re of age. Well, that’s what’s on the books, anyway.” Eiffel shifted uncomfortably. Where the hell was he going with this?

“And I’ll tell you what else would land you academic probation, especially if a certain student government officer were to tip off the Dean.” With a wicked look in his eyes, still not breaking eye contact with Eiffel, he nodded towards the living room. Eiffel turned and found Audrey lounging on the couch, looking unbothered by the strange visitors in their home. “A dog in a residential building, which clearly goes against Pryce and Carter’s Student Handbook and Code of Conduct.” He paused and tapped a well-manicured fingernail against the flask, the sound ringing out in the otherwise-silent room. “And it would certainly be a shame if Dean Cutter were to find out about your unfortunate habit of stealing from the dining hall.”

Eiffel’s eyes went wide. There was no way this was happening. First Kepler demanded to live with them, and now he was blackmailing him?

His mind started to race. He couldn’t afford to get kicked out of school. He had no backup plans, no way to support himself if something like that happened. And even if it was just academic probation, what if he lost the financial aid he was getting? Thunderstruck, he reached out a hand to the wall to study himself.

Minkowski, seeing he’d been blindsided, spoke for him. “How the hell do you know about that?” she asked through clenched teeth, her voice laced with barely contained rage.

Kepler looked at her. “He isn’t exactly stealthy about it, Minkowski.”

The room went silent again for a moment. Eiffel could feel a white-hot hatred for Kepler starting to burn in the back of his mind, and he shoved his hands in his pockets to keep them from shaking. Lovelace must have noticed, because she moved to his side and stood very still next to him, doing nothing more than making him aware that she was there.

“Alright!” Kepler clapped his hands together. “Well, enough of all of that. We’ll be moving in now.”

Just like that? They were just going to let him move in. Eiffel felt dizzy, and not just because of the hangover.

“You all know who I am. This,” Kepler gestured behind himself, “is Daniel Jacobi. And that,” he pointed to the girl leaning against the kitchen doorway, “is Alana Maxwell. I’m sure we’re all going to get along very well.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Maxwell chirped, holding out a hand to Minkowski. She stared at it like she was unfamiliar with the concept of handshakes.

“I’ve heard great things about you guys,” Jacobi announced, with a knowing look in Eiffel’s direction. “I really, really look forward to living here.”

And then the former Urania House members set about infiltrating their living space, leaving the rest of them exchanging nervous and angry glances with each other.

Minkowski joined them by the stairs, her eyebrows drawn together and eyes dark with a hatred Eiffel had never seen before. It was the deepest kind of hatred Minkowski could ever muster, he figured: the hatred of someone taking her sense of control.

There was silence for a time as suitcases and boxes were moved through the hallway. Hera was the first one to speak up. “Minkowski, are th-they really-”

“Yes,” Minkowski cut her off, her voice low. “They are.”

Eiffel let his eyes stray over her shoulder to where Jacobi was hauling in a suitcase, clearly straining with the effort. He had something to do with this whole thing, for sure. Had he spoken too highly of his roommates last night and given Jacobi some weird reason to show up here this morning? It seemed improbable, but … not entirely unlikely.

“I’ll be back,” he muttered to the tight circle of old roommates, and crossed the room to one of his new ones.

Jacobi glanced up from the suitcase and saw him coming. “Hey, roomie,” he grunted, pulling the suitcase into an upright position and leaning on it.

Eiffel tried to say something, but Jacobi beat him to the punch. “You know this place is really weirdly designed, right? I mean, I looked at the floor plans, and you have doors that just open onto sheer concrete. There are staircases that don’t lead anywhere. And I don’t think your windows even o-”

“Yes, yes, our house is weird,” Eiffel interjected, irritated. “It was designed by a crazy old man who died centuries ago and is probably haunted. You’re gonna get lost in the staircases and fucked-up hallways for several weeks trying to find the bathroom. So good luck.” Jacobi looked unfazed by his sudden change in demeanor.

Eiffel realized he’d been leaning in while he spoke, and pulled himself back. “Jacobi,” he sighed. He took a deep breath, trying not to sound so aggressive this time. “When I told you about how awesome Hephaestus is, that was not an invitation for you to move in with me. And my roommates! I know you don’t know Minkowski, but she is going to raise hell about this.”

“Oh, this wasn’t my idea,” Jacobi laughed.

Eiffel blinked at him. “What?”

“It wasn’t. My idea,” he repeated, shrugging. “It was Warr- uh, Kepler’s. He loved my stories about you-”

Eiffel blanched, fearing the absolute worst. He’d spent all of last night - as far as he could remember - talking about Hera. “You told him stories ab-”

“And,” Jacobi pushed right on through his interruption, “he knows you’re all geniuses at what you do, anyways, so we’re moving in. We’ll be evenly matched.” He pointed a finger into the living room, where the girl Kepler had identified as Maxwell was peering down at Audrey. “Maxwell got into MIT at sixteen, you know. She’s just here getting another degree.”

Eiffel, honestly, didn’t really care about how smart Jacobi’s roommates were. “Kepler can’t be serious about this. I mean, don’t you guys have a housing contract or something?”

Jacobi smirked. “Yeah, but you’d be surprised at how easily Kepler can convince the Dean of something. It’s almost an art.” He shrugged, “And besides, once he gets an idea in his head, it’s pretty hard to sway him from it. That’s just how he works.”

Eiffel glanced over Jacobi’s head, where the front door was wide open and Kepler was carrying a large lamp in his arms into the house. Even the way he walked was annoying.

He looked back down at Jacobi, whose smirk hadn’t disappeared from his face. “It’s not so bad, Eiffel,” he said, sounding like he knew exactly how bad it was. “Think of it as … combining our families. Nice and cheesy.”

“Right,” Eiffel deadpanned. “Combining our families.”

He had a very bad feeling about this.

“Hey,” Jacobi pointed over Eiffel’s shoulder, “isn’t that the girl you were telling me about last night?”

Eiffel gave the suitcase he was leaning on a hard kick. Jacobi stumbled and crashed onto the floor with it, grinning at him the whole way down.

Chapter Text

Very shortly afterwards, classes began again, and Goddard University moved on into the second semester of the year unaffected. Snow fell and melted and fell again, turning campus into a snowy paradise in the morning hours for everyone who didn’t have to walk to class. New textbooks were purchased and downloaded off the internet. It was certainly business as usual for most of the student body.

Everyone in Hephaestus, meanwhile, was caught in daily arguments and passive-aggressive fights about the new living situations. Kepler had been right about one thing: they certainly had enough rooms for everybody to sleep in, but that was about where the upsides for everyone ended. Three new people joining their home, a home that had previously established understandings and unspoken rules, was like intentionally bringing an invasive species into a forest.

Maxwell and Hilbert had argued about how much electricity could possibly be used in the basement at one time. Minkowski had fought with Jacobi about showering at three in the morning, since the water running usually woke her up. And the tension between Kepler and Minkowski was so palpable, it was hard to be in the same room as both of them at once.

But, really, what could they do? Nobody was willing to put themselves at risk by allowing Kepler to run to the Dean with the news about Audrey, or worse, Eiffel’s tableware. So everyone fought a little, and it got them nowhere. Then the cycle repeated itself.

Eiffel cursed under his breath as he kicked at a patch of snow, turning the corner onto Leo Street. If he hadn’t gone to that damn party last week, or hadn’t spoken with Jacobi or spilled his guts about Hera, they might not be in this situation. Nice one, Eiffel. Really, nice going.

At least the new roommates were sort of … interesting? They brought with them a few cases of alcohol, and Jacobi ended up getting drunk over the weekend and regaling everyone with tales of Kepler’s insanely expensive ski trip, or the “weird stuff” going on with Maxwell’s family that she seemed cagey about. In retaliation, Maxwell told everyone about some of Jacobi’s secrets, which were odd. Like, odder than the usual Goddard student, which was saying something. It certainly explained his reaction to Lovelace’s rubber duck collection in the bathroom.

So things were progressing, if you could call it that. The house had settled into an uneasy peace treaty. Everyone tried their best not to step on each other’s toes when they could help it, though some weird lines in the sand had been drawn (Jacobi, for one, refused to shower before midnight).

Eiffel slowed now as he got a bit closer to the house, letting his backpack slide down his shoulder and into his hand. He squinted ahead at the scene playing out in front of him.

Hera and Maxwell were kneeling next to the porch steps, an open toolbox sitting between them. Maxwell had a flat piece of wood in her hand - where the hell had she gotten that from? - and was explaining something to Hera, who nodded along.

Eiffel stood on his tiptoes and craned his neck to see what they were doing. He stared in abject horror at the front porch steps. Where they had previously been rotting and threatening to fall in with one misstep, there was now fresh wood, hammered steadily into place with shiny new nails and supports.

“Hey!” he shouted, darting across the lawn towards them. “What the hell is this?”

Maxwell gave him a cursory glance before she turned back to the stairs. “These stairs are dangerously old. I almost put my foot right through them when I came home from class. So, Hera and I are fixing them!” She sounded cheery about the subject. It was grating to Eiffel for two reasons; one, because nobody should be excited about doing manual labor, and two, because-

“That’s history,” he complained, gesturing helplessly to the now-demolished stairs. “Those stairs have been there for decades! You can’t just- you can’t come in here and change everything.” She was destroying his home. You talk to one person at a party, and his roommate comes in and destroys your home. They were like a bunch of termites, and not the ones that already lived in the porch (those guys were pretty laidback).

“Doug,” Hera began, standing. She had a conciliatory look in her eyes that sent a chill up his spine. Was she actually going to take Maxwell’s side on this? That seemed like a betrayal.

She put a gentle hand on his shoulder and pulled him away from the stairs. Momentarily, he forgot what he was even upset about, choosing instead to focus on the sensation of her warm hand and her fingers curling in around the fabric of his T-shirt.

It was short-lived, though, because now she was giving him that look again. She really was siding with Maxwell. “The stairs are a little d-dangerous.”

“Hera, come on,” he whined. “She can’t just show up and change things about this place. That isn’t how it works.”

“She has a point!” Hera looked back at Maxwell, who now had two nails between her teeth and was hammering a third into place on the steps. “One of us c-could have put a foot through those st-steps one day. It’s dangerous.”

“Oh, yeah, well, it starts with the steps,” Eiffel muttered, watching Maxwell work with disdain. “Then, she wants to change the lights to actually turn on when we hit the switch. Or she tries to seal off the staircases that lead to nowhere. Or she tries to fix the stairs so every other board doesn’t creak when you just want a goddamn midnight snack.” Hera’s expression was unchanged. He frowned. “Hera, are you listening to me?”

“I am,” she said, folding her arms together. “I just th-think you’re being ridiculous.”

Eiffel stared at her. “What if I’m not? What if she really does try to change all of that stuff?”

“Okay, then she does,” Hera sighed. “I d-don’t think it would hurt! This house n-needs a little renovation, anyways.”

He groaned. “It’s not about the renovation, it’s the principle of the thing.” He lowered his voice so only she could hear it and stepped a little closer to her. “They can’t just come in here and change everything because Cutter told them they’re allowed to,” he hissed.

“I know,” Hera said, shifting to glance back at Maxwell. “But I don’t think th-they’re going to. I think you just n-need to give them a chance.”

Eiffel felt a sharp pang of jealousy somewhere in his chest. Almost immediately, he regretted it. It was unfair for him to think he was Hera’s only friend, he knew, or even the only person she liked spending time with. But still, he oddly couldn’t help but feel a little upset, which in turn only made him feel worse about the whole thing.

Hera turned back to him and gave him a small smile. “Did you know she graduated from MIT when she was eighteen? She only went for t-two years. She’s an actual g-genius.”

He tried, in vain, to twist his frown into a semi-interested look. “Wow. Awesome.” Nope. He couldn’t even fake sounding interested.

Hera gave him a weird glance, then turned away and led him back towards the stairs. “M-Maxwell and I are going to keep working on these,” she said steadily. “You can help if you want. Otherwise, you’ll have to climb up the p-porch.”

Eiffel could tell when he wasn’t wanted in a conversation. Maxwell didn’t even look at him as he picked up his bag and jumped, intentionally heavier than he needed to, onto the porch. He pulled himself over the railing and headed inside, not bothering to hide his frustration in the slam of the door behind him.

This sucked.

He wasn’t even that upset about the stairs. Like he’d told Hera, it was more about the principle of the matter than anything else. He didn’t like the way the Urania residents were taking over, how Kepler had reasserted the chores that Minkowski used to be in charge of, or how it felt wrong to let them into the house in the first place. Because it wasn’t really a house, as sappy as it sounded - it was a home, and the sudden addition of new members to a home was going to take time to get used to.

But worse than that was the weird sense of jealousy Eiffel had felt about Maxwell. He didn’t feel good about it at all, but he couldn’t control it. This feeling was one he seriously couldn’t act upon, since it wasn’t like he was going to keep Hera from having other friends. It just felt … weird.

He brushed it off. It was a symptom of his feelings for her, he reasoned, and that meant he was thinking irrationally. Things were fine between the two of them, even if they’d technically just had a bit of an argument. They were just fine.

The stairs creaked as he headed up to his room. He doubled back and stepped on the same spot again, grinning with satisfaction at the sound.

Chapter Text

Eiffel had his headphones on the maximum volume, tuning out the entire world around him. So, in his opinion, it should have been no surprise that someone laying a hand on his shoulder startled him.

He jumped in his chair and exclaimed (he did not scream, despite what others might say). He whipped his head around to see who had assaulted him in his moment of solitude, relaxing a little when he saw Lovelace staring back at him, her eyebrows raised questioningly.

Her mouth moved, and Eiffel realized he still had his headphones on. He paused the song he was listening to and pulled them off, flinching a little at the immediate barrage of shouting from downstairs that was drifting up throughout the entire house. Curse the wonderful acoustics of Hephaestus. That was why he’d had the volume up so high in the first place. The uneasy peace in the household had shattered today, for some reason, and Kepler and Minkowski had been fighting downstairs for the past two hours. It was making having ears a real ordeal.

“Yeah?” He raised his eyebrows at Lovelace.

“‘Yeah,’ yourself,” she grinned. “What was that scream about?”

“I was surprised!” he said, more than a little defensively.

“Alright, alright.” She let him off the hook too easily, which was suspicious. Eiffel was beginning to wonder if she was here to ask a favor when she spoke again.

“I’ve been trying to mediate those two all morning,” she sighed, rubbing her temples with a hand. “It’s impossible. And really, really loud.”

“Tell me about it,” he grumbled, wincing as Minkowski took her turn and began to yell again.

“So, I figured everyone sane should get out of here for a while.” There was a gleam in her eyes. “And I don’t think Jacobi and Maxwell have been to Diane’s.”

Eiffel squinted at her. He was always down to eat at Diane’s, but his bank account was practically empty after his Christmas shopping, and he had birthdays coming up to worry about. One birthday in particular.

Lovelace noticed his hesitancy and gave him a look. “It’s on me.”

He jumped up out of his chair and shut his laptop, beaming. “Alright! Let’s blow this popsicle stand, please. I haven’t had a milkshake in forever.”

“We went out after Minkowski’s show last month, Eiffel,” she reminded him as she led him out into the hallway. There, Eiffel was surprised to find Hera, Jacobi, and Maxwell, sitting outside his doorway like a herd of deer in headlights.

“We’re all going?” he asked, giving Jacobi and Maxwell scrutinizing looks. Jacobi only smiled at him.

“I’d pay for all eight of us if it meant we could get away from the screaming,” Lovelace replied. She beckoned, and the five of them headed down the hallway towards the stairs.

The shouting got louder and louder as they went down the stairs. It was apparently Kepler’s turn to speak now, and while his voice was more of a booming sound than anything, it was becoming ear splitting as they got closer.

When they stepped into the living room, Eiffel glanced over at the two of them and found them standing by the TV. Minkowski had her arms crossed tightly in front of her, and her eyebrows were so drawn together that she might have invented a new type of wrinkle on her forehead. Kepler stood rigidly, his arms at his sides and mouth moving almost mechanically as he spoke. His tone was a little patronizing, which Eiffel knew Minkowski had to hate. He thought about stepping in and saying something, but he had no idea what the argument was about, and Kepler looked as though he might start screaming in someone’s face any second now. Eiffel made a mental note to ask Jacobi if he had been a JROTC kid in high school.

Neither of them even looked up as the group walked right past them and out of the front door. As Maxwell shut the door behind them, a cool silence washed over all of them - out here, they couldn’t even tell Kepler was talking. Lovelace exhaled with relief.

“Thank god,” she muttered, heading down the front yard towards her car. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them.”

“Shotgun!” Hera called out.

“Shit,” Eiffel said under his breath, for two reasons. First, because he wouldn’t get to sit shotgun, and second, because he wouldn’t get to sit next to Hera in the backseat.

She elbowed him with a smile on her face. “Better luck n-next time.”

Behind them, Jacobi and Maxwell were whispering to each other about something. It sounded a little heated, so Eiffel glanced over his shoulder at them, and they both stopped.

“We’re figuring out who has to sit in the middle,” Jacobi said by way of explanation. “I already called dibs on a window seat.”

“And I told you dibs doesn’t work with cars until you can see the car! It’s just like shotgun,” Maxwell retorted.

“They don’t play by the same rules! That’s like saying the five-second rule only applies when you can see where something fell.”

“How does that comparison make any s-”

“Eiffel,” Lovelace interrupted, “sit in the middle seat.”

“What?!” Eiffel gaped at her. “Why do I have to?”

“It’s the easiest solution,” she shrugged, pulling open the driver’s side door. “Now, hop in before Kepler and Minkowski notice we’re missing.”

-

The ride to Diane’s was, in one very dramatic word, miserable. It was mercifully short, since the diner was only about a minute away, but it was a very miserable minute.

The only saving grace was that Eiffel was able to lean forward on the center console and fiddle with the radio he’d helped install. Lovelace pushed his hand away more than once, but eventually he found a nice station, and they’d cruised into a parking spot downtown to the sweet sweet sound of The Beach Boys.

Now they were all seated in a booth inside Diane’s, their food ordered and paid for. A song that sounded like it was from the 60s played over the speakers in the ceiling, and there was a low sizzle of cooking meat from the kitchen. Diane had been overjoyed to see them, pointing out that she ‘hadn’t seen them since last year.’ They had introduced her to Jacobi and Maxwell, and she had almost come around the counter to give them greeting hugs.

“Is she always so…?” Jacobi asked in a hushed voice from where he was sitting, across from Eiffel.

“Yes,” Eiffel answered. “Always. You’ll get used to it.”

He’d managed to snag a seat next to the window and Hera, while the other three squeezed in together on the other side of the booth. It was a small victory, but he’d take it. The red vinyl of the seat had a comfortable coolness to it in the heated diner, and Eiffel sank back into it with glee. It was good to be back.

“Jacobi, you’ll enjoy that shake you ordered,” Lovelace leaned across him and tapped a framed newspaper article on the wall. “They’re award winning.”

“Really?” Jacobi sounded skeptical.

“You’ll see.” Lovelace settled back into her seat and took a long sip from her soda. “So, are we gonna discuss what’s happening back home, or what?”

“Do we even know what they’re f-fighting about?” Hera asked, cupping her chin in a hand.

“It’s the TV,” Maxwell answered. She looked up from her phone and around at everyone present, as if she was daring them to provide an alternate explanation. When nobody offered one, she continued, “Kepler wants to bring in the TV from Urania. It has 4k resolution and a much bigger screen, but Minkowski wants to keep the one in the living room.”

“She’s right,” Eiffel said. “That TV has seen more than anyone’s comfortable admitting. It’s practically another roommate at this point.”

Lovelace fiddled with the straw in her drink. “I tried to convince them we could just use both. We certainly have enough space in the house. We could keep the original TV in the living room, and put the new one in one of the empty rooms. Like having a second living room.”

“Why would we have two living rooms?” Jacobi muttered.

She shrugged. “I thought it was a great idea. But when I suggested it, they both looked at me like they were done fighting and had decided to kill me together instead,” she laughed.

They fell silent for a second, and it was more than a little awkward. There was a clear dividing line between the five of them - Lovelace, Eiffel, and Hera were going to take Minkowski’s side on everything, and Jacobi and Maxwell would be taking Kepler’s. Nobody said it out loud, but they were all feeling the same way. This was rough.

Eiffel couldn’t help but feel a little resentful towards the other two. Sure, he’d sort of come around to living with them in the past few weeks, but it still felt wrong. They were strangers in his home, on the side of the man who was constantly at odds with Eiffel’s friend. Not to mention the fact that Hera and Maxwell actually seemed to be getting along well, which still felt like a sharp pain in his heart. He hated feeling jealous about that - Hera could have other friends, and it was unreasonable for him to act like she couldn’t. Maybe he was just worried about someone else taking his title as best friend.

Suddenly, Maxwell cleared her throat, which startled Eiffel a little. “So, what’s up with the, uh … architecture of Hephaestus, anyway?”

Lovelace chuckled to herself, always excited to impart the urban legend on an unsuspecting victim. Apparently, as they’d learned over the past few weeks, the Urania residents were some of the handful of people on campus who didn’t know about the story surrounding Hephaestus. “It was built by a crazy old man a long time ago. The older he got, the more rooms and staircases and windows he added, and somehow the house was able to sustain them all, no matter how much of the infrastructure he ripped apart.” She punctuated her sentence with a long drink from her soda, then finished, “People say the house made him do it all. In the end, Hephaestus killed him, one way or another.”

Maxwell looked unfazed, but Jacobi was staring at her with wide eyes. “Is that actually true?”

Lovelace shrugged. “Every story’s a little bit true, Jacobi. They wouldn’t have a reason to exist otherwise.”

Eiffel rolled his eyes. “English majors,” he commented to Hera. She cracked a smile, and his heart skipped a beat.

When he looked back up, he found Lovelace giving him a contemptuous look. He grinned at her uneasily.

Thankfully, before she could correct him with a speech about the shining benefits of the English program at Goddard, their food arrived. Diane greeted them all with one of her typical, very southern ‘howdy’s, then handed out their plates so fast that Eiffel wondered if she’d ever tried to get it recognized as a world record. It would certainly be something impressive to hang up on the diner walls.

Eiffel had ordered a cheeseburger, and he took a bite out of it before Diane had even disappeared back into the kitchen. He loved the burgers here - perfectly seasoned, cooked, and served with fries that certainly weren’t bad, either. They were wholly American food, which seemed to be what Diane was going for.

Across the table, Jacobi took a hesitant sip of his shake, and Lovelace watched expectantly as his eyes widened. “I told you so,” she said proudly, cutting into the waffles she’d ordered (at three in the afternoon).

“Hmm,” Maxwell hummed on Lovelace’s other side, chewing thoughtfully. “Good fries,” she finally said.

Hera perked up across from her. “Oh, I love the fries here!”

And there was that sting of envy again, like an electric shock right to Eiffel’s chest. The guilt that followed immediately after felt even worse.

He swallowed and coughed a little, thinking of a way to change the subject. Luckily, he had one at the ready - a subject he’d been thinking about for a few days, anyway.

“So, Hera,” he started, picking up a few fries from her plate, “what do you want for your birthday?” He ignored the overt look Jacobi was giving him from across the table.

She narrowed her eyes at him, but smiled. “I d-don’t know,” she said, reaching across him and stealing a few of his fries as retribution. Her hand brushed his arm as she pulled away, and Eiffel concentrated very hard on not visibly tensing up. “I guess spending time with you g-guys is enough.”

Jacobi audibly snorted. “Yeah, right.”

“Are you going to try that one every year?” Lovelace asked, smiling.

“M-maybe it’ll work eventually.” Hera focused on her plate for a few seconds, deep in what Eiffel hoped was thought about her birthday gift. He had a few in mind already, since he knew she never wanted to provide them with options, but it was certainly worth a shot.

“My b-birthday isn’t that important,” she finally said with a half-shrug. “I never celebrated it as a kid, so it doesn’t really matter. You g-guys don’t have to get me anything.”

“Yeah, no way,” Eiffel grinned at her. “You’re getting something from me whether you like it or not.” He paused, taking a quick bite of his burger, then added, “And I’m throwing a party.”

“No, you’re n-not,” Hera frowned. Her stony eyes bored holes into his head. “I’ll make sure you never have a hot shower again, D-Doug.”

“Okay, okay,” he laughed, holding up his hands. “No parties. We’ll just do something small.”

As she smiled at him and the song coming through the speakers changed to something Sinatra-y, it felt like the three people across the table had disappeared. For a second, there was only Hera there, smiling at him about something he couldn’t even remember now.

All at once she faded as well, and Eiffel realized he was being overcome by a memory, as if his mind couldn’t help but take him back to high school every now and then. Maybe it was just envy for a simpler time, but he definitely wasn’t complaining.

It was a freezing mid-January night, and the chill of the air seemed to seek out every scrap of warmth Eiffel and Hera had to destroy it with a vengeance. Luckily, they’d brought layers upon layers of clothing this time, having learned from their previous outings, and had a blanket draped over their legs as they laid on the roof of Eiffel’s car.

They’d driven out of Boston and in circles for almost an hour that night to find a place where they could pull over and see the stars in the sky, which were almost completely invisible in the city on most nights. Hera had excitedly tracked the cloud cover all week, double- and triple-checking to make sure that they would have a clear view of some of her favorite constellations. Now they were pulled over on the side of some field, listening to cars rush past every now and then (despite this, Eiffel still felt entirely isolated with her. It was funny how that worked). The sky was an inky black color, and the stars peered down at them as curiously as they looked back up at them.

Hera had spent some time telling him about Orion and Gemini and Dorado and every other constellation that Eiffel would never understand how she memorized. When he couldn’t pick out the stars she was pointing at, she’d taken his hand and guided it to point up at the one she was talking about. Half the time, he still couldn’t see it, but he nodded along anyways, taken in by how much she knew about the stars.

They were silent now, their shoulders pressed together as they stared up at the sky. Eiffel wasn’t looking at her, but he could feel her taking long, slow breaths, as if she was asleep. He almost turned to check if she really was, but then she spoke.

“It’s my b-birthday soon,” she said quietly, as if she’d only just realized it. “I’ll be seventeen.”

“Yeah, you will,” Eiffel whispered. He was afraid to speak too loudly, though he wasn’t sure why. “I’m gonna have to bake you a cake.”

She laughed. “Th-thanks, Doug.” It didn’t seem like the sort of thanks that required a response, so Eiffel didn’t give one.

They stared up at the stars in silence for a little longer before she spoke again. “I st-still don’t think I really ‘get’ birthdays. Like, I knew I got older on the thirty-first, but th-the celebration…” she trailed off, and Eiffel risked a glance at her. Her eyes were shut, her face in profile against the dark sky beyond. “It doesn’t feel the same as Christmas, or your birthday. I d-don’t know. Maybe it’s because I d-didn’t grow up with it.”

Eiffel wasn’t quite sure what to say. Hera was always a lot wiser and more in tune with what she was feeling or thinking than he was. His thoughts and emotions were always just a mess - somehow, she was sometimes in tune with those as well, even when he wasn’t. “ Yeah, ” he finally offered, deciding to settle on a bit of a joke response. “I don’t really like my birthday either.”

Hera smiled. “Chr-Christmas is a bad time to have a b-birthday. I think you make it work, though.”

“I do my best.” He looked back up at the stars, which were miraculously still there. It was such a rare sight, since you couldn’t really get stars like this in Boston.

But, then again, Eiffel had never really missed them. He hadn’t even considered looking for them until he’d met Hera.

Eiffel was back in the diner, the memory disappearing as quickly as it had come. He stared down at his almost-finished burger in front of him, listening as Jacobi and Lovelace talked about something. None of their words actually went through his head.

He suddenly felt incredibly grateful for those memories of him and Hera. They’d had so many good experiences together in Boston, and he didn’t even know that one day they would be memories he cherished like a tangible possession. Many of them were only from a couple years ago, but it felt like so much had changed. For one thing, he was in love with her now.

He would have those memories forever, thank god, no matter what happened between the two of them. They’d once stared up at the stars together, and nothing was going to take that experience from either of them.

Like a spark in his head, Eiffel suddenly had an idea. He knew exactly what to get Hera for her birthday. It was quite possibly the best gift idea he’d had since her Christmas present, but it was going to take a lot of shifts at Diane’s to afford it.

He glanced sidelong at her, catching her mid-sip of her chocolate shake. She looked so effortlessly pretty, her face in profile like it had been on the roof of his car years ago. His pulse quickened.

This was definitely worth more work and another hit to his bank account.

Chapter Text

“Why,” Eiffel asked through gritted teeth, watching his breath come out in small bursts of fog, “in the hell would a birdwatching club start in the middle of winter?”

Hera lowered her binoculars and looked at him like he was the stupidest person in the world. “Some b-birds don’t migrate for the winter, Doug.” She looked entirely unbothered by the cold in her large winter jacket, and she lifted the binoculars back up to her eyes. “We’re looking for a few k-kinds of woodpecker, sparrows, cardinals, and owls, though we might have better luck finding those at n-night.”

He shuffled around a little, kicking at the frost-covered grass under his boots. He was starting to regret not layering another jacket under his larger one. If the air was frigid at home in Hephaestus, being out on the quad was like sitting inside of a freezer.

Still, he hadn’t rejected Hera’s invitation to join her for some new club. He wasn’t necessarily desperate for opportunities to hang out with her, but it made him happy to know that she hadn’t entirely abandoned him for Maxwell. Yet.

Eiffel chased the thought away and dug a foot into a clump of snow, then pulled it back to look at the print he’d left. It was pointless to keep running around in circles thinking about Maxwell like this. It only made him more jealous, which made him feel guilty, which led to another night curled up in bed thinking about Hera. There were a few particular scenes he kept coming back to: the two of them in New York City for next Christmas, staying with Lovelace’s family and walking through Times Square together; dancing in the kitchen with her while everyone else was asleep, to one of the songs they both agreed was good; leaning into her on the couch with a hot cocoa in his hands. The daydreams were a nice source of warmth amid all the cold of January, and they left his stomach performing frontflips when he thought about them. Lately, though, he was too easily distracted, his daydreams interrupted far more often than not. It was frustrating, to say the least.

But hopefully, this birdwatching thing was his chance to make things a little right. He could be sure there was nothing coming between them, if he could figure out how to broach the subject.

He glanced back up at Hera and found that she’d moved a few feet away, still peering into the trees with her binoculars. They were too large for her face, which made her look a little ridiculous holding them up like that, but he wasn’t going to tell her that.

Eiffel moved closer to her and leaned in towards her. “Find anything?”

She jumped, startled, and swatted at him. “Doug! I won’t if you k-keep interrupting my search.” She frowned and retrained her binoculars on the trees ahead of them, then added, “I thought I saw a c-cardinal, but I think you sc-scared him away.”

He smiled. “Sorry.” He wished the club organizers had given them more than one pair of binoculars. It was agonizing to sit here and try to entertain himself while Hera searched, quietly, for birds. It wouldn’t have been so awful if she was speaking to him.

Already intensely bored after ten seconds of silence, Eiffel pulled his phone out of his pocket. His lockscreen - still the picture of him and Hera under the mistletoe - was blank, with no incoming notifications at all. He suppressed a groan and stuffed it back in his pocket.

Hera began to move towards a more secluded side of the quad, farther away from the other birdwatchers and closer to the trees. Eiffel followed her, grateful for something to do besides sit still, stepping on half-melted patches of snow as they went.

When she stopped right next to a clump of trees, he squinted up into the branches with her, trying to find whatever bird she was seeing right now. He risked a glance at her and found her stiff, as if tracking whatever bird she’d found was taking every ounce of energy she had to concentrate on.

Eiffel leaned closer to her and asked, trying his best not to surprise her this time, “Did you find something?”

There was a rustle in the tree above them, and Hera sighed loudly, dropping the binoculars so they hung around her neck. She gave him a look. “I did, but n-not anymore.”

He gave her a sheepish smile and looked up at the tree. “Sorry, Hera. I was actually curious this time, I swear.”

Her scowl faded into a bit softer of an expression, and she sighed again, less wearily this time. “Okay, Doug.” She adjusted the binoculars strap around her neck. “I knew I should have brought M-Maxwell instead.”

She’d meant it as a joke, but the remark made Eiffel feel like he’d just been punched in the stomach. Of course, she couldn’t have known it would hurt him, since he hadn’t brought up his feelings to her at all. He didn’t blame her for the jealousy that festered in his own head like an itch he couldn’t scratch.

His emotions must have shown on his face in some way, because her small smile suddenly dropped, and she gave him a quizzical look. “What?”

“Nothing,” Eiffel said, more moodily than he had hoped it would come out. He grimaced and turned away, knowing full well that would only embolden Hera’s questions.

“Don’t lie.” Her voice was light, then serious again just as quickly, “Seriously, D-Doug, what’s wrong?” He felt a few of her fingers touch his arm, and they seemed to spark on his skin. Somehow, that inspired a little courage to actually ask the question that had been on his mind for the past couple of weeks.

He took a breath and looked back at her, finding her eyebrows furrowed in genuine concern, which brought on a wave of guilt crashing over him before he could force his question out. “You’re not … replacing me, are you?”

The shock on her face made him feel even guiltier. He recoiled, already prepared to backtrack. “That’s not what I meant, I just-”

“Doug, what are you t-talking about?” She spoke over him, sounding hurt. It was like a knife was being twisted in his chest.

“I-I just…” Oh, god, it sounded so dumb when he was trying to say it out loud. It felt, for a second, more like something weirdly possessive than an irrational worry, and he almost swallowed the words entirely. But Hera would get it, right? She always understood how he felt, better than even he did.

The words came out in a rush, and Eiffel gestured nervously along with them, desperate for something to watch so he didn’t have to look at Hera. “You’ve been hanging out with Maxwell a lot, and I guess I’ve just been worried that you like her better than me, which I know is a stupid thing to think. I just don’t want to…” he trailed off, searching for the words. What? I don’t want to lose the title of ‘best friend’? I don’t want you to stop hanging out with me?

“I don’t know,” he finally said. “I’m afraid we won’t be us anymore.”

She was staring at him; he didn’t have to be looking at her to be sure of that. Her eyes were burning holes in his head, and he regretted saying anything at all. If he had been a little more in control of his own feelings, he never would have said something like that. The word selfish swam in his mind.

He finally forced himself to look back up at her, opening his mouth to apologize, but stopped short of saying anything at all. There was a small smile on Hera’s face, which seemed completely out of place for this moment. Was she laughing at him?

“Doug,” she finally said with a shake of her head. “I love you-”

His heart soared,

“-but you’re an idiot.”

and sank right back down in his chest.

The guilt and regret disappeared, leaving a vacuum that was quickly filled by utter confusion. “What?”

“You’re s-so unnecessarily jealous,” she stated, impassively, like she was observing a scientific fact rather than judging him harshly. “Nobody is r-replacing you. It would be pretty difficult to find anyone as…” she paused, eyes flickering across his face. “As you as you are.”

“Really?” he asked, maybe too hopefully.

“R-really,” Hera said. Then her expression hardened into something more serious, and Eiffel braced himself. “Maxwell is a friend, and so are you. You d-don’t have to be threatened by her.”

“I’m not!” He crossed his arms, shivering a little as a gust of wind blew across the quad. “I don’t feel threatened. …But I’m your best friend, right?”

She gave him an exasperated look, crossing her arms as well. “What’s g-gotten into you?”

Eiffel was asking that question himself. Being so jealous of one of Hera’s friends was completely new to him. He’d chalked it up to his newly developed feelings for her, but there was a little more to it somewhere, hiding deep in the core of those pangs of envy he felt when Maxwell and Hera spoke. It was partially because Hera was his first friend, and as such, he was extra sensitive to any inclination, real or perceived, that she might have to replace him. But, also…

“It’s Maxwell,” Eiffel muttered, averting his eyes again. “Jacobi’s reminded me at least three times that she graduated from MIT before we even got into college.” Hera was watching him carefully, clearly trying to work out where he was going with this. He pressed on, “And you’re the most intelligent person I know, and it seems like you two really get along like that. It’s like walking into a Mensa meeting every time you two are together.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, uncomfortable with admitting the next part, but knowing that it was the truth. He had to be honest. “And I’m not like that. I’m barely holding a C in two of my classes right now, and- and I got into this place because of my essays, not my grades.” He turned to look back at her, and the look on her face - compassionate but not patronizing, understanding but not sentimental - was enough to make him relax a little bit. He’d been unaware he was tensing every muscle in his body. “I just don’t want you to … leave for someone more on your level.” Even as he said it, looking at Hera’s face, he knew it wasn’t ever a possibility. She was far too kind to ditch him over something as small as how smart he was. He’d just worked himself up into believing that she would.

She stepped closer to him, the forgotten binoculars swinging from her neck, and reached down. She took one of his hands in both of hers, and the jolt of electricity it sent up his arm was almost enough to make him forget why she had done it in the first place.

“Doug,” she said lowly, sounding more serious than she ever had been before, “I’m not g-going to leave you. That would be impossible. We live in the same house.” Eiffel smiled, but she didn’t. “And I d-don’t pick my best friends based on their gr-grades.”

“I know that,” Eiffel replied quietly.

“Good. You should.” She let go of his hand and stuck hers in her coat pockets. “I don’t think I’d trade you for a r-room full of MIT graduates. You make for a much better listener than them.”

It felt like there were fireworks going off somewhere. He had the sudden irresistible urge to step forward and pull her into a hug, maybe spill to her everything he’d been thinking about her for the past few months. But his feet were frozen to the ground, like he’d stayed there overnight and let the snow cover him. He couldn’t speak, either.

“And you’re smarter than you th-think, Doug,” she said, unexpectedly. She looked away for a second while he struggled to think of a proper response. Before he could, she continued, “Don’t worry. I won’t replace you. You c-can join Maxwell and I the next time we talk about the best way to get p-past Goddard’s firewall, if you want.”

Eiffel finally found his voice again. “Maybe I’ll take you up on that,” he smiled. And she smiled back, and the world righted itself on its axis, and Eiffel was back to only having one problem with how he felt about Hera. As it should be.

Giving into his urge, he lifted one arm and pulled Hera into a quick side-hug, resting his cheek against her head for a moment. He realized it was sort of like the daydream he had of the two of them on the couch, and hoped Hera couldn’t hear his heart stutter as she leaned her head onto his shoulder.

“Thanks, Hera,” he muttered, letting go of her.

She stepped back and smiled at him, tugging at the binoculars around her neck. “Of course.” She nodded towards the trees, “Now, can we please find a woodpecker or t-two?”

“Anything you want,” Eiffel grinned. She gave him a look, smiling, then turned back to the trees. This time, he actually felt capable of being silent for the birds, and for Hera (but mostly for Hera).

He doubted he’d be coming back to birdwatching club, though.

Chapter Text

In Hephaestus House, January 31 was the most important day of the year. Eiffel made damn sure that every year, people were aware it was Hera’s birthday, and they would have to behave accordingly. He even braved the dangerous trip down into the Stygian basement-slash-lair that Hilbert occupied to alert him that it was Hera’s birthday, and he would either wish her a happy birthday or face dire consequences. Hilbert usually glowered at him and let off a string of empty threats, but without fail the next morning, Hera would get a grudging ‘happy birthday’ from him.

This year was absolutely no different, despite the fact that they had some new roommates this time around. Eiffel had prepared notes for everyone and slipped them under their doors at night, in case his verbal notice wasn’t enough, alerting them that it was Hera’s birthday. He’d even had an amicable conversation with Maxwell - who he was starting to warm up to, now that Hera had assuaged his worries - about Hera’s lack of birthdays in the past. The only person he hadn’t been sure about was Kepler, but sure enough, even he had offered her a polite ‘happy twentieth’ over breakfast that morning.

No party. Eiffel had promised her that much this year, though he was certain he’d be able to talk her into one eventually. However, he’d already blown through what was left of his bank account for her gift, so maybe it was for the better that there wasn’t a party this year.

Now, right outside of Hera’s room, he shifted nervously from foot to foot. The small chocolate cake in his hands cooled his sweaty palms a little bit. He’d bought it from the bakery at the store and enlisted Minkowski’s help to write ‘HERA’ on it in blue icing, with a small smiley face underneath it. He really, really hoped she would like it.

As he stared at the closed door in front of him, forbidding him from the inside of Hera’s room, he took a deep breath. He had to admit, he’d been a little bit worried about this day, and the present he had spent hours looking for online, trying to figure out which one Hera would like the most. He assured himself that she would love it.

It’s her birthday, Doug, he told himself as he lifted a hand and knocked, softly, on her door. Try to relax a little.

The door was opening and Hera was standing just on the other side in less than two seconds. She was smiling at him, and for a moment, Eiffel was afraid he might drop the cake. Her eyes darted down to his hands, and her face lit up. “Doug!”

“Happy birthday, Hera,” he managed, passing her the cake. “There was only enough in the budget for a tiny cake, but, hey, it’s all yours.”

“No, no,” Hera shook her head. “You n-need to have part of it, obviously. For being the best birthday p-planner ever.” She started back towards her desk, placing the cake on top of it and looking around. “Hmm, I don’t have a kn-knife up here…”

Cautiously, Eiffel stepped inside of her room. She only had her desk lamp on, and her ceiling stars were glowing overhead in the dim lighting. It felt a little disorienting for a second, as if he’d stepped into a movie scene that wasn’t meant for him, and nobody had bothered to provide him with a script.

He reached forward and, holding his breath, took hold of Hera’s forearm. She looked up at him, puzzled. He was grateful he had one hand on her so he didn’t suddenly float away.

“I gotta show you something first,” he whispered.

For a moment they just stared at each other, her eyes searching his face. Eiffel realized he was still holding his breath, and forced himself to exhale in a way that could pass for normal.

“Okay,” Hera nodded. “Why are we whispering?”

Eiffel smiled and pulled her towards her door, out into the dark hallway. “Close your eyes.”

“I already can’t s-see anything out h-”

“Just close ‘em.”

She did, and he checked a few more times as he led her down the hallway to make sure she was keeping them shut. He could feel his heart rate escalating the closer and closer they got to the balcony door. As he put one hand on the handle and slid it open, he focused on the feeling of his other hand on Hera’s arm. It calmed him a little.

“Okay, so,” he started when they were both out on the balcony. He let go of her arm, regrettably, and shut the door behind them. “I don’t, uh, have a prepared speech or anything. But it’s your birthday, and that’s awesome! I’d like to welcome you to not being a teenager anymore.”

Hera still had her eyes closed, but she smiled at him, her teeth shining in the light of the moon. Eiffel thanked his lucky stars (ha, ha) that there weren’t any clouds out tonight.

“And I got you something.” He shifted towards the balcony railing, where he’d managed to set it up without anyone else’s help. He did a quick final once-over to make sure the scope was angled up correctly, checking that he hadn’t messed up any of the finer details in the manual he couldn’t really understand. “Okay,” he exhaled in relief, “you can open your eyes.”

She did. Her eyes fell on the telescope - white exterior gleaming in the moonlight, black accents as dark as the sky above them - and she gasped. She rushed across the balcony to it, staring at the lens with wide eyes. She touched the scope part with a few fingers, delicately, like she was afraid it might burn her. Her other hand shook with excitement at her side.

“Doug- how d-did you- this is-” She couldn’t get the words out. Eiffel couldn’t do much but stand there, hands in his pockets, and grin at her excitement. His heart was pounding, he was certain, almost as fast as hers. Hera geeking out about space had always been one of his favorite sights.

She ran her hand along the scope one final time. She looked over at him, mouth agape. “This is a r-real telescope. A real one, like they have for m-my classes.”

Eiffel nodded. “Yep.”

“So how did you…” She looked back at the telescope, then at him again. “How’d you d-do it?”

“Well, Hera, they say a magician never reveals his secrets,” he grinned. “But I’m not a magician, so I’ll just tell you I worked really hard for those tips at Diane’s.” Honestly, the Goddard students had been easier tippers than the old people who came by, if a little less generous. But he would be eternally grateful if he never had to compliment a townie’s cardigan ever again.

He moved to lean against the railing, then straightened back up when he saw Hera’s face. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she was standing rigidly next to the telescope. “Hey, you okay?” He took a tentative step forward.

She opened her eyes, and Eiffel realized she was tearing up. “No, yeah, yeah, I’m f-fine,” she muttered, swiping at her eyes. “This just m-might be the best g-gift I’ve ever been given.”

“Hey, you didn’t let me cry about my birthday present,” Eiffel chastised her, reaching forward to give her a light slug on the arm. Really, he was relieved that Hera liked his present that much. He would even go as far as to say that it boded well.

Hera smiled. And then she was leaning forward and wrapping her arms around his back, bringing her hands up to pull him towards her. Her fingers rested, gently, just below his shoulder blades. Eiffel was unsure if his shortness of breath was because of how tightly she was squeezing him or because of how he felt about the fact that she was in the first place.

He embraced her back, giving her a few hand-taps on the back. Was that too friendly? Did he want to come off as friendly? Come on, Eiffel, get a grip.

For a second, it seemed like the cold air around them had never existed in the first place. It seemed like the hug would never end, and they could both just stay in this moment forever - something Eiffel was perfectly fine with. It seemed like everything about this was correct.

His breath hitched in his throat, and he made the executive decision to pull away from the hug before Hera could. It seemed better to ruin the moment himself than have it ruined for him, though he did want (a bit desperately, to tell the truth) to see how long she would have held on for. Oh, well.

“I can’t believe it,” Hera finally said, her eyes still shining with tears. “I’ve n-never had a telescope before.”

“Really?” Eiffel asked incredulously. “I thought your mom’s, like, whole thing was space.”

“Yeah.” She glanced away, up into the starry sky above them. “Exploring it, maybe. She never wanted to j-just discover.”

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, but it was definitely a little uncomfortable. There were a lot of points of contention between Hera and her mom, especially when it came to academic stuff. Eiffel supposed there was a reason why she hadn’t wanted to use her last name like everyone else in Hephaestus.

“Well,” he said, pushing past the weird silence, “you wanna get started with this thing?”

Hera’s face lit up again, her mom suddenly forgotten. “Really? Right now?”

“Yeah, right now! What, you think I set this whole thing up so you could just look at it? No way.” He gestured to the telescope, bowing slightly to display it. “After you, astronomy major.”

She rushed forward to the eyepiece. Eiffel was a few inches off when he’d set up the tripod part, it appeared, but she only had to stoop a small amount to see through it. He would count that as a win.

“Oh, my god, oh m-my god,” Hera repeated under her breath as she fiddled with the knobs on the side of the telescope, focusing the lens. “This is the best. You know, this n-never would have worked in Boston, because of all the light p-pollution there. But here … Oh, I bet I c-could find Jupiter! Hang on, it’s probably somewhere…” She moved the scope inch by inch, stopping every now and then to marvel at some star she’d caught in the view.

Eiffel watched her, his breath caught in his throat. The firmament and its stars above them seemed to belong to Hera - they were hers to observe, to study, even to control, if she wished. But she wouldn’t, because Hera was more about discovery, like she’d said. She wanted to find things more than she wanted to use them for herself.

Selfless was the word. Hera was selfless.

The moon was high in the sky - it had to be somewhere around 11:30, now, maybe later. It shone with far-off light from the sun, invisible to them now (that had been the second fact he’d learned from Hera. The moon didn’t make its own light. There had to be something sort of poetic about that, Eiffel figured). The moonlight was shining on Hera, casting dark shadows across her face that looked a little bit like outlines of her features.

There was something very, very wonderful about the sight. She looked so natural there, with her eye pressed up to the telescope, that it seemed Eiffel had never seen her in any other context before. It was always Hera and the stars.

“I found it!” she suddenly exclaimed, snapping Eiffel out of his thoughts about her. She stood there gazing at whatever it was for a moment, her mouth falling open. “Wow. Wow. I mean, I’ve s-seen it before in class, but now I can just look at it from my b-backyard. Oh, my god.”

She pulled away from the telescope abruptly, as if she’d only just remembered he was out there with her, and gestured towards it. “C-come here. It’s beautiful, Doug.”

The words like you? were on his tongue, but he swallowed them and stepped towards the telescope. He moved his face up to the eyepiece. “What am I looking at?”

“Jupiter,” Hera reminded him. Her voice floated next to him as the image of the planet came into view, like she was out in space along with it. “Isn’t it incredible?”

It was. Despite the power of the telescope ( award-winning magnification had been written on the box about twenty times), Jupiter was still just a dot in his field of vision, no bigger than a grape. But there was detail to it through the scope, and color. It was a beautiful orange-white marble, hanging in the sky like a drop of honey in suspended animation. Eiffel was suddenly reminded that Jupiter was a real planet that existed, thousands upon thousands of miles away, and not just pictures in Hera’s books or a destination in 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was struck by how tangible it felt all of a sudden. It was almost tempting to just reach out and pluck it out of the sky.

“Wow,” he breathed, actually moved by the sight. The picture trembled for a moment as he blinked and shifted around, then disappeared as he moved away from the eyepiece. “That was…” he was at a loss for words, so he just settled on, “awesome.”

“Right? Jupiter is one of my f-favorite planets,” Hera gushed. Eiffel was beginning to understand the meaning of the phrase ‘starry-eyed.’

“Oh, you know, I b-bet I could find Saturn, too,” she said, moving towards the telescope. “And we c-could look at Gemini!”

A gust of cold wind blew overhead, rustling the trees just beyond their backyard fence. Eiffel shivered and tugged his sweater sleeves down, then shifted a little closer to Hera. “Cold,” he said, lamely, as a sort of half-explanation. The other half of the truth was that he wouldn’t turn down an excuse to be closer to her.

“Yeah,” she replied, and he might have imagined it, but she seemed to lean in towards him.

His eyes flickered up to the stars again, attempting to concentrate on them instead of his racing heart. The image of Jupiter through the telescope was stuck in his mind, along with all of the other stars around it. Hera’s stars, he thought again. Maybe they could be his one day, too.

“I think I found Saturn.” Hera stepped back from the telescope. “Do you wanna s-see?”

“Of course,” Eiffel said, but not before he was caught up in the way she smiled as she asked him, knowing he’d say yes, and her quiet shift to the side to let him step forward, inviting him into her head for just a few brief moments at the telescope.

He put his eye up to the eyepiece.

Chapter Text

The text from Minkowski said ‘Come to my room.’ Capital letter at the beginning, punctuation and everything. It wasn’t entirely out of character for her, but still a little bit … frightening.

Eiffel wasn’t sure what it was she would be asking him for in the first place. To his knowledge, he hadn’t done anything wrong - at least, not anything that she hadn’t already known about. Unless all of her animosity towards Kepler was finally starting to drive her crazy and she’d decided to crack down on his smoking.

As he raised a hand and knocked on her door, he wondered if he should go back to his room and hide his cigarettes first.

But it was too late. He knocked a few times, and there was a brief pause before Minkowski pulled the door open. She looked angry enough that Eiffel actually took a step back.

He gave her a nervous smile. “Hey, Minkowski, you texted m-”

In a flash, she reached forward and grabbed ahold of his shirt, twisting the fabric a little in her fist. Eiffel barely had time to yelp in surprise before she jerked him into her room, shutting the door behind him.

Oh, god. This is it. I’m going to die here, Eiffel thought despairingly. He tried to arrange his thoughts so he would at least have something nice to go out on. He wasn’t sorry for all of the chores he skipped out on. He wasn’t sorry for the technically underage drinking and smoking that Minkowski hated so much. And he certainly wasn’t sorry for bringing Audrey into the house against Minkowski’s orders. He wondered which one of those would be the reason she was going to kill him.

He paused for a moment when he realized he wasn’t being attacked. Minkowski had let go of his shirt, and now he was standing in her room, which was dark except for the light of a small bedside lamp. He realized, with surprise, that he had never actually set foot in her room before this, since she was a little … territorial about it. (Actually, there had been one prior time, where he’d had to carry her to her bed after Hilbert had drugged her in an ill-fated attempt to get out of one of her organized karaoke nights [it was a very long story]. That one didn’t count, he reasoned, because it had been completely dark then, and she had been muttering about her Broadway criticisms into his right ear.)

It was more … cluttered than he’d expected. It certainly wasn’t as bad as his room, but there were actually a few papers scattered on the floor, which he wouldn’t have expected from someone so anal about neatness as Minkowski was. Her bed was actually made, though, which was unsurprising. The rest of her belongings were tucked on shelves and a bookcase, and her desk was pushed up against the far wall, like she was trying to sit as far away from potential invaders as she possibly could.

Eiffel spun around to find Minkowski stalking past him, her body language stiff and anxious. “Uh, Minkowski, is there-”

“Just-” she held out her hands, closing her eyes for a moment. “Just hang on, Eiffel.”

“Okay,” he said quietly. He shifted from foot to foot, a little unsure of what to do himself. Eventually, he settled on sitting on her desk chair, facing backwards so he could see Minkowski. He rested his head on the back of the chair. “Is there something … up?”

Minkowski sighed. “Eiffel,” she began slowly, opening her eyes to look at him. The next words that came out of her mouth were a combination he had never expected to hear from her. “Would you like to get drunk with me?”

He couldn’t keep his mouth from falling open, and Minkowski looked as if she already regretted asking him. It was only then that he noticed the minifridge tucked under her desk, its door slightly ajar from something that didn’t quite fit in all the way. “Well, well, Minkowski,” he grinned at her. “And here I thought you were morally opposed to drinking under the age of twenty-one.”

“If you’re going to act like that, I could always ask Lovelace instead.” Even as she said it, she crossed the room towards him and leaned underneath the desk. When she straightened back up, she was holding a six-pack of beer in each hand.

“No further comments?” she asked. Eiffel shook his head, and she smiled. “Good.”

-

Two drinks later:

“I mean, really, I can’t believe him!” Minkowski threw her head back against her mattress and groaned. Eiffel had been surprised to learn that she held her alcohol probably better than he did - he was starting to feel dizzy with every movement, but she just seemed like she had a little less of a filter than usual. It was refreshing.

“Mm-hmm,” he nodded in agreement, twisting one arm idly around the armrest of her desk chair. “He thinks he can just come in here and change things because he’s President. Well, I object to that, sir. I object.”

“It isn’t his house,” she muttered. “His name is nowhere on the contract. But he wants to reorganize the chores, and he’s bringing in all this new furniture we don’t need. It’s a mess, Eiffel, that’s what it is. Messes are what happen when I’m not in charge.”

“Ehh…” Eiffel shrugged. “Messes happen when you’re in charge, too.” She shot him a look, and he backpedaled, “I mean, you know, messes are bound to happen no matter what. That’s just the way things work. Especially in this house,” he added, taking a long sip of his drink.

Minkowski sighed. “I guess you’re right.” She was silent for a moment, turning her face to look out the window. It had to be around midnight now, and the sky was moonless, leaving her backyard-facing window completely darkened. She reached forward for another can of beer. “I think I just wish it didn’t have to be like that.”

“What do you mean?” Eiffel asked, though he had an inkling as to what it was already.

“I hate that…” she paused, her eyes flickering up to Eiffel’s face, as if she was deciding whether or not she could trust him. He held his breath and hoped against hope that she would.

“I hate how things can just change on us like this,” she said quickly. “That someone can just come into our house and take over the things that I was doing perfectly well. I feel like … it’s not that I have to be in charge, but if I’m not, something will definitely go wrong.” She forced the words out so fast that it seemed like she was trying to get them out before she could change her mind about them.

The second they were out of her mouth, she froze up. She looked up at him, wide-eyed, and her shoulders slumped. “Sorry. You’re not my therapist. I don’t know why I said that.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” Eiffel reassured her. He was struggling a little to keep himself from making some sort of I-told-you-so joke about her need for control. But, even a little intoxicated, he could tell that for once, this wasn’t a time to be joking. “I think - and pardon the cliché, Renée,” he grinned at the rhyme. Minkowski rolled her eyes. “But you need to learn to go with the flow.”

“But how?” She cracked open her new can of beer. “How can I do that? You know, there’s a reason I get on you about Pryce and Carter. Rules are what keep us from disasters. And I understand those rules.”

Eiffel shrugged. “I don’t know. I cause half of those disasters, and they always end up as either a good story or not as bad as I thought they’d be.” He paused and swirled his drink around for a moment. He could feel Minkowski’s eyes on him and the quiet buzz of alcohol in his head. “I mean, things go wrong all the time in the theater, right?”

“Not when I’m in charge,” she said quietly.

They both went silent, and although Eiffel wasn’t always the most observant person, he could tell there was something more on her mind with this conversation. Whatever it was, though, she didn’t say, and he felt too out of his depth here to pry.

“Well, maybe just try it next time,” he finally suggested. “If something’s about to go wrong, pretend that you’re me, and you don’t care.”

Minkowski laughed. “I’m not like you, Eiffel,” she replied, but there was something about her smile that told him she might give it a shot. “I certainly couldn’t ever be as disorganized as you are.”

“Hey,” Eiffel frowned. “Do you wanna get less dictator-y or not?”

-

Two more drinks later:

They’d both fallen silent, the two of them reduced to quiet victims of indulgence. It was a nice feeling, to know that you were completely wasted, helpless to the consequences of your own whims. In the silence, Eiffel’s mind drifted off to thoughts of his classes, then to Minkowski in front of him, then classes again, then Hera.

“My name,” Minkowski said suddenly. It seemed she was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol too, and her words were quiet and ran together. He moved his head up a little to look at her, only to find her already looking at him.

“Hmm?”

“You’ve been saying my name wrong for a year and a half,” she whispered.

Eiffel blinked a few times. This was news to him. “What?”

“You always say ‘Min-cow-ski,’” she told him, “but it’s ‘Min-kov-ski.’ You’ve been saying it wrong this whole time.” It sounded like this had only just now occurred to her.

“Really?” Eiffel sat up a little straighter. “But- but there’s a ‘W’ in it.”

“It’s Polish. Different letter pronunciation.” She waved a hand through the air like she was displaying it to him, then stopped and went back to quietly sipping on her drink.

Minkovski. Huh. He really had been saying it wrong. He supposed he’d known on a base level that everyone else said her name differently than he did, and maybe she had corrected him a few times when they first met, but he never actually considered…

“I moved here when I was young,” Minkowski’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Some people change their names to something more … American. Anglicanized. But I liked mine, no matter how weird other people thought it was.”

Eiffel wasn’t entirely sure what to say to that. Through the haze of the alcohol, there was a quiet feeling crawling into his stomach and gnawing at him that he recognized as guilt. He’d been saying her name wrong for three straight semesters, and everyone else was doing it correctly this whole time. Idiot!

“Um,” he said. He set his beer down on the carpet and put his hands together in his lap. “How do you say it, again?”

She looked up at him, looking almost surprised. Almost. Minkowski was never really surprised, he imagined. “Minkovski.”

Eiffel furrowed his brow, fighting to force that pronunciation into his alcohol-addled brain. “Min-”

She nodded. “Min.”

“-kov- ”

“-kov- ”

“-ski?”

“-ski.” She nodded again, and a small smile appeared on her face. “There, you go.”

“Minkovski,” Eiffel repeated, nodding a few times. “Minkovski, Minkovski, Minkovski. My friend Renée Minkovski.”

Her smile widened. That felt like a real accomplishment.

-

Three drinks later:

To Eiffel’s delight, after both of the six-packs were gone, Minkowski had procured another from the minifridge. Hazily, he realized that he hadn’t even had this much to drink at that New Year’s party. He was certainly having a lot more fun here than he had at that one - it was a lot quieter in Minkowski’s room, and the darkness here was a lot more comfortable than the dark, pulsating mass of bodies in that dorm room.

He was sprawled out on the floor now, his head up against one of the legs of Minkowski’s bed. He was incredibly thirsty, and knew he’d be feeling the effects in the morning if he didn’t drink some water soon, but he was reluctant to leave the room. Maybe because he didn’t want to run into anyone else while he was drunk, or maybe because it felt like this was a special, almost sacred moment between him and Minkowski. Opening the door would be like breaking a seal that was keeping every good feeling in the world inside her room.

They were both silent. Minkowski had said something a little bit ago, but he’d already forgotten what it was they were talking about. That happened even when he was sober, but the  effects were definitely compounded right now. The two of them were separated by only a few inches of space; Eiffel was pretty sure if he reached out with his left hand right now, he’d be able to find her somewhere in the dark.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway, and he sat up like a dog hearing a knock at the front door. He stared at Minkowski’s door, blinking slowly, waiting for whoever had been outside to come and open it. He hoped that it was Hera. He hoped she would come inside and laugh at how drunk he was, and he would get to tell her how insanely pretty she was.

Or, wait, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t supposed to tell her things like that right now, as much as he wanted to.

“Someone there?” Minkowski asked, her words slurring more violently now. Eiffel probably sounded worse, but he couldn’t remember the way he had sounded the last time he spoke.

“Hera,” Eiffel said, not because he really thought it was her, but because she was on his mind and, yeah, he hoped it had been her outside the door.

“Really?” Minkowski sat up with him. He could see her now, her face lit by her desk lamp, which neither of them had thought to turn off any time in the past hour or so. She squinted at the door.

“No,” he laughed, leaning back against her bed. And then, too drunk to realize what it was he was about to say, “I’m in love with her.”

It took Minkowski a moment to react. Her eyes widened, and she whipped her head around to look at him. But before he could start laughing at her almost comical surprise, her expression softened, and a small smile spread across her face. “No shit, Eiffel.”

“What?” He jolted forward as if he’d been shoved, stopping a few inches away from Minkowski’s face. She looked more surprised about his sudden movement than she had about the confession. He dropped his voice so it was just above a whisper. “Whaddayou mean, ‘no shit’?”

She let out a small snort of a laugh. “It’s obvious, Eiffel,” she whispered. “I mean, do you think nobody notices the…” she paused and deliberated for a moment, then yawned. “The long glances? Or how you keep looking away from her and blushing?”

Eiffel felt his face burst into flame.

“Yeah, like that!” Minkowski laughed, way too loudly. He grabbed ahold of one of her wrists and shushed her, afraid that now Hera might actually come in. That wouldn’t end well. His mind raced and swirled with what Minkowski had said about him being obvious about it, but he couldn’t focus on any one idea about it for too long. All he could hear through the alcohol and thoughts was shit shit shit shit shit.

Once she’d stopped laughing, Eiffel gave Minkowski a small shake. “What did you mean? Does she know I…?”

Minkowski laughed again, quieter this time. “Eiffel, I think she’s the only one who doesn’t know.”

That relaxed him at least a little. He let go of Minkowski’s wrist and slumped back against her bed, then brought his hands up to cover his eyes. He groaned. “You’ve gotta be kidding me…” How was he being so obvious that Minkowski could tell? All in all, he’d thought he wasn’t doing that bad of a job. At least Hera wasn’t aware.

“Honestly, I thought you were already dating when we first met.” She gestured towards him, then the door. “The petnames, remember? That was a … really awkward conversation.”

It took Eiffel a moment to remember what she was talking about, through his awful haze of forgetfulness. He grimaced when the memory came back to him:

“So, what’s your girlfriend’s name again? Hera?”

“Uh… she’s not my girlfriend.”

“Jesus, yeah,” Eiffel muttered. He reached out and found his drink on the floor, then took a long sip. It was bitter, and he was starting to remember how much he hated the taste.

Minkowski wasn’t saying anything, just staring at him with an uncharacteristic leer. He made a face at her, and then spoke again without really processing it. “I don’t know. I need her in my life, Minkowski, but I’m not sure if I can handle being…” He fiddled with his drink for a moment, feeling the blush creeping up his neck again. “ Attracted to her like this, and still friends. Does that make any sense?” He didn’t give her any time to answer. “It’s like, maybe I keep waiting for her to realize how I feel, so I don’t have to say it. It’s- it’s torture.”

Minkowski was still silent, her gaze a little wistful now as she stared right past his head. Eiffel didn’t mind, though. He actually preferred her letting him speak for once. “I wanna do all these couple things with her. I want to go out on dates, and buy her things, and, yeah, I wanna kiss her!” He said the last part like it was something revolutionary, his voice going up a few decibels.

He looked back down at his drink. “I just don’t know if she … she wants me to. But I really do. I want her to be my girlfriend, and stuff.” He was so eloquent when he was drunk.

Minkowski stared past him for another moment, then her eyes seemed to refocus on him. She opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again. “Well, have you always felt like this?”

Eiffel shook his head. “No, no, I haven’t. It’s like, we’re best friends, and that’s one thing. But this is different. It’s … new…”

But even as he was saying the words, he was beginning to wonder if they were true or not. He tried to think back to some of his critical memories with Hera, but his memory refused to cooperate. Trying to have any sort of thought right now was like wading through a thick swamp, but he fought onwards.

He’d always loved Hera, in one way or another. When they had those sleepovers, or nights on the town, or dinners at some fast-food place, all Eiffel ever really felt was love. And he felt loved. But it hadn’t ever been like this before.

And then something hit him hard through the fog of alcohol. Love wasn’t just wanting to hold someone’s hand or be around them all the time. It was in small things, like giving them a ride home through some of the worst traffic in the world, or noticing specific changes in their face when they were about to tell a bad lie. He felt that way about Minkowski, for instance, and Lovelace, too, but with Hera, it had always been a little different, like a quiet buzzing sound hidden somewhere in his head. It was the sort of different that wasn’t apparent on the surface, but after seven drinks, it was starting to click into place.

“I don’t know,” he said aloud, running a shaky hand through his hair. “Yeah, I … I’ve always loved her. We’ve been best friends for years. Maybe it’s always been a little more than that, for me.”

Minkowski raised her eyebrows at him, but again, she didn’t look too surprised. Eiffel collapsed back against her bed. I thought you went from a crush to love, he thought miserably, not the other way around.

God, how had he not realized sooner how infatuated he was?

Sometimes he felt like a switch had been flipped in his head on the night of that party last October. Until now, he’d been imagining it had flipped from a state of no feelings at all into high-gear attraction, but maybe it was different. Maybe it had just gone from something latent, something he’d never considered because he hadn’t ever really thought about it, to a real desire.

“Jesus Christ, Minkowski,” Eiffel muttered into his hands. “What am I gonna do?” He felt all over the place. He really wished he wasn’t drunk.

“Well,” Minkowski started. He heard the sound of her moving around on the carpet, and when she spoke again, she was right next to him. “You should tell her, obviously. It’s going to be Valentine’s Day in less than two weeks.”

Eiffel actually laughed. He pulled his hands away from his face and turned to look at her, the light from her lamp illuminating the right side of her face. She wasn’t laughing. “Oh my god. You’re serious?”

"Yes, Eiffel!” She reached up and gave him an awkward pat on the shoulder. “Trust me, nobody can stand this … opposite-of-flirting thing you’re doing anymore.”

“Hey!”

Minkowski held her hands out, palms up. “Listen, you gave me advice, now I’m giving you some. Tell her. On. Valentine’s Day.”

Absolutely not, Eiffel thought, but his mouth said, “Fine.”

“Okay,” she nodded once and got to her feet, wavering. For a moment, it looked like she was going to crash down on her bed, but then she righted herself and stepped over to her desk. “Now, I’m writing this down so we remember. No getting out of this one.”

Terrific. Eiffel took another long drink from his beer.

-

One drink later:

“Renée?” Eiffel said around a mouthful of blanket. It occurred to him, a few seconds too late, that she probably couldn’t understand him with his voice muffled like that. He turned his head to the side. “Mincow - uh, Minkovski?”

“Mmm?” Came the reply from somewhere to his left.

Eiffel squinted towards where the voice had come from and picked out her silhouette in the now-complete darkness. The lamp was off, and it had to be anywhere from three to four A.M.

“I love you,” he said, meaning it.

“Eiffel.” She shifted around somewhere in the darkness, and he thought he could feel her eyes on him. “You jus’ spent the last thirty minutes telling me about how in love you are with Hera.” Her speech was slurred and sleepy, so it took Eiffel an extra few seconds to process what it was, exactly, that she was saying to him.

He shook his head. “Not like that. I mean, we’re friends. You’re my friend, Minkowski.” He rolled over on his back and stared up at her ceiling. There were no stars up there, but that was perfectly fine. “Friends are important, too.”

“Okay, Eiffel,” she laughed. There was a pause, then, “I love you, too.”

“So, do I get a bedtime story, or what?”

She laughed again, louder this time, but it was half-muffled by her pillow. “Once upon a time, you and I went to sleep, and hopefully didn’t have any classes in the morning. The end.”

“Good story,” he mumbled, his eyes slowly drifting shut.

A long silence. Eiffel was almost certain he’d fallen into a dreamless sleep, the dark world behind his eyelids giving way to complete nothingness, until he heard Minkowski’s voice again. “Goodnight, Doug,” she was saying.

“Goodnight, Renée,” he replied, and then he really did sleep.

Chapter Text

On the Saturday before Valentine’s Day, Eiffel was broadcasting to the entire student body again. This was nothing new.

He had been playing more and more music lately instead of talking, since he was more than a little afraid he’d let something slip about Hera and ruin the entire facade. Hurtfully, he hadn’t received any complaints yet, but he wouldn’t let that get him down.

As the ending of a Blink-182 song faded out, he leaned forward to unmute the microphone. “Well, everyone, that was ‘What’s My Age Again,’ another masterful hit from the late and great Blink-182. Actually, wait, are they still together? I should probably look that up.”

It was just radio show chatter, something he was sort of good at. His job in this booth was essentially just to say his thoughts, and man, he had a lot of thoughts. It was the perfect thing for him to be doing.

Hera had talked him into signing up for a slot for it last year. They had been out on a walk, getting the lay of the land on campus, when they’d come across one of the communal bulletin board-esque obelisks, looking more like monuments to a forgotten god than a place for students to post flyers (they were just beginning to pick up on the fact that Goddard was weird). Hera had stopped by one for the radio station and excitedly set about convincing Eiffel it was a good idea.

He’d actually been reluctant to do it, a fact which he now found baffling. He loved doing the broadcasts - an entire student body was subject to him talking for an hour, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop him. Plus, he got to play songs that he liked. College radio, one of his fellow broadcasters had told him once, was one of the last bastions of good music in the world. He was starting to believe it was true.

Eiffel’s eyes strayed down to the notepad he’d begun to doodle on while he broadcasted - just small, black-ink drawings of whatever he was thinking about or saying into the mic. He wasn’t a good artist at all. Page after page of mid-show doodles amounted to little more than dinosaurs with three legs, stick-figure self-portraits, and the occasional cluster of hearts in one of the corners.

Valentine’s Day, he remembered, staring down at one of the larger hearts he’d drawn without realizing. That’ll be in just a few days. And Minkowski fully intends to make me tell Hera then.

He looked back up at the microphone, startled by the realization that he’d been broadcasting dead air for about twenty seconds straight. “Uh, sorry about that, dear listeners,” he muttered, hurriedly flipping through his music library for another song. “Got distracted for a second. Here’s ‘The Middle’ by Jimmy Eat World.”

He switched his audio off as the guitar started up, slumping back in his chair with enough force that it went rolling backwards across the booth. It stopped when it hit a cabinet, and Eiffel leaned his head back against the stack of records on top of it with a sigh.

He would have to tell Hera soon. Just the thought of it made his stomach start to turn. He closed his eyes, hoping it would stop, trying to focus on the sound of 2000s rock and the sweet hum of the broadcasting equipment around him.

He’d tried to bring Hera in for a show, once. Well, maybe more than once, but she always ended up refusing. He’d been confused about it for a long time - how could anyone not want to talk to the entire student body all at once?

And finally, he’d asked.

“I just don’t get it. The show’s awesome, Hera, and people would totally love you!” Eiffel said through a mouthful of dining-hall burger, which tasted about as bad as he’d expected.

She paused and set her fork down on her plate, giving him a look. He was oblivious as to what it meant. “What?” he frowned.

“People wouldn’t ‘love m-me’, Doug.” she intoned, raising her eyebrows. Eiffel got the feeling he was missing some hidden meaning here.

“What?” He laughed. “You’re kidding. You’d probably pick out better ending songs than I do, and we both know you’re hilarious. …Is it just,” he gestured dangerously with a knife, “stage fright? Cause once you get up there, it’s actually rea-”

“No, Doug.” Her voice was lower now, more severe. Eiffel stopped and shut his mouth, wondering what it was he had said.

Hera sighed. “It’s th-the stutter,” she said, so quietly he had to lean in to hear her over the noise of the dining hall. “People would hate it.”

“What?! No, Hera, you’d be fine. It’s really not as noticeable as you th-”

“It is,” she hissed, her eyes flashing at him. “It is, Doug. D-do you know how relentlessly I was bullied in Florida for th-this?” She gestured to herself. Eiffel’s heart sank. “It’s one of the r-reasons all of my friends before you were just my mom’s work c-colleagues. You know about this.” 

Her eyes softened a little after the words were out, and she leaned back in her chair. She folded her arms together and looked away, sighing. “I j-just can’t take people laughing at me like that again.”

Eiffel stared at her for a long time. She was right - he had known about how people treated her before she moved, and even when she was in Boston. Eiffel had had to make his fair share of empty threats towards some assholes in high school, and once got punched in the jaw for it. There was no way he’d be forgetting that any time soon.

But he’d thought … Goddard was like a new start. People here didn’t laugh at Hera, as far as he knew. And his audience definitely wouldn’t make fun of her.

He could see now, though, as Hera poked quietly at her food, that it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t that easy to get over something that had been pounded into your head since you were old enough to talk. He knew that as well as anyone, but it hadn’t really clicked for this until now. He was too used to Hera, he supposed, that it didn’t ever occur to him that people could find her stutter weird or out of place.

“Alright,” he conceded, holding his hands up. “You’re right. I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you. …And nobody should have said that stuff,” he added, a bit awkwardly. He paused for a moment, glancing around the dining hall, and then leaned forward. “But you know none of us think that, right? Honestly. Nobody in Hephaestus is that shallow.”

“I know,” Hera said, with a small smile. “Th-thank you.” She looked up at him, her smile widening. “I think I prefer listening t-to you talk, anyways.”

“Well, thanks, sweetheart.”

They both went back to their food, but Eiffel knew that it wasn’t going to be that simple. One day, he’d convince Hera to come in for a show. And people really would love her.

And even if they didn’t, who cared? College students were fucking idiots, anyway.

The ending of the song faded out as Eiffel pulled himself forward to the microphone. He thought of Hera’s face in the dining hall, angry, but not at him. He thought about her coming to greet him after every show he’d done, to pick him up and walk him back to Hephaestus. He thought about how much he cared about her.

“Hera, are you there?” he asked the microphone, addressing the audience of one he knew was listening. That’s what this was. It was a one-way phone call between the two of them, with occasional listeners dropping in to hear a song or two. It was never really so much a show as it was something they both enjoyed because of each other - and maybe that was why he liked doing it so much. And he knew the answer to his question was yes, and that fact alone was making him restless.

He tapped a foot anxiously underneath the desk. He could just say it now, and it would have the same effect as if he was asking her in a quiet room, alone. He just wouldn’t have to see her face when she rebuffed him, and he’d have a good twenty more minutes before he had to confront her about it at all. It would be so easy to just do it, in theory, but the words wouldn't come out.

“Uh,” he managed, clearing his throat with a loud cough. “Well, here’s ‘American Idiot’ by Green Day.”

He pressed a few buttons and wheeled himself backwards in the chair, covering his face with his hands. His tongue was heavy with the weight of words left unsaid, words about how she made him feel like he was floating and coming home after a long trip and tumbling head-first into a wall all at the same time.

Valentine’s Day, he reminded himself, and it felt like February was falling away from him.

Chapter Text

“Who are you?” Minkowski’s voice and face were filled with ferocity, her fists clenched in front of her. She actually seemed even more excited about this than Eiffel was. He imagined, for a moment, that he was in a fighting movie, and this was the scene where his mentor encouraged him while he punched at her open palms. He tried to hold onto that image for as long as he could, because it was certainly better than the reality: he couldn’t keep his hands from shaking, and his mouth had been dry since he woke up that morning. It was February fourteenth.

This is my moment, he told himself, trying as hard as he could to believe it. All he had to do was be honest about his feelings. Minkowski had reassured him over and over that nothing bad would come of it. He was inclined to believe her, because she was usually right about these things, but his brain had other plans. It would be panic or nothing at all.

Minkowski snapped her fingers sharply in front of his face. “Focus, Eiffel. Who are you?” she asked again.

“Douglas Eiffel,” he answered, almost robotically.

“What are you doing today?”

He forced a weak smile. “Asking out the girl of my dreams.”

“Too cheesy. Don’t say that to her,” Minkowski advised. “How is it going to go?”

“Well. It’ll go well.” Eiffel didn’t believe that for a second.

“Good.” She reached forward for his hand and pulled him to his feet - it was then that he remembered he’d been sitting on the couch, initially with his knees tucked against his chest, close to something like a panic attack about what was coming. He took a moment to be grateful he had Minkowski around to help.

She glanced at her watch. “Okay. It’s almost 3:10. She should be home any second now.” She looked him up and down, her expression inscrutable.

“What? Do I look alright?” Eiffel suddenly felt a little self-conscious. He took a moment to smooth out his shirt and run a hand through his hair. Presentable was the word he expected Minkowski to use.

“No, no. You look presentable.” There it was.

“Okay, Eiffel.” She reached up and put her hands on his shoulders, pulling him down a little so she could death-glare directly at him. “Do not get in your head about this. Be honest and forthcoming-”

He raised his eyebrows. “‘Forthcoming’?”

“-and she’ll take it well. Believe me. It won’t go as badly as you might expect. And please, god, don’t say anything too horribly cheesy.” She released him and sized him up one final time before offering him a quick nod. “You can do this,” she told him.

“Thanks, Min-” Eiffel started, but she was already bolting into the kitchen to lie in wait and eavesdrop.

Okay, Doug, this is no big deal. He shook out his hands and took a deep breath. Actually, what was he supposed to do with his hands during a love confession? Could he just put them in his pockets, or would that be too casual? Maybe he was supposed to cross his arms?

Focus, he heard Minkowski say in his head. Focus on not screwing it up. You can worry about the details later. Okay, he could do that. He was just going to say how he felt. But what was he supposed to do with his hands?

Before he could figure that out, though, there was the telltale creak of the front door opening down the hallway. He froze, his arms going stiff at his sides, his brain running a mile a minute. A thousand thoughts raced through his head - what if she says no what if she gets upset what if this is a mistake - and he seriously considered backing out.

Minkowski leaned through the kitchen doorway and shot him a thumbs-up. He held up a shaky hand and gave her a small wave. She mouthed don’t worry, then disappeared back into the kitchen right as Hera came in from the hallway.

“Hey, Doug,” she greeted, evidently unaware that he was shaking like a leaf in the wind. He tried his best not to look surprised and unballed his fists, wiping them off on his pants. By the time Hera looked up from taking off her shoes, he’d managed to plaster a smile on his face that he could only hope looked natural. “Happy Valentine’s D-Day,” she smiled.

“Hey, yeah!” Eiffel exclaimed, pretending it had only just occurred to him what day it was. “Happy Valentine’s.”

Hera started for the stairs with her bag, and he knew that this was it. He had to say something now, or he would be wasting this perfect chance.

This was a day specifically for romance. He couldn’t squander that because he was scared of a little rejection.

Eiffel took a long, deep breath, then stepped forward. He planted one hand on the couch armrest and leaned on it, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. He held the air in his lungs for as long as he could, afraid that if he tried to breathe again he’d find himself incapable.

“So,” he began, a bit too loudly. It had the intended effect, though - Hera paused and looked at him, her head inclined a little. She raised her eyebrows at him.

“Uh, Hera.” His voice was trembling. Could she tell? He really hoped she couldn’t tell. Minkowski had told him it would be easier to just ask her out right now and save the long soliloquy about his feelings for later. For now, a simple ‘I think you’re great, want to go out tonight?’ would do. Incidentally, that had been almost his exact plan a few days after Thanksgiving, but that one hadn’t turned out too well.

“I was wondering if you wanted to…” Her facial expression hadn’t changed, though one corner of her mouth was starting to turn up in a smile. That was a good sign, right? Or maybe she was about to start laughing at him for even attempting something like this. Oh, god, did she think he was an idiot for ever thinking he had a shot?

What was he doing with his other hand? He couldn’t tell.

His brain started to shut down again, suddenly seized by the idea that this would end up going wrong. No, it wasn’t a possibility, it was a certainty. He’d already ruined the entire thing.

Eiffel glanced towards the kitchen for guidance, but Minkowski was gone. He could imagine her grimacing just around the corner right now.

He became aware of the fact that he couldn’t do this at all. How could he have ever thought he could?

He coughed. “If you wanted to put the dishes into the dishwasher.” It was the first thing he could think of to salvage what he’d already begun to say. Hera’s almost-smile dropped, and he immediately regretted it. “We, uh, have a lot piling up in the sink.” Idiot. Idiot, idiot, idiot.

“Sure,” Hera said, lowering her eyebrows. She looked more confused than anything else, now. “I’ll do th-that later.”

“Awesome,” Eiffel smiled.

The second Hera turned away and headed up the stairs, he closed his eyes and stumbled back onto the couch. A loud groan escaped his throat. He wanted to sink into the couch, then through the floor, and never return to the Earth. But he thought that even the ground might reject him after that ludicrous display. He draped one arm over his eyes as footsteps approached.

“Just leave me here,” he told Minkowski. “Let me wallow. I can’t believe that just happened.”

“Neither can I,” she muttered, sounding just as disappointed as he was in himself.

“Okay, hey!” Eiffel sat up. “I can be upset with myself, but you don’t get to.” He collapsed back against the plaid upholstery and sighed, watching Minkowski watch him. “What?”

“Do the dishes, Eiffel? That was the best you could come up with?” A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“You weren’t the one doing it, okay?!” He blew out a long breath of air, letting his head loll back onto the couch. “Even if you were, you wouldn’t have been this stressed. I’m way out of her league, you’re at least…” Her eyebrows raised, and he grinned at her. “A little bit closer?”

“You’re hopeless.”

Eiffel shrugged. “It’s fine, Minkowski. I knew it would go this way. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks, you know.” He glanced over her shoulder. “Speaking of dogs, where’s Audrey?”

“Focus, Eiffel.” Minkowski joined him on the couch. Her posture was ramrod-straight, and she stared ahead at the blank TV with eyes as sharp as a knife. Eiffel could see the gears turning in her head, and thought for a moment that he should try and contribute to this plan of hers. But he couldn’t come up with anything. He hadn’t even wanted to go through with this in the first place - as unbearable as it was to have feelings for Hera, he still couldn’t stomach the thought of being upfront with her about it.

Sure, he was afraid of her reaction, but he was also terrified that she’d let him down easily. If she didn’t feel the same way, where was he supposed to go from there? What would he do with the feelings that coiled in his gut like a pack of hideous, biting snakes?

He shuddered and forced himself to look up at Minkowski. There was no use in dwelling on his situation any more than he already had. He just had to be real with Minkowski and tell her that he was perhaps too much of a pussy to pull this off. She’d laugh at him, but at least he wouldn’t have to go through another awful attempt at asking Hera out.

Just as he opened his mouth to tell her, Minkowski’s eyes widened and she leapt off the couch, almost frenzied. “I’ve got it!” she exclaimed, and raced into the kitchen.

Eiffel groaned and slumped back into the couch again. Great.

She returned with a rose in one hand and a sly smile on her face. “Okay. I don’t think even you could ruin giving a girl a rose on Valentine’s Day. Lovelace gave me a bunch, and you can have this one. I’m not giving you any more, so don’t waste it.” She pressed the stem into his hand.

He looked up at her, one eyebrow raised, as his fingers curled delicately around the stem (he was a little more than worried he might break it, somehow). “Lovelace gave you flowers … on Valentine’s Day?”

Then something very, very weird happened. It was a sight Eiffel had never, in his entire education at Goddard, expected to see. It was actually almost disturbingly out of place, so much so that it made him recoil.

Minkowski actually blushed.

“It’s none of your business,” she told him, holding eye contact as if she wasn’t actively burning up.

“Woah, woah, hang on,” Eiffel grinned. He stood, exercising the full advantage of the two inches he had on Minkowski, and thrust the rose towards her. “Is there something I should know about here, Minkowski? Is there something goin’ on?” She was staring just past him, stubbornly refusing to answer, so he raised his voice. “Are you and Lovela-”

She reached up in a flash and slapped her hand over his mouth. “Eiffel,” she growled, “if you continue that sentence I will personally see to it that you are kicked out of this household and subsequently expelled for stealing from the dining hall. I have the evidence, and I will not hesitate to use it. Am I making myself clear?”

It was more than a little terrifying. Eiffel had no doubt in his mind that if she could threaten to kill him without potentially facing expulsion, she’d do it, and he would be justifiably afraid of her making good on it.

Slowly, he nodded, and she removed her hand from his mouth. “Good.” Her face had returned to its usual, stony demeanor, and she pressed her lips into a straight line. “Again, not that it’s any of your business, but if I want you to know about my love life, I’ll tell you. Got it?”

“Got it,” Eiffel managed. He realized that he’d been clutching the stem of the rose far too tightly.

Minkowski’s threats had been so terrifying that for a moment, he’d almost forgotten about what she was putting him up to. Almost.

“Good. Now,” she gave him a light push toward the stairs, “go take care of your love life.”

“Aye, aye,” he mumbled, starting up the staircase.

He felt his legs begin to shake as he got closer and closer to Hera’s door, which was wide open, with light spilling out from it into the hallway. He clutched the rose in one hand like it was a lifeline, running a finger along a soft spot where one of the thorns had been removed. He wondered if Hera would appreciate that.

He was at her door before he realized it, and she was seated at her desk, turning her head to look at him. Her eyes darted to the rose, then up to his face.

Eiffel tried to remind himself of some of the things Minkowski had told him. Don’t get in your head about this. She won’t be upset with you. Honestly, Eiffel, I think she feels the same way.

He wasn’t sure if that one was completely true. God, he would love if it was, but it might have just been wishful thinking. Besides, it wasn’t like you could just strike up a conversation with one of your friends about whether or not they had feelings for you. That just wasn’t how things worked.

He realized he’d been standing in Hera’s doorway and hadn’t said anything yet. He took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. Well, everything.

Awkwardly, he leaned on the doorframe and managed, “Hey, you don’t actually have to do the dishes. Sorry I said that.”

She gave him an awkward smile. He only noticed then that she was wearing the necklace he’d given her for Christmas, the pebble still clasped inside of it. “Thanks. You know, you should probably do th-them now. Retribution for causing me emotional d-distress.”

“As you wish.” The rose was fragile in his hand. It felt like it would break if he held onto it for any longer, and Hera’s eyes kept flicking towards it, which definitely wasn’t helping things. Still, though, Eiffel kept his mouth shut, stubbornly unable to offer it to her. Come on, Doug, just say the words. It doesn’t have to be this difficult.

“What’s the r-rose for?” she finally asked, tilting her head towards it. “Secret admirer?”

“Oh, this?” He lifted it, raising his eyebrows as if he’d only just realized it was in his hand. “It’s, um…” ‘For you.’ Say it’s for her!

There it was again. A shiver of worry, maybe terror, from the top of his head down to where his feet kept him anchored, unfortunately, to the world. The ultimate fear that she would reject him, or worse. It was inescapable. And it was correct.

For the second time that day, Eiffel chickened out.

“I’m going to plant it,” he resolved. “Planting this rose. It needs to be, uh, rehomed.”

Hera gave him a suspicious look. “Where’d you g-get it?”

“Oh, just around.” He couldn’t tell her the truth, that Minkowski gave it to him - he didn’t want her getting the wrong idea, and he was essentially threatened into secrecy about where she’d gotten it from in the first place. Besides, even if he wanted to explain his way out of that, there would be the question of why Minkowski thought he needed a rose in the first place. That was a path he couldn’t go down.

“Alright!” he exclaimed, desperate not to prolong this awkward interaction. “I should go plant this, then. My very own rose garden.”

Hera smiled and turned back to her desk (it was a wonder that even her sort of dismissive half-smiles still made his heart race). “Do roses live through th-the winter?”

She was calling his bluff, but that was fine. Eiffel had been around long enough to know that playing dumb got you out of most predicaments like this one. “How should I know?” he grinned. He spent another moment lingering just inside her doorway, watching her face for any sign that she might ask him to stay, and then slipped back into the hall when none came.

He retreated back down the stairs with his head low. He could almost hear the sad piano music playing for him, mourning the loss of two chances in a row because he was too much of a coward.

The idea of a rejection shouldn’t have scared him as much as it did, but knowing that something was stupid to believe didn’t necessarily stop you from believing it. In fact, maybe that only made it more powerful. Emotions didn’t require evidence to be true.

Minkowski was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. Her small smile dropped when she saw he was still holding the flower, and she let out a frustrated groan. “You’re kidding.”

“Sorry, Minkowski.” Eiffel handed it back to her, hanging his head again. “I can’t do it.”

“Hey, Eiffel,” said a new voice, certainly not Minkowski’s, “are you familiar with the concept of ‘being a pussy’?”

He looked up and narrowed his eyes at Jacobi, who was leaning against the wall by the kitchen, a cup of yogurt in one hand. There was an overly satisfied smirk on his face. “Because you’re being a pussy right now.”

“Jacobi,” Minkowski sighed. “Please.”

That seemed to be enough for Jacobi, because he shrugged and returned his attention to his yogurt, but didn’t leave the room.

“Thanks, Minkowski,” Eiffel said, leaning back against the wall.

“He is right, though,” she told him. “You didn’t tell her. Why not?”

Eiffel stared back at her. She looked genuinely confused, like she couldn’t comprehend being unable to say something like that to someone. Because of course she couldn’t. She was take-charge, run-into-battle Minkowski, who held a leadership role in almost every group on campus she’d ever been involved with. Eiffel, on the other hand, was hardly ever upfront with people (at least, not in the ways they wanted him to be). He got his way, or he didn’t. Minkowski obviously wasn’t accustomed to that way of thinking - she’d told him as much when they were drinking last week.

Here, Eiffel was being faced with a concept entirely unfamiliar to him. He wanted something, and for once, he was actually willing to fight for it. But if that fighting involved pushing past his own fears, things got a little more complicated.

“I just couldn’t,” he sighed. “Maybe I am being a pussy, but if she says no, I don’t know what I’ll do. And I don’t wanna make things weird between us, so it’s better if I just don’t say anything at all.”

Minkowski’s mouth twisted into a frown, her brows still furrowed in disbelief. “I don’t think she’ll say no, Eiffel,” she said, almost gently.

“You don’t know that,” he muttered, though the thought that she might not made his stomach flip over.

“You’re right, I don’t,” Minkowski conceded. “But I have a hunch.”

Eiffel didn’t say anything to that. It was too dangerous to indulge the idea that Hera might feel the same way. He couldn’t risk emboldening himself too much and making a mistake he couldn’t fix with a few well-timed jokes.

Sure, he was playing it safe, but that was the only way that didn’t risk the feelings of everyone involved.

He shifted back against the wall, crossing his arms, and Minkowski sighed. “You know,” she said, her voice more abrasive now, “if you don’t tell her, I will.”

“What?!” Eiffel straightened up, alarmed. “No, you can’t do that.”

“We will,” Jacobi chimed in, pointing his spoon at Eiffel. “It’s pathetic to see you like this every day. We’d be putting you out of your misery.”

Eiffel shook his head violently. “No, no, no. Please, guys. If I’m going to do this, I need to do it on my own terms.”

They looked at him doubtfully.

He groaned. “I just need a little more time, okay?” he whispered, running a nervous hand through his hair. “I’ll tell her. I will. I just need time.”

Minkowski and Jacobi exchanged glances. Eiffel could see how little they trusted him to hold to that promise - honestly, he didn’t blame them.

“Okay,” Minkowski said. She nodded at Jacobi, then looked back at Eiffel, her eyes ablaze. “But if you haven’t done anything by summer, we’re stepping in.”

“Thank you,” he smiled. “Okay. By summer. I can tell her by summer.”

But he was already starting to doubt that, too.

Chapter Text

The library at Goddard - either the best or worst building on campus, depending on what type of person you asked - was silent. Of course, you’d expect a library to be silent, but Eiffel imagined that the silence at the Goddard library was the kind you’d find in the Library of Congress, or some place six thousand feet below the surface of the ocean. It was completely quiet around the clock, which made Eiffel the type of person who would tell you the library sucked.

He’d only been inside a handful of times before this, for research or use of a printer when other ones were broken or out of ink. Each time he’d tried to say even a word, someone had shushed him. It was infuriating.

But now, at eleven P.M. on a Tuesday night, the Goddard library could be as loud as he wanted it to. Nobody was around to tell him to shut up. The doors were left unlocked 24/7 for students who really needed that extra boost of studying, but the librarians were only around for about half of every day, and for once, no other students found it necessary to study here tonight.

Still, the place had an eerie energy to it, Eiffel thought as he turned the page in a textbook he was only pretending to read. Especially with nobody else around, and the moonlight casting faint shadows across the stacks of books and empty carrels, the library looked like a scene straight out of a period piece where someone ended up dead. It was a good thing this was one of the few buildings on campus nobody ever spread rumors about alleged hauntings.

“Doug.” Hera’s voice in his ear startled him out of his thoughts, and he turned to look at her. He must have looked pretty shocked, because a small laugh escaped her mouth before she could stop it. “Sorry,” she pointed at his textbook, “it’s just that you’ve been reading the same blank pages for t-ten minutes.”

Eiffel glanced down at his book. She was right - he was only in the first few pages of the book, where the publishers had put nothing but blank space for some unknown reason.

“It’s representative of everything I know about communications, Hera,” he whispered, leaning in a bit closer to her. She smiled. The air between them suddenly seemed like such a short distance, so easily closed if he had the courage.

Which he didn’t. After what had happened on Valentine’s Day, Eiffel was grateful she was still speaking to him, much less acting like he hadn’t been the most awkward human being on the planet a few days ago. Things were still normal between them, and if he couldn’t have the un-normal that he wanted, that was the next best thing.

He’d worried a little about that day since it happened. Well, a lot was probably a better way to put it. Had he been too obvious about how he felt? Honestly, if Minkowski knew, it was a wonder Hera hadn’t put the pieces together. She was usually so perceptive, finding details Eiffel’s mind skipped over entirely. Then, he had devolved into worse considerations - maybe she was aware and was pretending not to be because she didn’t feel the same way. Or maybe she found it weird. His skin crawled at the thought.

“Eiffel,” came Kepler’s smooth drawl from the end of the table. He looked up to find Kepler giving him a small smile, which had the opposite effect of Hera’s. It gave him goosebumps in the sense that he felt like he was about to be attacked, even though it seemed Kepler’s tyrannical hold had mostly thawed out after Eiffel and Minkowski’s drunken talk about him. Whether that had something to do with it, or if it was by pure chance, Eiffel would never be sure.

“Yes…?” Eiffel smiled back sheepishly.

“Are you neglecting your studying time?” Kepler, a mathematics major of some kind, had page upon page of calculations spread out in front of him and a graphing calculator in one hand. He was clearly taking this study group thing much more seriously than Eiffel.

“Well, you can’t really study communications, can you?” he tried, shutting his unread textbook. “It’s more of an art than anything.”

“You people would know about studying arts, wouldn’t you,” Jacobi mumbled under his breath, his head bent down towards his laptop screen.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Minkowski, ever the defender of her major, shot back.

Jacobi looked up and around at everyone as if he had forgotten they were there. “Oh, nothing. Just that you all tend to lean a little liberal-artsy.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with the arts,” Lovelace chimed in, pointing at him with a pen.

“I never said there was!” He shrugged and returned to his laptop. “Just that there’s a bit of a … difference in our thinking.”

Lovelace turned to the table and announced, “He’s saying we’re stupid.”

“I am not sa-”

“Jacobi, I’m not sure if you have any room to comment on intellect, here,” Maxwell said. Eiffel was a bit surprised at her addition - she had hardly spoken a word all evening, more focused on whatever the code was that reflected off the lenses of her glasses. She looked up from her computer, possibly for the first time that night, and raised her eyebrows at Jacobi. “Don’t you remember the kitchen incident?”

Jacobi flushed and looked back down at his papers. “Alright, whatever.”

“What’s the ‘k-kitchen incident’?” Hera asked, leaning over to Maxwell.

“No, we don’t have to talk about it,” Jacobi said quickly, but there was already a huge conspiratorial grin on Maxwell’s face. “Maxwell-”

“Daniel Jacobi almost burned down the Highland Hall fourth-floor kitchen trying to make toast in freshman year,” Maxwell crowed, smirking at him from across the table. Jacobi, for his part, fumed quietly, though he looked like he wanted to lunge forward and attack her. “We had to call emergency services in and everything. It turns out there’s a reason why they don’t let us have anything that produces heat in the dorms.”

Several pairs of eyes turned to look at Jacobi, who was silent and enraged, but not denying the accusation. Lovelace was the first to speak. “You … started a fire trying to make toast?”

“That was a private matter,” Jacobi said, barely recovering enough of his dignity to look up at Lovelace. “Whether or not it happened-”

“Which it did,” Maxwell interrupted.

“-is nobody’s business,” he finished, glaring across the table again.

Eiffel laughed, letting the sound fill the empty air of the library. It was cathartic. “Don’t worry, Jacobi. That only makes you more qualified to live in Hephaestus.” He leaned back in his chair and kicked up his shoes on the table (he didn’t miss Minkowski’s glare when he did). “Who could forget the numerous times Doctor Hilbert here has almost anthrax’d our air ducts?”

Hilbert, who until now had been silent at the next table over, looked up from his work and frowned. “Not anthrax, Eiffel,” he corrected, “ricin.”

“Oh, because that’s s-so much better,” Hera muttered.

“Where did you even get ricin?” Maxwell asked, twisting around in her seat to look at the doctor.

Hilbert ducked his head back down to his papers. “Some questions better left unanswered.”

Pressing that topic any further would certainly only lead to disaster, so everyone collectively dropped it. A few of the more studious among them looked back at their work, but for Eiffel, it was much too late for that. He’d been distracted from his attempt to even fake study, and there was no way he would be going back now.

“What other fun stories do we have, guys?” he asked the table at large, his eyes straying towards where Jacobi, Maxwell, and Kepler were sitting. “Anything good?” It was pretty transparently just a reason to keep everyone from studying (and, by extension, entertain himself), but it seemed to work when Kepler raised his eyes again.

“Dean Cutter and I went fishing once,” he said proudly, a hint of a glimmer in his eyes. It was the closest Eiffel had ever seen the man get to something like glee. “He caught a trout and gutted it with his bare hands. It was impressive.”

Minkowski’s eyes widened a little, but everyone else remained more or less unsurprised. That would probably only be the second weirdest rumor they would hear about Cutter that week. He was a weird guy, to say the least, and every part of him was shrouded in a mystery tied deeply to the school’s origins.

None of it had ever interested Eiffel, of course. He figured that was somebody else’s story to crack open.

“Bones and everything?” Jacobi asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Bones and everything,” Kepler repeated, his smile unfaltering. “Then he ate it.”

Hera, always a little morbidly curious, asked, “Raw?”

Kepler went as silent as the rest of the library. That gave Eiffel a bit of a shiver.

“Well,” Lovelace began, quickly moving on from the topic, “I’ve got a great story. You all know my old roommate, Sam?”

“Sam Lambert?” Jacobi asked suddenly. Lovelace glanced at him, eyes wide.

“Yeah. You know him?”

“Oh, I knew him, alright,” he grumbled. “Wish I hadn’t. He was the most annoying person to take classes with.”

Lovelace narrowed her eyes at him. “He was a genius, is what he was.”

“I thought you hated Sam, Lovelace,” Eiffel chimed in, more than a little confused by her sudden defensiveness of the guy. All he knew about Samuel Lambert was what Lovelace had said in stories - he was also a communications major, he was annoying, and Lovelace  ostensibly couldn’t stand him, though they were still in regular contact two years after he had graduated. Eiffel had always wondered what, exactly, bred that kind of dynamic.

“I do,” Lovelace said, sitting up a little straighter. “He was the worst. That’s the point of my story.” She cleared her throat. “One time, Sam and I had a fight so loud and explosive that Mace had to call in a mediator from the college to help sort things out. And then the mediator ended up getting involved, on my side, by the way, so we had to call in another.” There was a slightly wistful look in her eyes. “We both got put on Cutter’s version of house arrest for a week, and we weren’t allowed to talk to each other. I don’t even remember what the fight was about.”

She blinked, as if she’d suddenly remembered she was telling the story and not actually reliving it, and smiled at the rest of them. “Freshman year in Hephaestus was really fun.”

It was clear that Lovelace had a very different definition of ‘fun’ from the rest of them. Still, though, Eiffel laughed at her story, partially because it sounded like something that could happen to the modern-day residents of Hephaestus. He could see a fight between him and Minkowski like that one playing out someday.

“You and your roommates, Lovelace,” Minkowski commented, a fond smile on her face.

“Well, you know what they say,” Lovelace shrugged. “You can’t choose your family, but you can definitely choose your freshman year roommates.”

A ripple of laughter across the table, including, surprisingly, from Kepler. Eiffel wondered if the sentiment rang true for him, as well - he’d always seen the guy as something of a political pawn for the student government, just a future president with a weird smile and smooth words. But he was starting to realize that the former Urania members were just as close as he was with his roommates. Had they shared a group hug before winter break, Eiffel wondered? Did they fight regularly about who would pay for dinner out in town?

Hera, as always, seemed to be thinking something exactly along the same lines as Eiffel. She shifted a bit in her seat next to him, clearing her throat, and said, “You know, I’m r-really happy that you guys are my roommates. And my friends,” she added quickly. “I’ve n-never been that good at making friends, but you’re all very…” She seemed to be searching for the word, blushing a little under the stares of seven other people. “Easy to be friends with, I g-guess,” she finally settled on. She gave them all a weak smile, clearly a little embarrassed she’d said anything in the first place.

“Aw, Hera!” Eiffel was the first to speak, electing to save her from further public embarrassment. He reached over and pulled her into a side-hug. She laughed, and he shook her a little as his heart skipped a few beats. “We love you too.”

“Yeah,” Maxwell chimed in, a small smile on her face. “You’re all … not that bad, I guess.”

“Wow, Maxwell,” Jacobi said, his eyes wide with fake shock. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“It wasn’t about you, toaster reject,” she shot back.

“Break it up, kids,” Kepler deadpanned, and Eiffel had to hand it to him - he had a pretty good disappointed father impression. Maybe he should start acting on the side. Minkowski would love to have him in a production.

“Hera’s right,” Lovelace said. “We’re all a pretty nice group of roommates.”

“For the most part,” Minkowski added.

“For the most p-part,” Hera echoed, her chest shaking with laughter against Eiffel’s side.

He was very, very grateful he hadn’t started reading the textbook.

Chapter Text

Even on the lowest setting, the light from Eiffel’s phone screen was still harsh against his eyes, which kept threatening to drift shut and plunge him into sleep any second now. He kept forcing them back open to squint at his phone some more, though, avoiding the clock in the top left corner that told him it was currently almost one A.M.

He was curled up in his bed, his blankets bunched up tightly around him to keep in the heat. It was a cozy place to be in winter, your bed - all the blankets and pillows you could possibly want to keep you warm, even when your too-drafty room let in some of the chill from the night air outside. The warmth was probably part of the reason why he kept almost drifting off to sleep, but there was no way he was going to abandon it.

He didn’t particularly need to be up right now, but he was keeping himself awake anyways, for some unnecessarily torturous reason. The promise he’d made to Minkowski about confessing to Hera by the end of the year had been haunting him. That only gave him about two and a half months to just come out and say it, a timeframe he wasn’t sure he could work with. He could hear Minkowski berating him now - you’ve already had several months to do it, Eiffel - but that wasn’t going to keep him from regretting ever saying it in the first place. Why would he impose a limit on himself that he knew for a fact would only end up hurting him in the long run?

He sighed and rolled over to face his wall, still peering at his phone screen. He was flipping through his camera roll right now, looking at old pictures, as he tended to do when he felt conflicted like this. Right now, he was right at the end of their senior year. He stared at the picture of Hera, still clad in her graduation cap and gown, mid-laugh in a restaurant booth. She was laughing at something he’d said, Eiffel remembered with a rush of emotion, and her face was a little sunburnt after their long graduation in the afternoon heat. Her ice cream sat half-finished in front of her.

Hera would know what to do about this, he realized, a touch bitter about the idea. It was ironic that the one person he knew could help him with his girl troubles was the person who he could barely speak around. It stung a little, too, with the added layer that Hera was always the person he went to with his problems. Just not this.

He swiped to the next picture, from a few days after their graduation. They were at some party Eiffel had heard about on social media, at another rich kid’s house filled with drinks they shouldn’t have had. Eiffel was lifting the camera in the air, grinning; Hera looked as though she’d just barely noticed the phone in time for the picture, her eyes round with surprise. But she was still smiling - not because that was what you did in pictures, but because she was having a good time. Eiffel must have stared at that one for two minutes straight.

When he finally shook himself out of his stupor and swiped over to the next picture, he barely had enough time to register it (another at the party, with Hera unaware she was being photographed moving his drink closer to him) before the screen changed. He blinked a few times in surprise as the words he was reading processed in his head - Incoming Call. Hera.

He fumbled with the phone for a second, his heart suddenly racing as if he’d been caught doing something embarrassing. Which, in a way, he had been, but Hera had no way of knowing. Besides, there was no shame in reminiscing, or being nostalgic, or wishing badly that you could talk to someone about something…

Okay, Doug, come on. Focus. He sat up straight in bed, smoothing out his hair as if she was going to see his face. He took a breath, then slid the call icon to the side to accept the call.

“Hey, Hera.” He was surprised at how his voice sounded. It was abundantly clear that it was one A.M., and it occurred to him that he hadn’t spoken to anyone since dinner that night, which was a few hours ago by now.

“Doug!” Her voice, by beautiful contrast, was energetic and bright as if it was only three in the afternoon. In fact, Eiffel was almost convinced that he had somehow time traveled into the next day for a brief moment. “I have a … f-favor to ask you,” she said tentatively.

Eiffel straightened up. “Of course,” he said, maybe a bit too eagerly.

“Okay, well, you know I was g-going on that astronomy trip tonight. A few towns over, in Springfield,” she reminded him.

“Yeah.”

“The thing is…” There was the sound of shuffling on her end, and a quick huff of air. “Lovelace was supposed to p-pick me up afterwards, but she isn’t answering any of my c-calls or texts. I think she might be asleep.”

Eiffel let himself get his hopes up for a brief moment, hoping this was going where he thought it was. “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘oh.’” Hera sighed. “I r-really don’t wanna wake her up, but I d-don’t have the money for an Uber, so I was wondering if,” some more shuffling, “maybe you could call me one? I’ll pay you b-”

“Hera,” Eiffel scoffed, suddenly wide awake. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not gonna call you an Uber.”

There was a silence on the other end, filled only by the quietest static telling him she was still there. She knew he was joking around with her, and she was waiting for the punchline. He hoped there was a smile somewhere in that silence.

“I’ll come get you,” he decided, pulling himself out of bed. Precisely where he’d hoped this was going. Sometimes, things just needed a little push to get them where you wanted them to be.

“What? Doug, n-no, you don’t have t-”

“No, no,” Eiffel said, pressing his phone against his shoulder as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants from the floor. “I’ll come get you. I can beg for Lovelace’s forgiveness for taking her car uninvited tomorrow morning.”

“Are you sure? It’s k-kind of late…”

“Hera, really. I don’t mind at all.” It was romantic, driving someone home, right? It showed that you cared about their well-being, wanted them to get home safe and sound. It was the sort of rom-com thing that Eiffel had found himself actually appreciating over the past few months.

“Alright. Thanks, Doug.” Then, a little brighter, “You’d better g-get going. It’s freezing out here.”

“I’m going!” He lingered by his door for a moment, waiting to see if she had anything else to say before he stepped into the silent hallway. There was only the sound of the phone line, but neither of them pressed the end call button. Eiffel took the opportunity to just enjoy their shared silence for a moment. With everyone else in the house asleep, it felt like another moment that was only meant for the two of them. He pressed the phone more forcefully against his ear as though he might absorb every part of the call through the screen.

Another rustle and a quiet intake of breath on Hera’s end snapped him out of it. “Alright,” he said, pulling his phone away from his face. “I’m on my way. See you in twenty minutes, if I speed.”

“Drive safel-'' But Eiffel was already pressing the red button to hang up, a small smile on his face. He wouldn’t speed, obviously, but it was a little funny to hear Hera concerned that he would. A little reassuring, too.

He stole down the stairs, taking careful steps to avoid the boards he knew would creak when he stepped on them. Quiet chatter and the sound of virtual gunfire from Maxwell’s room told him that she and Jacobi were still up, but they were always awake into the early morning hours. Everyone else in the house had a somewhat normal sleep schedule, which could be both a blessing and a curse.

Lovelace kept her keys on a hook by the door in case her car was ever necessary - for emergencies only, she’d emphasized - while she wasn’t around to drive it. Eiffel and Minkowski both had their licenses, but Hera had never bothered herself with learning to drive, citing something about how she didn’t have the time or energy to do so. Not that Eiffel had ever minded driving her around, when he had a car.

But now he had to steal Lovelace’s. He was pretty sure she wouldn’t mind if he told her it was to pick up Hera, especially since it was supposed to be her job anyways. And, besides, Eiffel was a big believer in asking for forgiveness, not permission.

Lovelace’s keys were joined by Kepler’s on the hook next to it. They were easy to tell apart - she had several different brightly colored keychains, and he had one key and a remote starter. Eiffel picked up Lovelace’s keys, stepped into his tennis shoes, and slipped out the front door into the darkness of campus at one in the morning.

The moon and stars were both out tonight, which Eiffel figured made sense for the night of an astronomy trip. His mind started racing to come up with things to ask Hera about it. Were the stars any good? Did you see Jupiter again? The second one wasn’t so bad, but the first one made him want to take a vow of silence for the rest of his life.

He started Lovelace’s car and the engine coughed, irritated, as if it could tell the wrong person was in the driver’s seat. “Don’t be like that,” he told the dashboard as he pulled away from the curb, narrowly missing the trash cans parked out front. “I’m actually a better driver than Lovelace, you know.”

Campus disappeared quickly in the rearview mirror, and once Eiffel was sure the coast was clear, he accelerated down the street through town. He passed Diane’s, which looked eerily empty in the darkness, and Cowbell, then the park where he’d realized the truth behind his … physical symptoms, for lack of a better phrase. He set his mouth in a straight line and looked away as he passed it. How could he have been so naïve back then?

As the town receded behind him and gave way to trees and fields on either side of the road, Eiffel let his mind wander a little. He returned to the idea of the end-of-year deadline, which even now felt like it was closing in on him far too quickly. He had months to do something about it. It probably wouldn’t even be that difficult - a few beers, a little reckless abandon, and some time alone with Hera would do the trick. But that seemed cheap, almost a cop-out. This would have to be a real, completely honest confession, like in the movies.

He moved around a Prius making a left and accelerated again, still thinking. If he didn’t commit to actually doing something, Minkowski or Jacobi would end up doing it for him. There was no question about that. They had been making a promise, not a threat. Eiffel shuddered at the thought of Jacobi telling Hera how he felt. Worst-case scenario, he’d bring up some of the things Eiffel had told him at that New Year’s party. Stuff he could barely remember saying, but he knew would probably sound completely pathetic. Desperate, maybe.

He groaned, unwilling to consider the thought any further. The last thing I need is someone else doing this for me, especially not Jacobi. Minkowski would be better, but only marginally. No, this was something that would have to be on his own terms, for everyone’s sake. Maybe it was something he could do tonight.

No. It was one in the morning, and he was driving, and Hera would be tired and cold. Probably not the most ideal of circumstances. Then again, would he ever have ideal circumstances for a literal love confession?

All of this was a little too much to be thinking about while going fifty miles per hour. He reached over to the radio and turned it on.

Soft jazz music, low and upbeat, came floating out from the speakers. Eiffel raised his eyebrows and squinted at the display, finding it tuned to 90.2. The Goddard radio station.

He sat there for a moment, the jazz wafting over him, feeling pleasantly surprised by this. He was pretty sure none of Lovelace’s other friends were on the station - he would know by now if they were, or she would have told him. This could only mean that she listened to his broadcasts, or at least had at one point. Eiffel made a mental note to bring her a pastry from Diane’s sometime soon, for her kindness, and even though he wasn’t the biggest fan of jazz, he left it on as he drove into Springfield.

The observatory was hard to miss. Hera had spent the past week talking about it, and Eiffel remembered her saying it was in a Griffith Park. But even if he hadn’t known, he doubted he would have skipped over the round white dome that protruded over the tops of trees, visible almost the second you came into the town.

He pulled around into a parking lot near the observatory, squinting out into the darkness. It seemed like most of the other students had disappeared already. The car’s headlights swept around an SUV and illuminated someone standing on the curb - Hera, who looked tired but in a specific worn-out-after-a-day-at-the-carnival way. Of course looking at the stars for three hours had been that fun to her.

She raised a hand to shield her eyes and squinted at the car as Eiffel pulled up right in front of her, leaning over to turn off the radio. Recognition crossed her face and she sprang off the curb, smiling. She was pulling open the door and getting in the passenger’s seat before Eiffel had even parked the car.

“Woah,” he started to make a joke about safety, possibly as retribution for her comment about the speed limits, but she spoke over him before he could.

“It is freezing out th-there,” she said, her teeth chattering together. As Eiffel put the car in reverse, she held up her hands to the air vents to defrost them. “I thought a sweater would be g-good enough.”

He spared a glance over at her as he backed out of the space. Her face was flushed from the cold, and as she shuffled forward in her seat towards the vents, a streetlamp illuminated her for a brief second. He wondered if he’d accidentally picked up an angel instead of his best friend.

“Did Minkowski not tell you to plan ahead?” He grinned as he pulled out of the parking lot, setting his eyes forward on the road.

“She might have. I was a little t-too focused on the fun astronomy part, though.”

“Oh, hey,” Eiffel snapped his fingers, remembering the one good question he’d come up with to ask her, “did you get to see Jupiter again?”

She sighed, sounding disappointed. “No. We did g-get to see Uranus. That was pretty fun.”

He stifled a laugh. “What?” Hera asked.

“Nothing,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes trained on the road. If he looked over at her face now, he’d probably laugh dangerously hard for someone in the driver’s seat.

There was a silence. “Oh,” she said after a moment. “Ha, ha. Very funny, D-Doug.”

“I thought so!”

“Well, I had a good t-time. Even if I did have to freeze to d-death afterwards.” She shifted in her seat. Eiffel took note of the fact that she made no move to turn on the radio, a fact that he was content with as well. He wanted to keep talking to her, unaided by the dulcet tones of twentieth-century jazz.

“Good,” he said lamely. “That’s good.”

They drove in silence for a few miles, the dark road ahead illuminated only by their headlights spilling across the asphalt. There were no other cars around, and if there were, they never crossed paths with them. There weren’t even any streetlamps out here on the open road, just grass and trees on either side and the moon hanging watchfully overhead.

Eiffel tapped his fingers on the steering wheel nervously. He wanted to say something to her, maybe, to show that he cared about her. Well, she knew that already, of course, but maybe he just wanted to make a point of it. He struggled to come up with a tidbit of information relevant to her studies, something she’d told him in the past that was now buried deep in his memory. Had she ever told him anything about Uranus?

Luckily - no, more like providentially, it felt so monumental - Hera spoke before he could. “Thanks f-for driving me home.” It was quiet and sleepy, and sounded like she was speaking into the side of the car.

The heat on full blast didn’t help the sweat that broke out on Eiffel’s forehead. “Of course, Hera,” he said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He’d planned on a follow-up phrase after that, like any time or whatever you need, but nothing came out. It felt perfect where he’d left it, and it certainly got the sentiment across.

The rest of the drive home was quiet, save for the rumbling of tires over pavement and air rushing past the windows. Eiffel was surprised to find his head mostly blank, as though the monotonous driving was putting him into a trance that didn’t make him think about the girl in his passenger seat at all. He took advantage of it, slowing down to almost ten miles below the speed limit and taking his time dodging a few potholes.

At one point, a few miles away from home, he risked a glance to the side and found Hera leaning her head on the window, her eyes shut. Her mouth was open slightly, her face back to its normal complexion after warming up in the car, her hands resting quietly in her lap. Her chest rose and fell slowly, rhythmic and entrancing. Eiffel’s eyes returned reluctantly to the road.

As he drove onto Goddard’s campus, he slowed down almost to a crawl, taking extra care not to wake Hera now. He was thankful there was nobody out driving right now, since someone would have almost certainly honked at him for going too slowly and woken her up. But Eiffel took his time, taking the most leisurely left turn onto Leo Street in the history of mankind.

He pulled the car into place in front of Hephaestus, braking carefully. The engine turned off with a sigh as he pulled the keys out of the car and looked over at Hera.

She looked too deep in sleep for him to justify waking her up. It would have felt like a crime to disturb her now, he thought, after he’d taken such great pains to ensure she was undisturbed. The idea crossed his mind that he could just carry her inside, but the problems with that were that he was a) doubtful he had the strength and energy to pull that off, and b) afraid she’d wake up halfway up the stairs and startle him into dropping her. So, that was it for letting her sleep.

Eiffel wiped his sweaty palms off on the legs of his pants, then reached over and shook her gently by one shoulder. “Hera,” he whispered. “Her-aaa.”

She stirred, blinking a few times against the interior light of the car. “Oh,” she said softly as she seemed to remember where she was. “D-did I fall asleep?”

He withdrew his hand and gave her a small smile. “Good morning.”

“Sorry.” She stretched a little, her palms flattening against the roof of the car.

“Don’t be. Happens to the best of us.” His smile widened. “But you should probably get some sleep.”

She laughed, a sound like a chorus of bells. “You’re probably r-right.”

They sat there in the car for a moment, smiling at each other. Eiffel’s foot was still on the brake, but he couldn’t bring himself to move and ruin the moment. Instead, he just tried to focus on the important things - the shine of the light in her eyes, how her shoulder had felt under his hand. How he wanted to feel that every day. How easy it would be to just blurt it out right now.

And then the interior lighting turned off automatically with a click, tired of them waiting for too long. Hera’s face disappeared into almost-darkness, and she laughed a little.

“Sleep,” she repeated quietly. “Right.”

She got out of the car, hopping onto the curb before she leaned down and looked back in at him, her face half lit by a streetlamp. “Coming?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Eiffel said. He had forgotten he still had to leave the car, go inside, and collapse on his bed in his own room. “Yeah, I will. Just gonna … stay out here for a minute.”

Hera raised her eyebrows at him, but didn’t push him any further on it. “Alright,” she said. She paused, as if giving him the opportunity to say more, but nothing more came. “G-goodnight, Doug.”

“Night, Hera.” He watched as she shut the door behind her and walked through the front door, probably heading inside for the best sleep of her life.

Eiffel, meanwhile, fell back against Lovelace’s car seat. He rubbed one of her plastic keychains (a little heart, hilariously. Maybe Minkowski had gotten it for her) with his thumb and shut his eyes.

Two and a half months left, he reminded himself. It sounded a lot like a death sentence.

Chapter Text

It was eleven o’clock at night and Eiffel was beginning to settle into bed when Jacobi slammed his door open.

“Eiffel,” he said, at the same time Eiffel asked, “Jacobi?”

Eiffel blinked at him a few times, and gradually realized that he looked very different from the Jacobi he’d grown used to. This Jacobi was wearing all black, from the boots on his feet to the sweatband holding his hair back. There were two smears of war paint under his eyes. Eiffel raised his eyebrows at him. “What are you wearing…?”

“Tactical gear,” Jacobi said quickly. Then, without being invited in, he strode across the room and pulled the blinds shut on Eiffel’s window. “I need your help with something.”

“Okay.” Eiffel couldn’t help but feel that whatever he was going to say next couldn’t be good. And it definitely sounded like something he wouldn’t be able to do without getting out of bed.

Jacobi turned to him sharply, something dangerous glimmering in his eyes. “We’re going to pull a prank.” He glanced down at Eiffel’s clothing - a navy blue shirt, black sweatpants - and nodded once. “That’ll work. Come on.”

Eiffel’s eyebrows raised. “Uh, Jacobi, listen, I never object to a good prank, but maybe you could tell me what it is w- ah!” Jacobi had reached forward and wrenched his arm up, pulling him to his feet, and was now leading him out the door. “Ow, ow, ow, okay! I won’t ask questions if you let me go.”

He released his grip, turning back only once to give Eiffel a glare that said I am being completely serious about this. Eiffel shrugged back in a way he could only hope conveyed Okay, man. Jeez.

Jacobi led him down the stairs and into the living room, where the lights and the TV were on. The world outside the window was plunged into the same darkness of Jacobi’s clothing, and that’s when it began to click for Eiffel. Oh, god, he really is taking me outside.

Maxwell was sitting in an armchair, tapping away absently at her phone. Lovelace was watching the TV from the couch, but when Jacobi and Eiffel entered, she glanced up at them. “Oh, good,” she smiled, “Eiffel’s coming, too.”

“Lovelace?” Eiffel frowned at her. “What’s going on?”

She shrugged. “Beats me. But whatever it is will probably be better than staying inside all night, right, Jacobi?”

Jacobi smiled. “I don’t know, Lovelace. Do you find making history interesting?”

That got a little more of Eiffel’s attention. He couldn’t be sure if Jacobi was intentionally exaggerating or not; given how serious he was acting about this, though, it didn’t seem like he was.

“What sort of history?” Lovelace asked, reclining back into the couch. Eiffel decided to join her, keeping his arms crossed tightly so Jacobi knew he was still skeptical.

Jacobi cleared his throat loftily, commanding attention from everyone in the room. Maxwell looked up from her phone, and Jacobi glanced at her once before he began speaking. “Every March third,” he began, his voice noticeably changed to that of a storyteller’s, “Maxwell and I have a tradition.

“I’m sure you’re familiar with it. The first week of March is plagued by rumors, whispered tales, theories about what sick and twisted mind could ha-”

“He puts a watermelon on top of the clock tower every year,” Maxwell interrupted.

“Maxwell!” Jacobi turned and scowled at her, annoyed at having his spotlight stolen. She shrugged.

Eiffel’s mouth had fallen open the second she said ‘watermelon.’ “No way.”

He remembered all of the chatter about the watermelon speared on top of the clock tower’s spire last year. He’d gathered, then, that it had happened the year before as well, and nobody could figure out how it got up there or who had done it. There was an extensive investigation task force formed by the administration, but it seemed that nothing had ever come from it, even after the watermelon had long rotted and fallen to the ground below. It was such an absurd and harmless prank that it was part of Goddard history now, and everyone had been waiting in silent anticipation for the watermelon to appear this year.

And this whole time, the perpetrators had been living two houses down from Eiffel. It was unbelievable. “ You’re the watermelon bandit?” he asked, eyes wide as he stared at Jacobi and took in the tactical gear again. It all made sense now.

“We are,” Jacobi corrected him, gesturing to Maxwell. “And now, you will be too. Hang on.”

He turned and disappeared into the kitchen for a second. Eiffel glanced over at Lovelace, who looked equally surprised but a little less expressive about it. She caught his eye and raised her eyebrows back at him.

“The watermelon bandits, Lovelace,” he whispered. “They’ve been living in our house.”

Her mouth twisted into a wry smile. “We should ask them where they get the watermelons from.”

Just then, Jacobi returned from the kitchen. He was holding a large watermelon - the watermelon - in his arms, his hands placed firmly on either side of it. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he asked them, mostly rhetorically.

He gave them all a minute to admire it - Eiffel, particularly, felt like he was witnessing an ancient artifact be unveiled before his eyes - and then his demeanor turned serious again. “Tonight,” Jacobi said, staring ahead into the darkness beyond the window. “This watermelon goes directly on top of a spire on Keller Hall.”

There was a stunned silence for a moment. Eiffel blinked at Jacobi, puzzled. “But it goes on the clock tower.”

Jacobi shook his head. “They’ll be expecting the clock tower this year. Two years in a row is a pattern. They’ll have security, cameras that aren’t in the shittiest resolution you’ve ever seen. We have to relocate,” he looked straight at Eiffel and Lovelace like he was assigning them a very serious duty, which he was, “and that’s why we need your help.”

“Keller?” Lovelace frowned. “Don’t they lock the doors from the inside at night?”

“They do,” Maxwell nodded, “but Jacobi has a friend from Hermes who’s helping us out with that. The door that leads out the back will be propped open for us.” Lovelace nodded, seemingly satisfied.

Eiffel, however, wasn’t done with his questions. “How do you do it?” he blurted out, staring at Jacobi. “Is there some big Ocean’s Eleven conspiracy at work here? Do you use a crane? How does a watermelon get on top of the roof?”

Jacobi flashed a smile at him, stooping for a moment to pick up a backpack resting behind Maxwell’s armchair. “Well, you’ll find out soon, Eiffel.”

-

The back door of Keller was left open as promised, a sizable rock wedged between the door and the frame. Jacobi stepped up to it and pulled it open, gesturing inside for the three of them to head through. Eiffel was more than grateful for a way out of the cold as he stepped over the threshold.

The door shut behind him as he stepped forward, staring out at the inside of the hall in quiet awe. In the daytime, this open section of Keller served as a sort of gathering place for students, along with a café serving snacks and plush couches and chairs to recline on. People came here to get studying done if they didn’t like the quiet of the library, or met up with friends for a snack before heading into the woods to smoke. That combination meant that Keller was almost always full of people.

But right now, at midnight, the space was completely empty except for the four of them. The chairs and tables were pushed to the side so the floors could be cleaned, and the café was shuttered. Soft emergency lights glowed along the walls here and there, but the rest of the room was in complete darkness.

“Wow,” Eiffel whispered, half afraid that anything louder would immediately summon campus security to catch them in the act.

Jacobi didn’t appear to have the same fear. “Alright,” he said, clapping his hands together. He gestured with two fingers like he was leading an actual tactical team, indicating the stairs up to the dorms on the next couple of floors. “This way.”

Eiffel smiled and leaned towards Lovelace as they followed after Jacobi. “Next he’s gonna tell us to split up the gang,” he muttered, which earned him a stifled snort.

Jacobi glared back at them. Eiffel immediately looked away, feigning innocence, but Lovelace spoke. “No elevator, Jacobi?”

“No,” he said. “Stairs only. The elevator’s louder, more noticeable, and prone to discovery by other students. Besides, roof access will be in the stairwell, so we’re saving time.” He looked back up ahead as he pushed through the door into the stairs, holding it open for Maxwell before he stepped through.

Eiffel withstood the silence for about a minute before the weight of Jacobi’s backpack on his shoulders became too much to bear alone. He leaned forward. “Maxwell.”

“Eiffel,” she replied without looking back.

“Did he make you carry this stuff for the past two years?” He tugged at one of the straps on the backpack, which was beginning to dig a groove into his shoulder. “And - ugh, what’s in here, fifty pounds of concrete?”

“He did. But only because he doesn’t have the upper-body strength to do it himself,” she added in a low voice, with an inconspicuous glance back at Eiffel.

“And the backpack is full of our tools,” she answered. “And materials. Tools and materials. You’ll see.”

They rounded the fourth corner then, but instead of another flight of stairs, they were faced with a small red door in front of them. ROOF ACCESS, it read in white letters, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

“Oh, no,” Jacobi said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “We aren’t authorized. Guess we’ll have to turn around.” And he did turn around, but only to look straight at Eiffel and hold out his hand. “Bag, please.”

Eiffel was happy to hand over the bag, and even happier to see Jacobi’s arm buckle a little under its weight. At least I’m stronger than Jacobi.

“Here’s how this is gonna go,” Jacobi began, unzipping the backpack. The first thing he pulled out was a roll of duct tape, then a long neon-red cord in a coil. He got to work with the duct tape while he continued speaking, wrapping it around his ankles and then sticking a rolled-up piece on the bottom of each of his shoes. “We’ll do it in a conveyor belt line. I’ll go up there, Eiffel will go up with me, Lovelace will stand on the metal platform bit, and Maxwell will be our anchor inside.” Here, he handed Eiffel two of the rolled-up pieces of duct tape. When he stared back at Jacobi, utterly confused, Jacobi nodded towards his shoes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Keeps us attached to the roof.”

Eiffel only managed to blink at him in disbelief. He wasn’t afraid of heights, really, but duct tape? How was that supposed to keep them from falling off the roof?

Lovelace spoke for him, staring incredulously at Jacobi. “Your plan to keep yourselves from falling to your death is putting duct tape on your shoes…?”

“Oh, no, of course not,” Jacobi laughed. “That’s why we have this.” He held up the red cord, taking one end and wrapping it around his waist. As he tied it into a knot, he continued, “Maxwell holds onto this inside the building while I’m up on the roof. If I slip, that’s two failsafes.” In the dim yellowish lighting of the corridor, his indifferent expression looked almost proud of the plan.

“You’re insane.” This idea had only just dawned on Eiffel. He had no idea why he hadn’t realized it beforehand.

“Insane is so subjective, Eiffel. We prefer the term ‘living legend.’” Jacobi shot Maxwell a smile, then handed the rest of the cord to Eiffel. “Come on. We don’t have all night.”
With a healthy amount of reluctance, Eiffel placed the circles of duct tape on the rubber soles of his shoes, then wrapped the cord around his waist the way Jacobi had. He left a good amount of cord between him and Jacobi, hoping to remain as close to Lovelace as possible.

“Alright, Lovelace, you stand… here,” Jacobi directed, handing her a segment of the cord about ten feet away from Eiffel. “And Maxwell, you’ll anchor us and keep watch.”

“On it.” Maxwell smiled and took up her post by the red door, gripping the cord like it was a lifeline. Which, Eiffel realized with a chill, it was. Just not for her.

Jacobi reached into the backpack and pulled out the watermelon, which must have made up the bulk of the weight in the bag. He stepped up to the door and pushed it open with one elbow.

The immediate rush of cold air into the corridor almost knocked Eiffel over, and he realized that his legs had suddenly turned into jelly. He closed his eyes and tried his best not to think about the ground far below them.

Jacobi led them out onto a metal platform - like a fire escape, but without any ladders leading downwards - and stood there for a moment. He made eye contact with Eiffel and nodded once. Eiffel nodded back, hoping that it looked as confident as you should be when you were about to pull off the prank of the year.

Suddenly, Jacobi had one arm up on the edge of the roof (cone-shaped, tapering up to a spire where the watermelon would be speared) and was pulling himself up onto it. He swung a leg up and pulled the rest of his body onto the roof, in a move that probably would have looked much more graceful had he not been holding a watermelon in one arm.

Eiffel glanced nervously back at Lovelace, looking for some kind of reassurance that this whole thing wouldn’t go as catastrophically as possible. She held up the cord in her hands in response, which she was squeezing with a white-knuckled grip. “Don’t worry,” she told him, her voice loud in the quiet night around them. “You’ll be fine.”

Eiffel chose to believe her. He took a deep breath, then rushed forward and pulled himself up onto the roof behind Jacobi. The cord around his waist tightened, reminding him that Lovelace was holding onto it for dear life. The idea made him feel marginally better.

He stood, hearing the muffled sound of the duct tape on his shoes attaching to the roof. He was on the roof. He spared just a moment to glance around at the campus that sprawled beyond Keller Hall - the STEM building by the lake, the dorm hall where he’d met Jacobi, and somewhere off in the distance, Diane’s Diner. “Wow,” he breathed.

If he squinted a little into the trees, he could almost make out Hephaestus’s third floor towering over the other houses by it. The other half of its residents were probably asleep there right now. Eiffel wondered, in passing, what Hera would think if he told her about what he was doing right now.

Before he could lose focus on the prank, though, Jacobi hissed his name across the roof. “Eiffel, come here. I need you to lift the watermelon for me.”

Eiffel tore his eyes away from the campus - it looked a lot more beautiful up here, somehow - and headed up the roof towards Jacobi, his duct-taped shoes incredibly loud on the shingles. He started to get a little nervous as the roof sloped up towards the spire, so he looked back at Lovelace. She was talking to Maxwell about something, but still had the cord gripped firmly in her hands.

“Come on, Eiffel, before someone sees us,” Jacobi whispered.

“I’m coming,” Eiffel hissed, hurrying up towards the spire. “How are you not completely freaked out right now?”

“You do this for three years straight, the novelty sorta wears off.” He lifted up the watermelon towards the spire. “This thing is taller than I expected. I need you to lift it up there, and I’ll pull it down.”

“You’re letting me do the honors?” Eiffel widened his eyes in feigned surprise, though he was secretly a little pleased at the fact. It was just like Jacobi had said. He was part of history now.

“Shut up and lift the watermelon.” Jacobi shoved the fruit into Eiffel’s hands, then pointed emphatically up at the spire.

With little fanfare, Eiffel hoisted the watermelon up to the top of the spire. It was a little taller than he could reach, so he stood on his tip-toes, grimacing at the sound of duct tape coming off the roof. One well-placed gust of wind could send him tumbling to the ground right now, he realized with a sinking feeling in his chest.

Then Jacobi jumped up and placed both hands on the watermelon and pulled, letting gravity do most of the work for him, as if he was just dunking a basketball through a hoop. There was a squelching sound as the metal pierced through the flesh of the watermelon, and then it was done. They stood before one watermelon successfully impaled on top of Keller Hall.

Jacobi looked at Eiffel. Eiffel looked at Jacobi.

“Good work,” Jacobi smiled at him.

All at once, standing on top of Keller Hall with the cool night air washing over him, the sheer ridiculousness of what they had just done hit Eiffel. He broke out into howling, uncontrollable laughter, which only got more intense as he thought about what the student publications and Twitter posts would say tomorrow. He laughed at the fact that Jacobi and Maxwell had been the ones pulling this off for years, and he laughed at the notion that he was now a part of it as well. It was all insanely funny to him.

“Alright,” he said breathlessly as his laughter subsided. He caught a glimpse of Jacobi’s unwavering grin as he straightened up, taking one final look back at the watermelon. “Let’s go home before I lose any more trust in this duct tape.”

-

“Should we be worried at all?” Lovelace asked once they were settled back down in the Hephaestus living room, her hands wrapped around a mug of hot cocoa and Audrey curled up at her side. The clock on Eiffel’s phone had said it was 12:33 when he last checked, putting their total prank mission time at around twenty minutes total. Not too bad, as far as he was concerned. “I mean, don’t they have cameras in Keller?”

“Low-res,” Maxwell said. “And the lights were off downstairs, so the images of our faces won’t be that clear. The stairwell cameras might be a problem, but I can’t think of anywhere in the student handbook where it says watermelons on roofs are against the rules.”

“It could be breaking and entering,” Lovelace pointed out.

Jacobi turned away from the window to join the conversation. “Technically, we only entered, no breaking about it. But the great thing about being roommates with Warren Kepler, my friends,” here he exchanged mischievous glances with Maxwell, “is that you can get away with anything.”

“Anything?” Eiffel repeated.

“Anything,” Jacobi nodded. “But even if we do get caught, it won’t matter. We’ll be Goddard history for the rest of time. That’s what’s important.”

Eiffel looked just past Jacobi, out the window into the darkness. They didn’t have a view of Keller from here, but he could imagine what it looked like now.

His stomach growled, and he realized with disdain that he would kill for a slice of watermelon right now.

Chapter Text

“Alright, Eiffel, that’s enough,” Lovelace said, hitting the power button on the center console without looking up from the road. “You aren’t allowed on aux anymore.”

“What?! Why?” Eiffel leaned forward on the back of the passenger seat. Its current occupant, a very irate-looking Minkowski, pushed the seat forward in protest. “I thought you liked my music taste!”

“You have a perfectly fine music taste for the radio,” Lovelace told him, almost gently, as she picked up Minkowski’s phone from the cupholder and handed it to her. “Just not for a forty-minute drive.”

Eiffel pursed his lips, a little upset he couldn’t think of a good way to refute that argument. “Well, Minkowski’s just going to play the entire Wicked soundtrack.”

“Hey! My show tunes are preferable to another Simple Plan song,” Minkowski retorted. “And please, Eiffel, get off of my seat.”

He frowned and slumped backwards into the backseat, ignoring Hera’s quiet snickers from beside him. He sighed loudly for dramatic effect as Billy Flynn’s voice began belting out of the speakers.

This spring break (more of an extended weekend, really, but Goddard took some creative liberties with their wording) had been highly anticipated for Eiffel. He was looking forward to taking some time off from classes (which he really did attend, despite what some people would say) and work.

It got even better when Kepler gathered all of them into the living room last weekend and told them to pack their stuff for a night away.

“We’re going into the city,” he’d announced, his smile looking a little less like a robot’s impression of a person and more like an expression of genuine excitement for once. Come to think of it, Eiffel hadn’t noticed him and Minkowski fighting all that often anymore. Progress, he thought with a small smile.

“We are?” Minkowski asked, eyebrows raised.

“Oh, yeah. It’ll be our own little Hephaestus House field trip. A bonding exercise, if you will. Plus, a good way to lay low after that watermelon stunt.” Kepler winked at them. “All expenses paid, courtesy of Dean Cutter.”

“Uh,” Eiffel raised his hand, “which city, exactly?”

Kepler narrowed his eyes at him. “The city, Eiffel.” And it appeared that was the end of that line of questioning. “We need a little morale improvement around here, folks! I know midterms were terrible, but now we need to push through to the end of the year. No time for slacking off.”

“Sir, yes sir,” Jacobi commented dryly. “And, Kepler, if you don’t mind my asking, will fun be mandatory on this trip?”

“Good question, Mister Jacobi. Yes, fun will be mandatory. You will have fun, or you will be sent home, or we will leave you on a street corner with barely enough money for a bus ticket back.” Ah. There was the Kepler they knew. He grinned at them again. “Any other questions?”

There had been no further questioning. The Hephaestus residents knew not to look a gift horse in the mouth; they’d learned that lesson far too many times to forget it now.

So, half an hour ago, they’d set off in Lovelace and Kepler’s cars, bound north for the city. Hilbert had been entrusted, this one time, to take care of the house and Audrey, with the understanding that if he hurt either one he would have hell to pay (Maxwell, who herself had grown quite fond of the dog, threatened to have him blacklisted from every convention in the world that required a PhD as an entry requirement. That had seemed to do the trick).

Eiffel let his head loll against the window of the car, staring out at the trees that zoomed past on the right side of the highway. He had barely been into the city before - only to catch a flight or for a few day trips - but he was certain that he would have a good time there. The only thing better than not doing work in the comfort of Hephaestus House was not doing work on a sort-of vacation.

His eyes wandered over the interior of the car towards the other side of the backseat, where Hera sat. She was positioned similarly to him, staring out at the highway, but her window was rolled down. The wind rushed into the car and blew her hair back from her face, sending ripples through it like water, or maybe honey.

The sight tore his breath away. It was funny, sometimes: there were rare moments like this one where the sun would fall perfectly into her eyes, or she would lay down on the couch with a worn-out huff, and he would realize he was a complete idiot for not coming to his senses about her for so long. It had taken years, he thought as he stared at her waving hair in the wind, and he was a complete idiot for it.

The car turned sharply, and Eiffel leaned forward to look out of the windshield. Lovelace had taken the exit for the city, and over the tops of the trees, he glimpsed the blocky skyline where they would be shortly.

He grinned. “Where to first, Lovelace?”

She looked at him in the rearview mirror, her eyes crinkling with her wide smile. “You’ll see.”

-

“Are you serious?” Eiffel gaped up at the building they were standing in front of, made of all marble and glass. “This is- It’s-”

“We know, D-Doug. It’s just like Ferris Bueller's Day Off,” Hera consoled him, patting him on the shoulder. Then, as an aside to someone he wasn’t looking at, “I think we might have broken him this t-time.”

“Oh! Oh, we gotta do the scene,” he exclaimed, turning and grasping her by the shoulders. He shook her a little, and she smiled at him, pleased to share in his excitement. “You, me, and Minkowski. We have to stand in front of three paintings!”

“Eiffel,” Lovelace said, placing a hand on his arm and pulling him towards the entrance, “there will be more than three paintings, I promise.”

The inside of the building was cavernous, still all marble columns and gold tiling. Jacobi, Kepler, and Maxwell were standing together just inside, staring up at a painting of two men on what looked like a cliffside. As Lovelace broke away to speak to them, Eiffel took a moment to stare around at the interior, silently amazed by the collection housed here.

Someone was at his side. “They’re pretty beautiful paintings, right?” Minkowski asked.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much art in one place,” Eiffel admitted, taking a few steps down the hallway. He stopped in front of a watercolor painting of a woman with a fur coat on.

“Really? You’ve never been to an art museum before?”

“...No,” Eiffel looked at her and found her brow deeply furrowed at him. Hera had wandered off to the other side of the hallway, where she stared at a vase of flowers that may have been a sculpture. “Why? Am I supposed to go to them regularly?”

“No, it’s just…” Minkowski made a face at him. “Didn’t you live in Boston? They have art museums there, right?”

“Well, yeah. But I never went to any.” Feeling a bit out of his depth, culturally (a first for him), Eiffel took a few hasty steps down the hall and stopped in front of another painting. It was a collection of colorful smears of paint, each different color outlined in thick black marker.

“Modern art,” he remarked to Minkowski.

“I think it’s nice. Look, here’s a person,” she pointed, “and a, hm, maybe this is a lake…?”

“I would put that up in the living r-room,” Hera said suddenly. Eiffel turned to see that she had materialized behind them sometime in the past seconds.

There was a clever response to what she had said on the tip of his tongue, but it was just out of reach. Instead, he settled on, “Oh, now we have to take the picture!”

“The pi-? Oh, right,” Minkowski said, almost a little dejected. Eiffel chose to ignore her tone.

“Lovelace!” he shouted across the hallway, waving her over. A few other patrons looked up at him reproachfully, but he didn’t notice, focusing instead on pulling his phone out of his pocket.

“Eiffel, you can’t shout like that in an art museum,” Lovelace sighed as she drew closer to them. “What is it? Do you need your tick-” He shoved his phone into her hands. She blinked at it, then looked up at his eager face, and it slowly dawned on her. “Oh. Alright, I’ll do it.”

“Yes! Thank you, Lovelace.” He rushed back to the paintings. “Okay, okay, Hera, you stand on my left,” he directed her, pointing to an all-yellow painting of a man holding flowers. “And Minkowski, you’re in front of the fur coat lady. And I’ll stand here.” He stared ahead at the paint splatters. “Try to look like you’re really analyzing the art, guys. This picture we can put up in the living room.”

“Lovelace, take the pictures, please,” Minkowski said before he could continue on about the Ferris Bueller scene any longer.

“Aye, aye,” Lovelace replied, and then there was the loud click of a photo being taken.

Eiffel stared ahead at the color splatters, his arms at his sides. He wasn’t one to really make fun of modern art, since he was of the opinion that pretending to care about the meaning of art was more pretentious than putting a bunch of random colors on a canvas together. But as he pretended to be invested in the painting, pretended to look for a meaning in the entire spectrum of the rainbow and the black outlines between each color, he couldn’t find one.

But, it occurred to him, maybe that was the point. Maybe it didn’t matter what the art meant, because it didn’t need to mean anything. Maybe sometimes you could just mix up a bunch of colors and slap them around, and maybe the freedom to do that was actually the true meaning of art all alo-

“Eiffel!” Minkowski shook his shoulder violently. He blinked a few times and turned to look at her, his eyes probably wild. “Are you okay?”

“Uh,” he said, still reeling a little. “Yeah, I’m perfectly fine. Just … first time in an art museum.”

“They t-tend to have that effect on you,” Hera commented, taking Eiffel’s phone from Lovelace. “You s-see one Van Gogh and your entire worldview shifts.”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he said quietly, hoping that his worldview had shifted to one where he was a little better at finding meaning in art.

-

Eiffel set down his rolled-up print of the colorful painting on a picnic table, pausing for a moment to stretch his arms high above his head. They had walked about five blocks to this park, and his feet were already sore, which was unfortunate, since he expected there would be a lot more walking to do after this.

“Art museum, check,” Maxwell said, tapping away on her phone’s keyboard. “Alright. We can stop in this park for a little bit, then we’ll check out the planetarium and go to a nice restaurant.” She looked up at everyone over the rims of her glasses. “I hope you all brought suits.”

“Were we supposed to?” Hera asked, a touch nervously. Eiffel imagined what she would look like in a suit and immediately had to stop imagining it for the sake of his blood pressure.

“She’s joking,” Jacobi told her, then added, “I hope.”

“Cutter would never subsidize such a formal dinner,” Kepler said, taking his seat at the edge of the bench. “We’ll go somewhere nice, though. Steak and potatoes, anyone?”

“A steak sounds incredible,” Lovelace said. She was holding her own print, one which, if he wasn’t mistaken, Eiffel thought he’d seen Minkowski purchase for her. The secretive, barely concealed smile on Minkowski’s face confirmed his suspicions.

They sat silently on the picnic bench for a while, listening to the sounds of the city around them. Children were laughing nearby, taking full advantage of the early spring warmth to chase each other around on the grass. A few migratory birds had begun to return already, and the trees above were noisy with their calls. Someone was talking on their cell phone nearby about the stock market. It seemed intense.

Eiffel was just about to pull his phone out to check if he had any texts (who would be texting him, anyway? All of his friends were right here) when there was the clatter of metal on concrete from somewhere nearby. There was a brief pause, and then someone began to play a string instrument. A viola or violin of some kind, with cascading notes and what Eiffel was sure required years of dedicated training to perfect.

Next to him, Hera’s eyes lit up almost immediately, and she sat up straight. “Tchaikovsky?” It was more of an answer than a question.

“No, someone’s busking,” Jacobi said. Maxwell grinned across from him.

“They’re good,” Minkowski remarked.

Hera moved, getting up from the picnic bench, and Eiffel turned to look at her. She was looking right at him, as it turned out, and she held out a hand to him, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. “Do you wanna d-dance, Doug?”

Eiffel froze as much as he could without concerning the people around him, his eyes flicking from her hand, up to her face, then back down again. To dance with Hera. This was like one of the daydreams he’d played out twenty times before, lived out in the real world. In the city, on an unseasonably warm day, with people who they both cared about.

And yet, still, the words that came out of his mouth were, “Uh, I’m not good at dancing.”

Fucking idiot. At this rate, she could tell him that she was genuinely in love with him, and he’d still find a way to chicken out of it. How was he supposed to keep doing this?

Hera’s face dropped, and he immediately felt guilty. Her hand fell to her side.

“Don’t worry, Hera,” Lovelace said, and the bench creaked a little as she stood up. “I’ll dance with you.”

Her face lit up again, and before Eiffel could take back what he’d said, the two of them were walking away towards the music. He sighed, not bothering to hide the disappointment on his face, and turned back to the table.

Across from him, Minkowski’s face was completely straight. “That was terrible.”

“Thanks, Minkowski,” he mumbled. “I’m well aware.”

“Really, just awful,” Maxwell added.

“Pathetic,” Kepler said succinctly.

Eiffel sat up straight, scowling at the two of them. “Who told you guys?!”

The pair just looked at each other. Slowly, Eiffel’s eyes drifted towards Jacobi, who was wearing a smile that was only half apologetic. “Bastard.”

Jacobi shrugged. “That’ll teach you not to talk to strangers at parties.”

Eiffel groaned again, louder this time, and put his head down on the picnic table.

-

“Home sweet home,” Kepler declared, pushing the plastic keycard into the slot and hip-checking the door open. The rest of them clustered around the door to the hotel room to watch, rubbing half-asleep eyes and already taking off their shoes in preparation.

Kepler stepped inside first, and they filed in behind him, eyes roving across the room. And something very quickly became apparent.

“Alright, so…” Kepler turned back to them with a wide smile. It was the first time Eiffel had ever seen him look awkward. “Dean Cutter would only pay for one room and two beds. Which means some of you are going to have to sleep on the floor.” Noticeably you and not us.

There was a collective groan, and Kepler held up a hand. “I know, I know.”

“I have dibs on a bed!” Jacobi called out, rushing towards the bed by the window and tossing his bag onto it. “And I will not be sharing,” he declared, with a pointed look back at the group.

“He says, as if anyone would want to,” Maxwell retorted. She picked up her bag and crossed the room to the other side of Jacobi’s bed. “I will take the floor, because I’m not afraid of having no mattress.”

“Oh, well when you wake up with neck pain in the morning, I won’t be doing anything about it this time,” Jacobi fired back.

“Stop coming up with hypotheticals just so you can-”

“Minkowski and I will take this one,” Lovelace pointed at the second bed, seizing on the distraction before anyone else could claim it. Eiffel didn’t miss the way Minkowski’s expression immediately changed to something like alarm.

“Floor it is,” Eiffel muttered, mainly to himself. He was fine with that, though. He hadn’t really been looking forward to fighting about the privilege to have a mattress. Something nearly demonic in his head told him he could have offered to share with Hera.

He looked at the mirror across the room, spanning the length of the wall just above the beds, and his reflection blinked back at him. His hair was windblown after walking all over the city, and the sweater he had been wearing was wrapped around his waist, nearly completely undone. His feet hurt like hell. Suddenly, it dawned on him that he was a lot more tired than he’d thought.

Someone elbowed him gently, and he looked away from his reflection to find that everyone had scattered across the room except for Hera. “Looks like we have th-the floor,” she said, sounding neither particularly excited nor upset about it.

Eiffel looked up at the rest of the room, where their friends were bickering quietly or arranging pillows or (in Minkowski’s case) pulling out a toothbrush and crossing the room to the sink. It was a very small room for seven people to sleep in, but there was enough floor space for everyone without a bed.

“I guess we do,” he said, eyeing the empty space at the foot of Lovelace and Minkowski’s bed. “Does that look any good?” He pointed at it, realizing only after the fact that he’d automatically assumed Hera would want a spot next to him. Maybe it was instinct after several sleepovers on dingy carpets like this one with her. Maybe it wasn’t.

“Yeah. I d-don’t think we’ll get stepped on too much,” Hera said. Eiffel looked up at the mirror to avoid seeing her face directly, and there he found that she was smiling.

As they started to put down their bags by the end of the bed, Lovelace stripped a sheet off of the bed and handed it to Eiffel. “Here.”

“No pillows?” He frowned, doing his best to look like a kitten left out in the rain.

Lovelace gave him a look, but tossed him two decorative pillows from the bed. “Make sure you share.”

“Yeah, Doug,” Hera took one of the pillows from his arms, grinning at him, “m-make sure you share.”

“Alright, jeez!” He held up his hands defensively, dropping his pillow on the ground. “We only have the one sheet, so, you know. Don’t get too cold.”

“I might n-need your sweater,” Hera joked - at least, Eiffel thought it was a joke, and he hoped it was because it made his heartbeat stutter.

By the time they’d finally settled onto the floor (Eiffel with barely any of the sheet, preferring to let Hera have most of it anyways), it seemed everyone else had distributed their pillows and found spots on the floor. Eiffel had no idea where Kepler was, and suspected it was possible he’d gone to sleep in the bathtub. He imagined only Warren Kepler could decide something like that was a good idea.

“Goodnight,” Jacobi told everyone, a touch sarcastically, as he leaned over to turn off the light. “Don’t let the bed bugs bite. And sweet dreams, if you please.”

“Goodnight, Jacobi,” Lovelace growled, which seemed to shut him up. The light turned off with a click.

Eiffel laid there in silence and darkness for several minutes, knowing there was no possibility he was going to fall asleep right now. Even with how tired and sore he felt, he was still processing the fact that Hera was only a few feet away from him right now. It reminded him again of the sleepovers they’d had - on her floor, on his floor, in his car that one time with their jackets covering up the windows. How easy it used to be for him to be just inches away from her, and how complicated it was now. Before, he breathed easier when she was around, and now it constantly felt like he was an astronaut running out of oxygen.

“Hera,” he whispered, turning his head to the side. He could make out the beginnings and endings of her face in the darkness, but none of the middle part. “Hera, are you still awake?”

“I am,” she whispered back, but didn’t turn to look at him. Her hands were folded on top of her chest. “Are you?”

“I think so.” Eiffel stared at her for another moment. He recalled how she looked at the planetarium they’d visited, eyes aglow with excitement as pinpricks of light were projected across her face. He remembered the salmon she forced him to decide on at dinner, and how it had actually been pretty good.

“Hera,” he repeated, “I love you.”

The words felt nice in his mouth, and correct on paper, but they weren’t the right words. It was the wrong kind of I-love-you, the one that only implied friendship and nothing more. It was the one he’d been saying to her for years.

What he needed was the I-love-you that told someone you were friends plus a little more than that. The “I think about you all the time” I-love-you. The “please notice what I’ve been thinking without me telling you” I-love-you. The “I don’t know what you want, but if you asked me to I’d probably spend the rest of my life with you” I-love-you.

But right now it was just that. I love you, only as a friend.

“I love you t-too, Doug,” she replied sleepily, her words low and blending into one another. It was incredible to hear, but it still wasn’t the right kind.

Slowly at first, then all at once, Eiffel fell into a deep, Hera-less sleep on the floor of that hotel room in the city, listening to her slow, measured breathing right next to him.

Chapter Text

Two days after they got back from the city, disaster struck.

Eiffel had noticed the dry cough the evening before and chalked it up to allergies, a symptom of the coming spring as the air filled with pollen again. It didn’t feel too dire. He didn’t take any medicine, deciding he’d just ride it out for the next few days.

This had been, he realized as he awoke the morning afterwards, a mistake.

His throat felt scratchy, his sinuses clogged and his head heavy with some indeterminate weight. He tried to lift his head to look for a glass of water on his nightstand, but his body revolted against him almost immediately. His head swam as it sank back down onto his pillow.

Eiffel stared up at the white ceiling for a long time, uncomfortably aware of the fact that he had a body. “Shit,” he finally said, and it sounded distinctly stuffed-up.

Okay, so maybe he’d caught something in the city. It was probably just a cold - or, at least, he hoped it was. Anything more would probably give Hilbert an excuse to come and surveil him, and there was no telling what that guy would end up prescribing him. Eiffel shuddered at the thought, or maybe he was already getting cold flashes.

Almost on cue, he broke out into a coughing fit that sounded like death and then some. He sat up a little bit to make sure he didn’t choke on his own tongue or something, and immediately regretted the movement when the room began to spin around him. Were his colds always this awful? There was something clawing at the inside of his throat and he couldn’t stop coughing. He almost expected blood - tuberculosis, wouldn’t that be hilarious - but eventually the coughing subsided and none came. A very small victory.

Once he had steadied himself with a hand on the wall, Eiffel very slowly reached out his other hand to his nightstand. He groped around for a moment, unwilling to move his head or eyes in case it brought on another bout of motion sickness, until he grasped the cool rectangle of his phone. Cool as in much colder than he felt right now, though it usually never felt like that. Was he running a fever? Well, actually, obviously he was.

He wasn’t sure he could handle speaking to anyone right now, since it might just make him cough more, so he unlocked his phone and went straight to his texts. He considered who he trusted most with the information that he was sick. Not Jacobi or Maxwell. Lovelace might take her sweet time actually getting up here. And even through the brain fog, he knew that he was still hopelessly in love with Hera. She couldn’t see him like this.

He tapped on Minkowski’s name. It took a couple tries before he finally opened the text box.

Doug: minkowski

Doug: minkoeski i think im sock

Doug: skck

Doug: SICK

He blinked a few times at his messages and tried to focus a little harder on his keyboard. Was this a normal cold? He couldn’t tell. His arms were beginning to feel a little bit like jelly when Minkowski replied.

Minkowski: Are you actually sick or is this another time where you say you’re sick to get out of a prior commitment

He frowned.

Doug: minkowski pelase

Doug: im suffering here

Doug: i cant move. can u bring me cough medicinr

Doug: maybe some tea

Minkowski: Okay I believe you. I’ll send Hera up

Eiffel’s eyes went wide, which was the wrong decision because a sharp bolt of pain immediately shot through his head. He typed as quickly as he could, biting down on his lip to keep himself from yowling like an injured cat.

Doug: NO MINKWOSKI!

Doug: do NOT send hera please

Doug: the time for jokes is later. minkowski

Doug: minkowski answer

Minkowski: Too late

He stared at his phone screen in abject horror and began to wonder if maybe the light from the phone was making him hurt more. After a moment, he reached back over to his nightstand and set the phone down, resolving to stare back up at the ceiling where there was no evil virtual light.

A single cough escaped his throat, loud and concerning. He sank back down in his bed, almost shivering. That was a fever symptom, right? He couldn’t quite remember. Minkowski could probably tell him. He should have texted Minkowski, but the light from the phone hurt his eyes. Maybe all light hurt his eyes. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on something besides how sick he was.

A short time later - maybe seconds or half an hour, he couldn’t be sure - his door creaked open and he managed to open his eyes, squinting out at the figure who was peering in curiously at him. “Laugh it up,” he rasped. Speaking made his throat itch more, and before he could ask the person at the door what they wanted, he was devolving into another hacking fit again.

“Oh, wow,” Hera’s voice said, though he wasn’t sure if he saw her mouth move or not. She slipped into the room and closed the door behind her, skirting around the bed to stand next to his nightstand. She was holding a mug in one hand and a small plastic cup filled with too-bright liquid in another.

“Hera,” Eiffel said when the coughing had subsided, sitting up a little straighter. He ignored the way his head swam when he did, choosing to focus on the features of her face. Those were comforting and familiar, something to hold onto right now. His voice scratched as he spoke, “Hey, baby. Did,” he coughed again, “did Minkowski put you up to this?”

“Yes,” Hera said haltingly, though he couldn’t understand why. She set down the mug on his nightstand and leaned forward, placing the back of her hand on his forehead. Her hand was cool to the touch, and despite how cold he felt, Eiffel had to keep himself from leaning into it.

She pulled her hand away. “You’re d-definitely running a fever.” Eiffel frowned.

“Just a bit of a cough,” he lied.

“Uh-huh. And your other s-symptoms?” Eiffel suspected if she had glasses on, she’d be giving him a condescending look over the rims right now. Maybe she got that from Maxwell.

He scoffed. “When did you go back for your grad program, Doc Brown?”

“Mmm,” she said, pretending to note something down on a notepad. “Well, it c-can’t be that bad if you’re still referencing B-Back to the Future.”

Eiffel gave her a slow, easy smile, though he doubted he could give her any other kind of smile right now. He nodded towards the nightstand. “What’s in the mug?”

“T-tea. But not before you drink this.” She thrust the plastic cup towards him. It was one of those small medicine dosage cups, the kind that was always filled with the same neon-orange liquid that tasted so bitter it made you forget about coughing.

He sighed and took it from her. “It’s like the world’s worst shot,” he mumbled.

“Come on, Doug. You’ll feel less t-terrible after.”

Unfortunately, and as always, Hera was right. Eiffel took a deep breath for courage, then threw back the medicine. It tasted like rust and chemicals and sugar all at the same time, but it did soothe his throat a little bit. He was at least grateful for that.

Hera took the cup from him and handed him the mug - “C-careful, it’s hot,” she told him seriously - then sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at him. Studied him, actually.

“What?” he asked, between sips of the tea. In contrast to the medicine, it tasted natural and earthy. He considered asking Hera what flavor it was, but he knew that no matter what she said, it wouldn’t make any sense to him. He wasn’t big on tea.

Hera smiled. “Nothing.” She watched him for a few more moments, then added, “You just look awful.”

“Jeez, thanks, Hera.” Eiffel set down the tea on his nightstand and frowned at her. “You really know how to kick a guy when he’s down.” His pillow felt unnaturally soft. He was feeling a little less cold now.

“Sorry, sorry,” she laughed, holding up her hands. “I’m just a little c-concerned.” Her eyes flickered over his face again, something unreadable in her expression between her eyes and in the curves of her mouth. 

Eiffel felt drowsy. “You should probably g-get some more sleep,” she advised. It was like she could read his mind.

“You’d tell me if you could read my mind, right, Hera?” he asked. His hands missed the warmth of the mug of tea.

She laughed again, even though it was a serious question. “Sure, Doug. I’d t-tell you.”

Eiffel sank down into his pillow and gave her a small smile. The sun was filtering through his blinds, but the light felt less annoying now, more like a companion than anything. He felt warm and tired, like a small animal that had crawled into a cave in the middle of winter to sleep. It was a nice feeling. I should get sick more often, he thought. He certainly wouldn’t be opposed to more visits from Hera like this, though he suspected he’d feel incredibly self-conscious when he woke up with a clearer head. But she wasn’t judging him; at least, it didn’t seem like she was. She’d seen him at far worse than this and still stuck by him. How wonderful of a human being did she have to be?

“You’re lovely,” he mumbled. He was barely even aware he was saying the words (honestly, he thought he’d just thought them) until Hera reacted, her smile widening. If Eiffel had been at least ten percent more lucid, he would have backpedaled. But not here.

“Get some r-rest, Doug,” Hera said, standing up from the bed. He instantly missed her weight on the mattress, the indication that she was there with him. Sleep pulled temptingly at his eyelids.

Before he could drift off, though, Hera stepped over to his nightstand again. She paused there for long enough that Eiffel almost asked her if she needed anything from him, but just then she leaned down and kissed him on the forehead.

It was a small, short kiss, barely more than a brush of her lips against a spot right before his hairline. It was more of a symbol than anything, Eiffel figured, his heart nearly beating out of his chest. A signal that she cared about him, that she was sorry he was sick, that she hoped he would feel better soon. But it was a kiss nonetheless, a dreamlike one that almost made the world and Eiffel’s fever melt away entirely for a brief moment.

She straightened back up and gave him a small smile, one he barely saw through his rapidly closing eyes. If he felt better and had the courage, he would have gotten up and kissed her back the way he’d wanted to for months. But right now, he wasn’t in any sort of state to do so. He could barely even sort through his feelings and thoughts on what had just happened, much less conjure up a smile for her.

His fever was back. He wanted Hera to kiss him again. Did she mean it in a friend way or not? Where was she going? He wished she would stay.

And, with the afterimage of Hera’s face still burned behind his eyelids, Eiffel fell into a deep, fever-ridden sleep.

And he dreamt. Or maybe it wasn’t a dream, but a memory (the two concepts were very close to each other, anyways).

“Okay, wait,” Eiffel frowned, yanking his earbud out. “How could you say that about Weezer? Have you ever even seen a guitar, Hera?”

She frowned back. “I kn-know what a guitar is.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Hera pulled out her earbud with a sigh, leaning across the aisle to place it on his desk. Here in the very back of their English class, they could get away with just about anything during work time, provided Mrs. Simmons never decided she wanted to get up and walk around the room (which she never did). It wasn’t like they had anything better to be doing, anyways - Hera had already finished her essay, days in advance, and Eiffel was planning on writing it all in the night before the deadline.

The second semester always got tedious about halfway through, especially now that they were in eighth grade and due for high school in just a few months. Eiffel, in particular, didn’t really see a point in doing his work anymore. So he and Hera leapt on any chance to slack off, up to and including digging out his old, nearly broken earbuds and listening to the songs he had downloaded with her.

She was not taking very well to his music taste.

“Well, whatever.” Eiffel leaned back in his chair and folded his hands behind his head. “What do you even like? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you listen to music. Like, ever.”

Hera gave him a look he didn’t exactly understand. There was something calculating in her eyes, like she was trying to discern if he was worthy enough to hear whatever it was she had on her playlists. Eiffel glanced up to make sure their teacher was still at her desk, and when he looked back at Hera, she was holding out her hand to him.

“Earbuds,” she said, pointing at the cord he still had plugged into his phone.

Eiffel grinned at her. “Alright!” He pulled the connector out of the phone and handed it to her, putting the right earbud in his ear. “I’m excited. Finally, I get to hear what music you like. What will it be?” He asked himself as she scrolled through her phone. “The Beatles? Red Hot Chili Peppers? I heard Childish Gambino just released a-”

He was cut off by a sudden boom of string instruments playing dramatic chords in his right ear. He furrowed his brow at Hera, but she had the left earbud in peacefully, and she gave Eiffel an expectant smile as he looked up.

The string instruments continued, becoming more and more frantic and joined by lower notes that drawled on throughout the song. Eiffel held her gaze as it continued, waiting for an explanation of some kind. Was this classical music? Who the hell listened to classical music for fun?

“What is this?” He asked as the music lulled a little, then began to build again. Still, though, he didn’t take out the earbud. He was curious, maybe even enjoying it a little.

“Beethoven’s fifth in C m-minor,” Hera answered like she was reading it off an encyclopedia page. “Composed somewhere b-between 1804 and 1808.”

Eiffel blinked at her. “And you actually listen to this?”

“Of c-course I do. Beethoven is one of the best composers of all t-time.” As if to prove her point, the music exploded into a fantastical barrage of strings again, and she smiled. “I’ve been listening to classical m-music since I was, like, two m-months old.”

“That explains it,” Eiffel muttered.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

They spent the rest of the song in silence. Eiffel was still baffled as to how someone could listen to music like this regularly. There were no words, no punchy drum beats or guitar riffs. It didn’t make any sense - but then again, neither did a lot of things about Hera. He supposed he didn’t really mind.

The song ended with a few more dramatic notes that lead into absolute silence. Eiffel pulled out his half of the earbuds and stared down at it for a moment, as if it had betrayed him by playing the song.

“So?” Hera leaned forward. “What did you think?”

Eiffel frowned at the earbud, then at her. He did have to admit it was a good song, one he wanted to listen to again. Even if it was unlike anything he’d ever heard before.

“Play it again,” he told her.

Eiffel came back into a semblance of consciousness, treading right on the line between awake and asleep. He kept his eyes shut in case Hera was still there. At the thought of her, the kiss from earlier came rushing back - how long ago had that been? Had it even been real in the first place? Maybe he’d dreamt it up, and believed it to be real in actual fever-dream fashion.

He wanted to tell her about the memory. He wanted to remind her about Beethoven’s fifth, about how he knew it was still one of her favorite songs. How he thought it was cool and only a little dorky that she actually listened to classical music regularly. He wanted to tell her he ended each of his radio broadcasts with a classical song for a reason - it had always been for her, never his audience of people who came for the 2000s rock. She was the only audience member that really mattered, anyways.

Being around Hera, he’d realized over the past few months, was a lot like that memory. Like listening to Beethoven for the very first time. Her presence was musical in a way he couldn’t articulate - all he knew was that he wanted to hear the song over and over and over again. It was a wonder everyone didn’t fall in love with her.

The tea on his nightstand was probably cold by now.

Eiffel rolled over, feeling much too hot again, and buried his face into his pillow. His last thought before he fell back asleep was that he wished he was listening to Beethoven right now.

Chapter Text

It only took a day (and a few large doses of cough medicine) for Eiffel to be healthy enough to get up out of bed, his lightheadedness at least managed for the time and his fever broken. This meant, of course, that the validity of his sickness was almost immediately challenged by Jacobi, who accused him of trying to get out of playing Smash with them. Maxwell, by contrast, wore a mask over her nose and mouth and sanitized almost everything he touched.

After two days, his coughing had almost entirely disappeared, relegated to a few manageable dry fits every now and then. His head felt clearer, as well, and his thinking patterns were back to normal, more or less.

There was still one thing lingering in his mind, though. It wasn’t so much keeping him awake at night as it was a persistent undercurrent of thought, like a stream of water from a faucet he couldn’t shut off in the other room.

As he sat at his desk with his headphones on, staring out the window at the looming gray clouds above, Eiffel could not stop thinking about the kiss.

He still wasn’t entirely convinced it was real. He’d been in pretty bad shape, thinking that even the slightest beam of light might make him more sick and texting Minkowski the same way he drunk-texted. Fevers made you behave irrationally, he knew, not to mention the fact that he’d fallen asleep right afterwards. It was the line between reality and dreaming that he was wrestling with, unable to discern if she’d actually kissed him or not.

It had definitely felt real, at the very least. He wasn’t sure if his subconscious mind could have come up with something that realistic, since he’d never been kissed on the forehead before.

He stood up from the desk and crossed the floor to his window, pressing his head against the glass and looking up. The glass was cool on his face, something he figured would have been good for his fever a few days ago. The sky was full of rain clouds, several of them seeming to cluster right above campus with the promise of rain they hadn’t had in months. It had been snowfall after snowfall all winter, but now that it was finally March, things were looking up, weather-wise.

Thunder rumbled through the sky. Eiffel sort of wished he would run a fever so Hera would kiss him again.

God, he barely even flinched at thoughts like that anymore. Was this what love had done to him?

“I don’t even know who you are anymore,” he told himself, smiling against the windowpane.

A raindrop fell on the glass just outside, causing the tiniest vibration against his forehead. Then another.

Eiffel blinked, and suddenly the rain was truly pouring down outside, spattering against the window like it was targeting him specifically. He watched it spread dark circles across the asphalt below and coalesce in drops on Lovelace’s car windows. It was nice. Peaceful.

Well, it was peaceful for a little bit until footsteps came thundering up the stairs, almost louder than the actual thunder outside. He turned, eyebrows raised, just as they stopped outside his room and his door swung open.

Hera stood there, breathless, her eyes wide with excitement as they locked onto Eiffel’s face. She was wearing a T-shirt that used to be his, if he remembered correctly, especially since he could never picture her wearing a graphic tee on her own volition.

She was catching her breath, and right as he opened his mouth to ask what was so important she cut him off. “Rain!” she breathed, like she’d been living in a desert for the past twenty years. “It’s r-raining, Doug!”

“Yeah…” He furrowed his brows at her. “It tends to do that around here.”

“No, Doug.” She sounded a little frustrated, like he wasn’t understanding some deeper meaning to the whole thing. “It’s raining. It hasn’t rained m-months.” She took a few steps into his room, craning her neck around him to look out his window. “See?”

Eiffel glanced out the window with her, pressing his forehead up to the glass again. Sure enough, it was still raining. Cats and dogs, even. “Yep.”

She turned to look at him and he looked at her, both of their heads still leaning on the glass. Eiffel wondered if she felt the same beat of the raindrops against her hair, if her heartbeat was as fast as his was right now.

And then she smiled at him. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

Hera rolled her eyes, opening her mouth a little to demonstrate that she truly couldn’t believe him. Before he could get defensive, her hand shot out and grabbed his, pulling him out of his room and down the hallway.

“Woah, woah, woah! Hera, I can walk myself, you know.”

She ignored his protests. “You are going t-to enjoy the first rain of the year with me or I swear to g-god, Doug, I’ll n-never listen to another one of your shows.”

“Broadcasts,” he corrected her.

“Broadcasts,” she repeated, only a little spitefully.

She half-pulled, half-pushed him out of the front door and onto the porch. The concrete and the porch swing were somehow already damp, despite being covered by an awning. The rain pouring from the sky must have been drenching the entire campus. It was a sight to behold - Eiffel supposed he had a little more appreciation for Hera’s enthusiasm about it all.

Past him, Hera stepped off the porch and down the now-mended steps, which didn’t creak under her feet at all (this was a good thing, Eiffel told himself). She stood on the grass for a moment, letting the rain fall onto her head and down her hair in rivulets, the wet grass soaking her socks, then turned back to Eiffel.

“Come on,” she said, her tone equal parts encouragement and challenge. “The first r-rainfall.”

Eiffel leaned forward and peered up into the sky, more for theatrics than anything. Anyone could see that this downpour would soak you straight down to the bone. “You’re gonna get me sick again,” he protested as drops of rain fell into his face.

“You get sick from g-germs, Doug, not the rain.” At this, she reached forward and tugged insistently at his sleeve. He hesitated for just a second more, weighing the potential benefits (time spent with Hera) against the consequences (getting really wet). From there, it was sort of a no-brainer.

With a melodramatic, capitulating sigh, Eiffel stepped off of the porch and down into the grass with Hera. He hadn’t thought to run inside and put his shoes on, which he immediately regretted when his socks touched the wet ground. He shuddered at the feeling and tried to focus on the rain instead, tilting his face up to stare into the sky the way Hera was.

From the dark thunderclouds poured buckets worth of rainwater, drops spearing straight down to Earth with a vengeance. Hera was right - it was a nice sight to see after months of snow or nothing at all. A sign of the coming spring, plants brought back to life, and finally clear sidewalks on the way to class in the mornings. She’d had a point in bringing him out here.

The rain drummed on the asphalt in front of them, silencing the rest of the world for the moment. It was calming, in a way. He knew Hera sometimes slept with recordings of rain playing, but he’d never really seen the appeal until now.

He turned to look at Hera. The rain was hitting her eyes and pouring down her face, but she didn’t reach up to wipe any of it away. It soaked through the T-shirt that used to be his. She was still staring up into the clouds, her eyes searching the heavens for something. Eiffel wondered what it was.

It occurred to him that he should probably say something. Maybe a thank you for bringing me out here or something. Something nice that would show he cared about this moment and he was happy to share in the things that made her happy. People liked when you showed that you cared, right? Maybe I’m overthinking this.

Again, he found his mind wandering back to the kiss a few days ago. Then it went further past that, to their expedition out to the city. Hera lying next to him in the dark, falling asleep as he did. Her face at the planetarium, alive with excitement and stars. When they’d stopped at the park and she invited him to dance with her.

He froze. That was it.

He checked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was watching them from the house, then the street, and was relieved to find that they were entirely alone. He took a deep breath and steeled himself to speak.

“Um,” he started, and she broke her cloudgazing to look down at him, her eyes far-off and still searching. Eiffel let a smile spread across his face. “I think I owe you a dance.”

She stared at him blankly for a moment until recognition crossed her face. She grinned. “I th-think you do.”

“I don’t really know how to dance,” he warned her as he held out a hand. “I know, like, the end of Dirty Dancing, but-”

“It’s alright.” She reached out and took his hand, her fingers warm and buzzing with electricity in his palm. “N-neither do I.”

Eiffel laughed, throwing his head back and letting the raindrops fall into his face. He found that he didn’t care about the rain or his wet socks or his hair that would be damp for the rest of the day. What mattered right now was Hera, and he and the house and the grass and the rain all knew it.

They danced silently, partly because Eiffel wasn’t sure what to say and partly because he didn’t want to say anything. Dancing was better than speaking anyways, he figured.

They were two clumsy figures on the front lawn, more taking arrhythmic steps back and forth than doing anything that actually resembled dancing. They were smiling at each other the whole time, laughing when one of them stepped on the other’s toes. The rain streamed down their faces.

One of his hands was in Hera’s, and he knew that the other was supposed to rest on her side (far too many high school dances were spent observing the slow dances rather than actually being part of them). He couldn’t bring himself to move it there, though, especially not when her other hand wasn’t resting on his shoulder. So it hung awkwardly at his side for a moment, unsure of what to do with itself, until he stuffed it in one of his pockets.

Eventually, they found some sort of beat to their dancing, taking a step every second or so. The sound of the rain falling on the concrete kept time for them. This is a movie scene, Eiffel thought at one point. They were dancing, and it was just like in the movies.

He couldn’t help but marvel at Hera’s smiling face and the feeling of her warm hand in his. It felt like this was what people were made for, to dance badly in the first rainfall of the year after months of snow and slush. It seemed like the dance would never end, and they would both continue on stepping forward, backward, forward across the lawn for the rest of eternity. Eiffel thought he would be perfectly fine with that.

“Doug,” Hera finally said, after what felt like an eternity.

“Yeah?”

“It’s c-cold,” she admitted.

Eiffel grinned at her. “So you’re saying I was right.”

“I’m saying-”

“That I was right?”

“-that we should g-go inside,” she finished, glaring at him without the slightest falter in her smile.

He didn’t let his disappointment at the dance ending show on his face. It was probably for the better, anyway, considering that his heart had been thrumming way too fast and he was still recovering from a cold.

“Alright,” he shrugged. “But since it was your idea, you’re getting Minkowski’s space heater.”

“And you’re g-getting us towels.”

“Works for me.” He trailed behind her into the house, shaking out his hair on the porch like a wet dog. Getting dry was almost the last thing on his mind, though, as he held on tightly to the dance that ended too soon.

He hoped the rain was a sign of good things to come.

Chapter Text

“What does this thing do again?” Eiffel whispered, fiddling with the black box in his hands. It had several gray buttons on it that he didn’t understand yet, and an LCD display at the top with numbers he also didn’t understand. It was making a quiet, high beeping noise that wouldn’t shut off.

Hera looked up from the padlock she was attempting to pick and frowned at him. “G-give me that,” she said, taking it out of his hands. “We don’t n-need it yet.”

“Okay, but what does it do?”

“It d-detects EMF radiation.” At his confused look, she sighed and elaborated, “It tells you if there are ‘energy s-signatures’ nearby, or something. I’m n-not sure, Maxwell wasn’t too thorough about it.” She pressed a button on the side and shoved it into her pocket, the beeping suddenly cut off.

“Thank you, Hera,” Eiffel said smoothly, giving her a small nudge with his elbow.

She smiled fondly and turned back to the padlock, shaking her head. “Okay, Doug.”

He watched her work, deftly moving the lockpick back and forth inside the lock in some combination to pop it open (Eiffel had only ever picked locks in Skyrim, so he wasn’t exactly sure how it worked). It was impressive, he realized, that she knew how to just do that. Then again, a lot of things about Hera were impressive.

They’d been planning this expedition for the past week or so. It was Hera’s idea, but Eiffel had jumped at the opportunity to go ghost hunting with her - partially because he wanted to catch a real ghost, and partially because the clock was ticking on the time he had left to tell her how he felt. Exams were in early May, and then it would be summer break, so he really only had about a month left, give or take a few days, to do it.

He shifted nervously from foot to foot as his gaze lifted, away from Hera and up towards the sky. It was completely clouded over, though there was no lightning or cracks of thunder warning of an incoming storm. Even if there had been, it wouldn’t have mattered - they wouldn’t be outside for much longer, anyway.

There was a soft click from the padlock and a “Got it!” from Hera. Eiffel looked back down to find her holding the padlock triumphantly in a gloved hand, pausing to flash a grin at Eiffel before she dropped it in a patch of snow next to the gate. She spun the flashlight around in her hand and pointed it up at him. “R-ready to hunt some ghosts?”

“Hera,” he gasped, feigning offense that she would even ask, “I was born ready.”

Together, they pushed the metal gate open, cringing at the loud creak that rang out in the empty night air. They hesitated on the threshold for just a moment until Hera took the first step in.

“This is it,” she muttered under her breath, staring at the hatch below them. It was a square of metal, just big enough for a person to stand on, its edges covered in snow left over from the last snowfall. “This is r-really it.”

“We’re climbing down there?” Eiffel asked, pulling the gate shut behind him.

“Obviously. How did you think we’d get d-down there?”

“I don’t know, I kinda thought…” he trailed off, realizing how stupid it sounded. “Stairs, maybe…”

Hera stifled a laugh. “Hey!” Eiffel frowned, shifting the backpack he was wearing around on his back. It was full of probably-not-stolen equipment Maxwell had taken from the ghost hunting club for them, under strict rules that they couldn’t damage it in any way. And god, was it heavy. “You try carrying this stuff down a ladder.”

“You haven’t yet,” she pointed out.

“Okay, well I think I can make a guess abou-”

“Shh!” Hera flung out an arm to the side and it collided with Eiffel’s stomach. “Did you hear th-that?”

He strained his ears to listen above the sound of his racing heartbeat, trying to focus on whatever she wanted him to hear instead of the fact that her hand was on his diaphragm and affecting his ability to breathe. Not that he minded.

There it was, or there he thought it was - the sound of shoes on concrete somewhere in the distance, close enough for it to be concerning. Campus security.

They were too easily visible through the chain-link fence right now. If someone just looked around a few trees towards the hatch, they’d be caught red-handed and likely expelled. Plus, Eiffel wouldn’t have the chance to make his move.

Wide-eyed, he turned to Hera and motioned to her flashlight. She clicked it off, and for a moment the two of them just stared at each other, barely able to pick out each other’s silhouettes in the darkness. They were so close and the air around them was so silent that Eiffel could hear her panicked, adrenaline-filled breathing.

The sound of someone walking was getting closer, it seemed. Eiffel knew he had to think quickly here, and thankfully, he knew exactly what to do

“Pretend like you’re asleep,” he whispered in the lowest voice he could manage, so quiet that he was concerned Hera hadn’t heard him. Or maybe she was just staring at him in disbelief. But then her shadow moved, disturbing the other shadows around them as her head rested back against the fence.

Eiffel did the same, folding his arms across his chest, shutting his eyes, and staying perfectly still as the footsteps got closer and closer. As the seconds ticked by, he took deep breaths, reassuring himself that they wouldn’t be seen. Not from the sidewalk, and not in the dark, unless whoever was walking past had a flashlight. He was almost tempted to open his eyes to check, but he was half convinced that if he did, security would find them.

It seemed like forever until the footsteps began to recede, destined for some other, more important building that people might actually be breaking into. Keller Hall, maybe, Eiffel thought with a smile as he tentatively opened his eyes and looked around. There were no other shadows around except for him and Hera. They were safe.

“Thank god,” he breathed as Hera clicked her flashlight back on. Her brows were furrowed at him, and there was a deep canyon of a worry line between them. Eiffel smiled at her. “What? We dodged a bullet, right?”

“By p-pretending we were asleep? In a restricted area of campus, st-standing upright?” Well, when she put it like that, it didn’t sound so foolproof.

“But it worked.” Eiffel reached for his own flashlight and stepped over the hatch, reaching for the handle on the other side. “Come on. Don’t act like I didn’t just save our butts.”

She made a face at him as the hatch creaked open, a sound of metal on metal that made Eiffel think it probably hadn’t been opened in years. “You did,” she admitted, putting her foot on the first rung of the ladder. “Th-thanks.”

“Uh-huh. Now, let’s find some ghosts.”

After Hera had gone down the ladder, Eiffel lowered himself into the opening, holding his flashlight in his mouth as he descended. He was headed into the lowest part of campus, now. The belly of the beast, maybe, an abyss where nobody had legally been for decades.

He dropped from the ladder onto the floor and paused, staring out at what was illuminated by his and Hera’s flashlight beams. They were in the tunnels that ran underneath campus, connecting buildings to each other for easy transport. They were a relic of the early twentieth century, when the snow and lack of snowplows would make it impossible to walk between buildings, so students would travel underground. They were designed a bit forebodingly - all brick and mortar, like most of campus, and somehow colder than the outside. The two of them had entered through an auxiliary hatch, so the tunnel they were in was small and opened up onto one of the larger corridors. Eiffel blinked a few times at the sight.

Hera was the first to break the silence. “Wow,” she breathed, the word coming out in a puff of fog. “Can you b-believe it?”

“I can definitely believe there are ghosts down here,” Eiffel muttered. He took a few steps forward, his footsteps echoing in the tunnels around him, and peered around the corner. His flashlight lit up hundreds of feet of tunnel, which stopped abruptly at a stone staircase that disappeared into the darkness.

The tunnels had been closed back in the nineties, long after snowplows became commonplace and the tunnels became more of a hazard than anything. These days, they were mostly a thing of legend and the past. It was common for first-years to dare each other to sneak in, but as far as Eiffel knew, nobody had ever done it. Or, at least, nobody had done it and been caught.

There was a tug on the straps around his shoulders. Eiffel jumped, startled, halfway believing they’d already disturbed some long-forgotten ghost down here.

Hera’s laugh rang through the hall. “Quit m-moving,” she whispered, giving his backpack another pull. “I’m getting out the equipment.”

“Can you give me a warning next time?” Eiffel hissed. There was no response except for a loud zipper sound, and then the consistent beeping from the detector he’d been holding earlier.

“Alright,” Hera said. When he turned around to look at her, he found her holding a camera tightly in one hand and the EMF machine in the other, beeping quietly. There was a blinking red light shining back on her face. Eiffel felt a little flip in his stomach when he saw her eyes, lit up and eager but intent.

“Legend has it th-that Goddard’s casualties come down to the tunnels to haunt the c-campus after they’re gone,” she told the camera, wiggling her fingers a little for dramatic effect. “What were these p-poor students’ fates? Was Dean C-Cutter involved? Are they upset with the living world?”

A grin spread across Eiffel’s face. “Find out tonight on Goddard’s Spirit Files!” he declared, reaching forward and pulling the camera towards him. “Where we go into the tunnels to find out for ourselves: Are. Ghosts. Real?”

“Doug!” Hera pulled the camera back, smiling at him. “Maxwell wants me to make a serious d-documentary of this mission. The ghost hunting club is r-really intense about who they lend st-stuff out to.”

Eiffel laughed. “Please. We’re looking for ghosts, Hera, how serious can we be?”

He took a few steps backward into the larger tunnel, flipping his flashlight so it illuminated his face from underneath. As he turned and walked back into the darkness, he dropped his voice a few octaves and narrated, “Legend has it that at this very spot, forty-three-and-a-half years ago, one biology student had so much work to do that they spontaneously combusted, right here.” He stopped and pointed his flashlight at the wall.

“In this very sp-spot?” Hera asked, a smile in her voice.

“In this very spot.” He reached forward and took the camera, pointing it towards his face again. “Now, my lovely co-host Hera will tell us what the FM radio thingamajig has to say.”

“EMF detector.”

“Yeah. That thing. Survey says…?”

They leaned forward over the detector to watch the screen, their heads almost touching together. Eiffel held his breath, caring less about the made-up ghost and more about the girl in front of him. His eyes drifted up from the detector to her face. Somehow, being in complete darkness with only two flashlights and a camcorder made her look even prettier than she usually did.

The detector was still beeping slowly. Hera lifted her head to look up at him, frowning, and their faces were suddenly only inches apart. Eiffel’s heart nearly stopped as her eyes flickered across his face, a question hidden in her expression. He hoped for something - that she wouldn’t ask why he’d been staring at her, that he’d have a surge of courage to lean forward and kiss her. Hell, maybe a ghost would push him.

Anticlimactically, she just held up the detector to the camera. “Survey says n-no ghosts.”

It took Eiffel a moment to pull himself back together. He blinked, remembering where he was and what he was doing, and turned the camera back around to his face. “No ghosts,” he repeated, sounding dejected for more than one reason.

Almost as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the detector’s beeping sped up. He furrowed his brows at Hera. “Is it supposed to do that?”

“Only if there’s a ghost n-nearby…” Hera’s eyes widened. The detector beeped faster and faster until it sounded like a racing heartbeat.

Eiffel swung the camera and his flashlight around. “Uh, we come in peace!” he announced to the darkness, and received no reply. “We mean you no harm. And this is just a regular backpack!”

Something felt like it was creeping up his spine. A thing with legs - or maybe those were fingers - and far too many of them. Eiffel froze. Please, please don’t be a spider.

“D-do you feel that?” Hera asked.

Eiffel stared at her with wide eyes. “Yeah, I do.”

The tunnels were silent around them, but it certainly didn’t feel like they were. Or maybe it was Eiffel’s head that was loud. Jesus. If a ghost comes and kills me right here, I’ll die without ever telling Hera how I feel. It was such an insanely bleak thought that he resolved not to die, no matter what was about to happen.

Apparently, Hera had the exact same idea (the not dying part, at least), because at that moment she grabbed his hand so hard he thought it might break a few bones and began to run. Eiffel, content both with holding her hand and not being killed by a ghost, ran after her.

They ran past more and more corridors for so long that Eiffel began to wonder if they were even still on campus. There was no lighting down here, not even emergency lighting along the pathways, and so they guided their feet with nothing but the two flashlight beams and an instinct to survive. It occurred to Eiffel that running away from a vengeful ghost and holding hands with the girl he was in love with was exactly the kind of movie plotline he’d dreamed about in the past. It was a lot more terrifying when you were living it, though.

Gradually, the beeping receded to a normal pace and the two of them slowed, breathing heavily and doubling over to catch their breath. Water dripped somewhere in the tunnels.

Eiffel glanced up at Hera, the camcorder forgotten in his hand, and struggled to find the right words to describe what had just happened. He couldn’t come up with any that weren’t more Ghostbusters references.

Speechless, and completely unsure of how else to react, he started to laugh. A small, low chuckle at first that escalated into a full laugh, like it was all a big joke. And it was. They were looking for ghosts in a tunnel, and that was fucking hilarious to him.

Slowly, Hera joined in his laughter, and the two of them straightened up together. Eiffel was smiling so wide that it hurt. He clicked the camcorder off and stuffed it back into the bag.

Eventually, their laughter died and they were left in the silence of the tunnels again, still hearing the water drip-drip-drip somewhere nearby.

“Well,” Hera said, folding her arms together. “I d-don’t know if I’m up for any more ghost hunting, after th-that.”

“You know, Hera, I was hoping you’d say that.”

She smirked at him. “Because you’re sc-scared?”

“Of course I am.” Eiffel frowned and started walking back in the direction they came. He couldn’t remember if they’d taken any turns or not, but he really hoped they hadn’t, because if they got lost down here … well, the outcome would either be embarrassing or fatal, neither of which Eiffel was too keen on. “We almost got murdered by a ghost. We almost became ghosts! Who wouldn’t be scared shitless?”

“Mmm. I guess you’re right.”

They walked on for some time, swinging their flashlights back and forth across the tunnel for a sign of the entrance they’d come through. Eiffel realized that they were heading right back into the place where the ghost had been. He took a deep breath and held it, hoping there was nothing waiting for them in the shadows this time.

After a few minutes of walking, Hera shuddered next to him and laughed a little. “God, it’s freezing d-down here.”

Eiffel’s first instinct was to brag that he wasn’t cold, since he had thought to layer his clothes and bring a heavy jacket. But as he opened his mouth to make fun of her, he found a second idea in there - to offer the jacket to her.

Now that was genius. That was real romance.

“You want my jacket?” he asked carefully, the words feeling a little foreign to him.

Hera laughed again. “No, Doug, I’ll b-be fine. Just a slight chill,” she said, shivering even as she spoke.

“Yeah, right.” Eiffel pulled off his outermost jacket - black, puffy, and most importantly warm - and tossed it at her.

She caught it with one arm and fumbled with it for a moment, scowling at him. “Thank you,” she said, pulling it around her shoulders and looking a little less like she was inches away from frostbite.

There had to be some clever response in there - Minkowski would never forgive me if I let you freeze to death, or something, but it didn’t come to him. Not then, anyways. Here, he was just caught in the fact that she was wearing his jacket and smiling, and he had one month to tell her how he felt.

-

Warmed inside Hephaestus and mostly convinced that they hadn’t been followed by the ghost, Hera and Eiffel had decided to curl up on the couch with a good movie. Something light-hearted, after the scare they’d just had. They’d ended up choosing Legally Blonde, at Eiffel’s suggestion and Hera’s insistence.

Now, Elle was answering questions in class and Eiffel had managed, at one point, to put his arm around Hera’s shoulders. It wasn’t entirely unusual for him to do, he figured. His pounding heart would probably indicate otherwise, but as far as Hera was concerned, he was just her best friend doing best friend things.

That one-month deadline had lingered in his head for the entire walk, climb, and very suspicious run home, and he’d come to a few conclusions. One: he couldn’t keep messing around and being a coward about these things. I mean, really, Doug, you’re supposed to be the cool-guy radio host, not someone who can’t even touch a girl’s hand. Two: despite that conclusion, he was still really, really scared.

She didn’t feel the same way. He was almost sure of it. His eyes drifted to the side and he watched Hera’s face, the TV light illuminating her in ghostly almost-white. Really, she had to only think of him as a friend. She didn’t stay awake at night thinking about him like he did, and her hands definitely didn’t start shaking or her heart didn’t start racing around him.

But, if that was the case … what was he supposed to do, then? How did he move past something like this, something that felt so earth-shattering and strange and new and lovely and “Doug?”

He snapped out of his thoughts to find that Hera was looking back at him, her gaze strangely intense. He thought for a moment she might ask why he’d been staring. It was all he could do to choke out, “Yeah?”

There was a long pause where neither of them said anything and just stared, watching each other. Eiffel wondered what she saw on his face - was it the truth? Or did he just look strangely terrified? He did know that he definitely couldn’t understand Hera’s expression, and that fact alone made his breath catch in his throat.

“Can I…” Hera paused. Someone spoke in the movie, but it suddenly seemed so far away, the sound drowned out. It was all Eiffel could do to watch her half-lit, half-shadowed face and hope that she didn’t drop away from him too. “Can I t-tell you something?”

He managed only a small nod in response.

If you asked him later, he would say he had no idea what he was thinking at that moment, as everything suddenly seemed to slow down to a fraction of its actual speed. He was either thinking a thousand different thoughts at once or complete silence, focused on nothing but the now in front of him and his heart that was going so fast he thought it might be an actual issue. But the truth is that what Doug Eiffel was thinking in that moment was this:

Holy shit.

And then, as Hera moved closer to him on the couch, it got louder. HOLY SHIT.

He was still watching her face - well, really her eyes. His eyes clung to hers like a lifeline, because what else could he look at? He was terrified to let them move anywhere else. And he found there was something reckless there, shifting quietly in the light from the TV and becoming increasingly more obvious as she moved towards him.

Eiffel felt paralyzed. He couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t make a sound, even though he desperately needed to speak. He needed to speak more than he needed to lean in and close the distance between them.

Hera, he wanted to say as she kept looking at him, her eyes searching his face like she was probing at his very soul. Hera, he wanted to say as her face got closer and closer to his. Hera, Hera, Hera, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t. For one loud, explosive second, it was only him and Hera and complete silence around them.

Her lips brushed his for a fraction of a second before everything suddenly returned to actual speed, the full force of the moment hitting Eiffel all at once.

He scrambled backwards, pulling his arm off of her shoulders and standing up from the couch. His heart and head were pounding. His body shook all over. The world returned around him, and the TV existed again, but even with the noise the space between him and Hera seemed horrifyingly silent.

She was staring at him, looking confused and hurt and angry, but not at him. Eiffel knew that look of hers, when she was tearing herself apart for something that wasn’t her fault or could be fixed. And usually, this was the part where he told her it would be fine, and they could try the problem again or fix the dent in the car or apologize to someone, and they would go get ice cream afterwards. This was the part where he told her how he felt.

“Hera…” was all that came out of his mouth, shaking and unsure. “Hera, I, uh…”

Hera was looking at him and not looking at him at the same time. Maybe she was looking right through him.

And he had no idea what to say. He’d wanted her to kiss him, both there on the couch and for months now, but he’d freaked out. It was sudden, and unexpected, and maybe he was just surprised that she’d done it. Did that mean she felt the same way? Did she mean it?

It was too much. It was all too much.

Eiffel wanted to sit back on the couch and hug her, tell her that he was sorry for being afraid and that he’d been in love with her for almost half a year now. He wanted to kiss her back until they were both laughing and he would apologize for everything; for being confusing, for smelling like cigarettes, for being scared.

And instead, he decided he couldn’t take her vacant, confused stare anymore, and Doug Eiffel turned and fled up the stairs and out of sight.

Chapter Text

“Are you a fucking moron?!”

Eiffel found that the best thing to do then was to bury his face in his palms, out of equal parts shame and fear that one - or both - of the women in front of him might actually hit him for his stupidity.

“Why the hell would you do that?” Lovelace continued, her voice farther off now. Oh, god, he’d pissed her off so much that she was pacing. “Eiffel, your opportunity was right there. You can’t just let it slip through your fingers, you have to take what you can get and run! God, have I taught you nothing?”

“I’m sorry, okay?!” He held his hands out to the side, defeated, and looked back up at them. Minkowski was staring at him like he’d really sunk to a new low, which truly was saying something, and Lovelace was pacing back and forth in front of her bed. There was no light filtering in through the blinds - the sun was clouded over with fat, dark storm clouds, and had been since Eiffel watched the sun rise that morning in lieu of getting any sleep at all. Even if he had tried to lie down, there would be zero chance of him falling asleep. His head was full of too much guilt and shame and regret for his thoughts to rest for even a second. “It was stupid and yes, Lovelace, moronic of me. And I really, really wish I could take it back.” He gave Minkowski a pleading look, trying his best to appear sympathetic. Maybe she could say something to Hera to make everything better again.

Unfortunately, Minkowski offered him no sort of help. “I don’t get it, Eiffel,” she said, her crossed arms tightening as she spoke. “This was what you wanted.”

He slumped backwards in the desk chair, staring up at the ceiling of Lovelace’s room. It was white, blank, and devoid of stars. “I know it was. And, for a minute, I really thought I could do it, but I just…” he held his hands out again and let them fall on the armrests. “I freaked out. I freaked out, and she seemed upset, and I haven’t seen her all day, so I have no idea how she’s taking it.” He straightened a little, glancing between the two of them. “Wait, have you guys seen her?”

“No,” Lovelace answered, finally ceasing her pacing and sitting down on the bed. “I assume she’s been locked up in her room all day like you.”

Eiffel opened his mouth, found he didn’t have a response to that that didn’t make him sound even worse, and closed it. He fell backwards in the chair again and it rolled across the floor, bumping into the desk and rattling Lovelace’s things. He took a brief moment to wallow in guilt and judgemental stares. “I just don’t know what to do,” he muttered.

Minkowski’s mouth fell open. “Tell her, you idiot!”

“It’s not that easy, Minkowski!” He sat up with a sudden jolt of energy, frowning at her. “I mean, it’s not like with you and Lovelace-”

Minkowski glowered at him. “Don’t finish that sentence-”

“-it’s different because we’ve been friends since forever.” His eyes strayed past Minkowski, where Lovelace sat watching from the bed. “Lovelace, uh, I don’t know if you’ve realized, but this has kind of been a thing for a while.” He felt a little bad about calling this meeting with the two of them when only Minkowski really knew the context behind it all, but it was necessary. They were his friends, after all, and they would know what to do.

A small smile tugged at the corners of Lovelace’s mouth. “Oh, I know.”

Eiffel blinked at her. “You know?” Slowly, his eyes moved back to Minkowski. “Did you say something to her?”

Minkowski opened her mouth to respond, but Lovelace spoke before she could. “No, Eiffel,” she laughed. “I’ve known since that day in my car when you started talking about your ‘nemesis.’”

Eiffel felt a furious blush creep up his face. Jesus, he thought he had been so covert with the whole nemesis thing. And she’d known the whole time.

He closed his eyes for a second to let the embarrassment wash over him. (Later, he would realize that this meant she’d been giving him real advice the entire time, and that a few dozen thank-yous were probably in order. But right now, he just felt intensely unsubtle.) He opened his eyes when Lovelace started laughing and a fresh wave of embarrassment hit him. Son of a bitch.

“Wait, so,” he started tentatively, noticing Minkowski also visibly holding back laughter. “All those stories about Sam…?”

“Oh, those were real,” Lovelace assured him. “Very, very real.”

“Okay,” Minkowski said, still fighting back laughter, “back on topic.” She grabbed the back of Eiffel’s chair and spun him around to face her. “ You need to be honest with Hera, tell her how you feel, and apologize for the misunderstanding.”

“And get a girlfriend,” Lovelace added, “so Minkowski and I are finally put out of our misery.”

“Seriously. It’s painful to watch.”

“Okay, hey,” Eiffel frowned, sitting up and crossing his arms. “Please save your criticisms of my flirting until after this is all resolved.”

He knew that Lovelace and Minkowski were right. Honesty was the key here, and it probably had been since the beginning, and he could wrap up this story with a nice little moral on top of it all. But it was all so difficult, especially considering the what-ifs that had been running around his head all morning. What if Hera was upset with him for sending mixed signals? What if she didn’t actually mean the kiss? And, more broadly, but most importantly… “What if I messed it up?” he said softly, staring at the blinds that didn’t let any light through at all. “What if she doesn’t like me anymore, in any sort of way?”

There was silence from the two for a moment, and Eiffel could only assume they were exchanging exasperated glances. The white paint on the blinds and the faux-wood cracks running through them suddenly seemed intensely interesting to him.

When Lovelace spoke again, she was right next to him, standing with Minkowski. “Eiffel,” she said, waiting for him to look up at her before she spoke again. Her face was filled with compassion even as she continued, “If she’s known you for this long and still tried to kiss you, I don’t think anything could drive her off now.”

“Alright, jeez,” Eiffel smiled. Meanness aside, she had a good point there. Honestly, he was still trying to process the fact that Hera might feel that way about him. Maybe he should have realized after the first time she kissed him, while he was sick, but even then it had seemed like an impossibility. Something he was reaching for proof of rather than the actual truth. But if she’d meant it … Eiffel couldn’t even begin to voice how he felt about that. His heartbeat picked up again, like always, but this time it felt much, much better.

He still wasn’t completely sure Lovelace was right, but honestly, maybe it was a risk he was willing to take now. If he didn’t say anything to Hera, their friendship would fall apart. And if he said the wrong thing, it might also fall apart, but at least he’d have tried.

“Good. Now, let’s discuss what not to say.” Lovelace held up one finger. “First of all, no Star Wars references. None of the ‘I love you, I know’ bullshit.”

“Damnit,” Eiffel muttered, leaning back in the chair and staring up at the ceiling. There went his entire plan.

-

“She’s on the balcony,” Maxwell had told him, sparing him an unusually long look up from her laptop. “And, Eiffel, be nice to her.”

“She hasn’t texted Maxwell all day,” Jacobi added from where he sat, upside-down, on the couch. “So whatever you did must have been pretty horrible.”

Eiffel flinched just thinking about it as he paused outside the balcony doors. Maybe it was pretty horrible. But not anymore - now he was going to make things right, and they would live happily ever after until finals week. He could do this. Right?

I can do this, he repeated to himself, peering around the wall and out of the glass door that led onto the balcony.

He spotted her out there immediately, her white T-shirt bright with the light from the moon. She had her arms folded up on the railing, leaning forward on it. Her head was tilted up towards the sky - no, to the stars. They shone brightly overhead in the spaces between the clouds on a bedroom-ceiling night sky.

Eiffel’s breath caught in his throat. A girl looking at the stars and holding his entire world together, like she had been for the past eight (and a half) years. Now he just had to make sure he hadn’t scared her off.

Before he could psych himself out about it, he forced his hand forward onto the door handle and pulled it open. Being part of Hephaestus, it opened with a grinding noise that announced his presence far too loudly in the silence outside. He grimaced and stepped outside, pulling it shut again behind him.

Hera hadn’t moved, though she had to have known he was standing there. Eiffel took a deep breath, ran a hand through his hair, and pulled his jacket a little tighter around him. It was chilly out, but Hera didn’t seem to mind at all.

Tentatively, Eiffel crossed the balcony to the railing and took his position to Hera’s right. He mirrored her pose, crossing his arms and leaning against the railing. His heart was nearly beating out of his chest. “Beautiful night, huh?”

There was a pause that was one second too short before Hera said, “Yeah.” He heard a sharp intake of breath, and then she turned to face him just as he looked over at her. “Listen, Doug, I’m r-really sorry for last ni-”

“No, Hera, I’m sorry.” He pulled himself away from the railing and straightened up, shaking out his hands, which hung awkwardly at his sides. He wanted to tell her so many things. Where was he supposed to start?

“The truth is…” he began, then stopped. Here he was. It had taken him six months to find the courage to do this, and now it was all going to happen on some random Sunday in March. This wasn’t how he had planned it at all (there was supposed to be more flowers and chocolate here), but maybe that didn’t matter. Maybe it just mattered that he said what was on his mind.

“The truth is that I love you, Hera.” The words were out of his mouth before he could think about them any more. He waited for a second to gauge how her expression changed. It did, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking - she was always better at doing that.

So he just kept talking, maybe to prolong the time before he had to hear her response, but also to get out everything that had been on his mind for months. “I’ve felt this way for a while now. But, uh, I guess I sort of always loved you, since we’re best friends. But this is like … the real deal. Major league love.” He didn’t stop to consider how weird that sounded or be self-critical, for once. He had too much to say and too little time before Hera would say something in reply.

“And I’ve never felt this way about anyone before. Well, anyone but you,” he grinned.

He was talking with his hands now, filling the space between them with gestures and signals. “I think you’re super pretty. And smart! I love how damn smart you are, Hera. I don’t know if you know that. But you’re funny, too, and I love spending time with you, and you get me in ways nobody else can and, you know, when it’s cold outside and I wish someone was holding me, that someone is always you. It might have always been you. I don’t know, I don’t have that good of a memory.” A lie. He remembered everything he could about Hera.

“So, I just…” It seemed like the moon and the stars were disappearing behind clouds,  taking the oxygen from the atmosphere with them until there was only a little bit left in the distance between him and Hera. He was out of breath and his heart was racing in his chest cavity. His eyes flickered across her face, her incredibly beautiful face, waiting for some sort of clue as to what she was thinking. “Cards on the table. I’m in love with you, Hera. Really.”

She was silent for a long, excruciating moment. He still couldn’t read the expression on her face. He wished so desperately that she would say something so he didn’t have to. A frigid wind stirred up and blew across the balcony.

And then, slowly, Hera’s eyes welled up with tears. Before Eiffel could say anything, she was blinking them away and then she was laughing, her grin shining in the porchlight. He couldn’t help but smile too, though he was utterly confused as to why she was. She was just infectious like that.

“Damnit, Doug,” she choked out between sobs and laughter. “I’m in love with you t-too.”

And something inside of him burst again. It felt exactly like that day in the park, when he’d realized he actually had a crush on her. But this time, it was less of a crushing realization and more like something had fallen into place exactly where he’d needed it.

Hera was in love with him.

She elbowed him, still laughing and crying. “I didn’t want to s-say anything, since we’re such g-good friends, but I… last n-night, I just…”

“Hey,” Eiffel said softly. “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t mean to freak out on you.”

She grinned. “Yeah, you really owe me for th-that.” It was such a Hera thing to say that it almost hurt him.

“Well, um…” He shifted nervously from foot to foot, glancing inside for a moment to make sure nobody was watching them. There were no shadows clustered at the balcony door. In fact, even the stars and the moon were all but hidden behind the clouds now.

He looked back at Hera and gave her a small, very nervous smile. His heart was beating so loud she could almost certainly hear it, but he didn’t care now. “Can I kiss you now, to make up for it?”

She smiled at him again and wiped her eyes with the back of one hand, then nodded.

And for once, he knew exactly what to do with his hands. He didn't fidget nervously, or tap on his thigh, or stuff them in his pockets just to keep them from moving. Instead, he moved them upwards as he closed the distance between him and Hera.

It felt so natural, the way one of his hands fit on her face and the other rested on her shoulder, gentle but relaxed. Hera was no longer a figure made of glass who he couldn’t touch without worrying. Now she was just a person he was in love with, and she loved him.

Her lips were kind and lovely and felt like home. Maybe they were. Hephaestus was home, but so was Hera, and she had been home for years. He just hadn’t known it yet. He leaned in closer to her, kissing her like she was the first person he’d ever kissed, which she was.

“Wait,” she murmured suddenly. She pulled back from him, and Eiffel only noticed then that her hands had come up to rest on his shoulders. Her gaze was intense, almost critical, and he raised his eyebrows at her, a little worried he’d done something wrong. “Are you serious?”

Eiffel smiled at her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this serious about anything.” He paused for a moment, thinking. “Wait, are you serious?”

Hera laughed. “Yes, I’m serious.” She leaned in towards him again and spoke, her voice barely a whisper against his face. “I am c-completely, seriously, one hundred p-percent in love with you, Doug.”

The air on the balcony was freezing, but neither of them seemed to mind all that much. They were warmed by each other, as well as something inside that beat in their two hearts, separated only by skin and layers of clothing.

Eiffel kissed her again, ecstatic at the idea that he could now. This was everything he’d wanted to do for months. It was exactly like his daydreams, only with a little less music and a little more chill in the air. She was music and she was the stars and, for a few moments, she was the entire world. Her arms and hands burned him where they rested on his chest and shoulders, but it was a good, buzzing type of burn.

It took a few drops of cold water on his hair before Eiffel noticed that it had begun to rain. Hera seemed to take notice as well, because they both pulled back and looked up into the sky. A few stars poked out from the clouds here and there. It was cold, and now wet, but neither of them were particularly ready to go inside yet.

“I thought, uh,” Eiffel said suddenly, feeling like he’d only just regained the ability to speak, “well, I kind of thought I was imagining it. What we…” he gestured awkwardly between the two of them, “have.”

“Are you serious?” Hera gaped at him, then smiled. “I d-didn’t think you felt the same way, either.”

He blinked at her. You’ve gotta be kidding me. “Oh my god, Hera, I haven’t been able to look at you normally for months. What did you think was up?”

“The s-same thing you thought when I held your hand on the lake, D-Doug.” He thought he could look at her smile for the rest of his life and never get sick of it.

The rain was soaking through her hair, and there was a strand of it stuck distractingly to her face. Eiffel reached forward and gently moved it behind her ear, letting his hand linger on her skin for a little bit.

She laughed and gave him a wonderful look, her eyes serious and full of emotion. “You have n-no idea how much I’ve wanted you to do that.”

“You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do it,” he grinned. “Oh, here, wait.” He moved a piece of his hair around and pressed it onto his damp face, leaning towards her. “Your turn.”

“Good t-to know you’re as absurd as always,” she said as she brushed the hair off of his cheek. “Don’t ch-change that.”

“I won’t,” he promised. He felt like he was floating up off of the balcony and straight into the rainclouds. “But you can’t change either.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Good.” Hera, Hera, Hera. He was in love with her and she felt the exact same way. Now he would get to tell her about all of the daydreams he’d had about her, about how he would climb up and fetch her every star in the sky if she asked. Every single half-baked line of shitty poetry he’d written about her, every nervous glance in her direction when he thought she wasn’t looking, every night awake looking at pictures of her had all been worth it.

He realized they were still just standing there in the rain and laughed to himself about it. It was like something straight out of a movie, but it was actually happening. Oh, my god, this is all actually happening.

“Okay,” Eiffel finally said, drawing his arm around Hera’s shoulders. He wondered what their roommates would think of all of this. Relieved, probably, after months of seeing them dance around each other and miss the obvious.

He couldn’t stop smiling. “Let’s go inside, sweetheart.”

Chapter Text

Something about the sunset was making Eiffel feel drowsier than usual.

It looked different here compared to on Leo Street, as if an entirely different sun was setting over an entirely different planet. The light still reached through the tree branches almost desperately, burning with low orange intensity into their faces. It was shining off of the lake, too, and ripples of red-orange glinted as Jacobi, Maxwell, and Audrey disturbed the otherwise-peaceful water with laughter and splashing.

Eiffel felt his eyes starting to drift shut as he stared ahead at the waning light. They (minus Hilbert, who insisted on housesitting) were spending this weekend at Minkowski’s parents’ lake house, and idyllic didn’t even begin to cover it. It was tucked away in the forest near one of the Midwest’s several, several lakes, with kayaks and even a jet ski moored to the small wooden dock.

They’d spent the entire afternoon out here by the lake today. It was beginning to get sweltering hot in the second half of the day, and so all of them - even Kepler - had been in the water for at least a little bit. There was swimming, kayaking, and, yes, jet skiing (Jacobi and Maxwell, which could have ended badly if Jacobi hadn’t ducked a low-hanging branch). It was a great way to cool off, and an even better way to relax before their upcoming finals.

The roadtrip hadn't been so bad, either. Neither was the night before, where they’d all sung their praises to Mr. and Mrs. Minkowski and played some Mario Kart by a roaring fireplace.

Later that night, Hera had woken Eiffel up in the tiny guest bedroom he was staying in, complaining that her room was far too cold for any kind of good rest. He’d pulled back the covers, wrapped his arms around her, and had the best six hours of sleep of his entire life.

A small smile crossed his face at the memory. He almost couldn’t believe that he got to do things like that now. He could hold her and fall asleep next to her, then wake up to her hair in his face and not even mind. It was amazing for a lot of reasons. Hera was a lot like that, too.

A squeeze on his hand reminded Eiffel that he was still sitting on the oak-wood picnic bench by the lake, his shorts and T-shirt soaked through, and not in his bed back in the house. His eyes had finally closed at some point, and he forced them open to look over at his side and smile.

Hera was sitting next to him, his hand in hers just underneath the table (across from them, Lovelace and Minkowski were doing the exact same thing, if a little less subtle about it). Her hand was warm, and still made his heart skip a few beats when it reached for his, but now it was more out of awe than nervousness.

“Good m-morning,” she smiled as he pulled his head up off of the table, blinking slowly at the setting sun. “It’s only eight, Doug. You c-can’t be that tired already.”

“Yeah, Eiffel,” Jacobi chimed in from his other side, where he sat toweling off the lake water from his hair. “We’ve got a night of- oh, what’s the word…”

“Revelry,” Kepler supplied.

“We’ve got a night of revelry ahead of us,” he finished.

Lovelace smirked. “Where’d you learn that one, Jacobi?”

“Kepler’s word-of-the-day calendar.”

The laughter from around the table was enough to fully wake Eiffel up. As he laughed with them, some of the light gleaming on the water shone on his face and warmed him fully, drying some of his wet hair and filling him with a new sense of appreciation for this moment.

He wanted to memorize this moment, to place every detail of it in a little folder and hide it away in his mind for when he needed it. He wanted to remember the disappearing sunlight on Hera’s hair, the grins on his friends faces, the love he felt like a tangible thing between all of them.

He could have run deep into the lake and never come back. He just felt … happy. This place was perfect, and he was with people he loved in different ways who loved him back. He didn’t want to be anywhere else at all.

As the laughter died, he leaned to the side and placed his head on Hera’s shoulder, letting their hands rest between the two of them. She gave his hand another squeeze, softer this time, and sent a thrill through him.

“So…” Lovelace began, cupping her chin in her free hand and looking down the table at everyone else. “Summer.”

“Summer,” Kepler echoed, folding his arms on the table. “Three months of assisting Dean Cutter with the upcoming year while the rest of you slack off.”

“Hey, that was one year!” Jacobi said, snapping the towel in Kepler’s direction. “I have big plans this time,” he assured the table. “An internship and everything at some fancy NASDAQ company.”

Maxwell reached over and gave him a condescending pat on the shoulder. “Oh, Jacobi, you’ll get to FAANG one day.” Then, addressing the rest of the table: “I already have.”

“That’s not-!” Jacobi started to protest, but was quickly drowned out by laughter from the rest of the table. Instead, he decided on sulking silently by himself.

“What about you, Lovelace?” Hera asked. “What are you d-doing this summer?”

She smiled. “Well, I scored that research opportunity right after finals that I was telling you all about, so I’ll be doing that. Afterwards … I’ll probably go home and hang out with my family.” Her eyes drifted to the side. “And Minkowski.”

Eiffel’s eyes widened, and Minkowski immediately looked like she wanted to kick every last one of them off her property. “Ohhhh, Minkowski!” he exclaimed, leaning forward. “You’re going to the Big Apple? The city that never sleeps? Home of Spider-Man?”

“Yes, I am,” she gritted out. “It’s not that big a de-”

“We have Broadway tickets!” Lovelace announced.

“Minkowski!” Eiffel gasped. How could she not tell him any of this? “Oh, I might have to come visit you guys. In New York…”

Minkowski, who was being accosted by a concerned Audrey, shot Hera a pleading look. “Don’t let him sing.”

“Well,” Hera said, graciously cutting off EIffel’s song, “I have an internship too. It’s n-nothing exciting, just looking at space stuff r-really, but…” she grinned.

Eiffel watched her, entranced. Even when she tried to downplay her studies, he could tell that she was beyond excited for the internship. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that she’d been talking to him about it for a week straight, but who knew?

“It’s in Boston,” she continued, “with housing r-right in the middle of the city. So Doug and I are going to…” she glanced at him, smiling. “Revisit some old m-memories.”

“Ooooo,” Jacobi smirked from across the table. Eiffel grinned back at him, immune to any of his half-hearted mockery now.

The sun had almost completely set by now. Minkowski had fetched a mason jar from the house as darkness fell earlier, and together they had run along the treelines gathering fireflies. It made Eiffel feel like a kid, peering into clasped hands to watch faint yellow flashes from the bugs. They were out unusually early this year. He took it as a good omen.

Now the bugs that they’d collected crawled on the inside of the glass jar, flashing impatiently at their confinement. Eiffel put his face up to the glass and watched the tiny lights inching across it.

Two more years of college after this. Everyone had already agreed to another year together in Hephaestus (“With less chaos this time,” Minkowski had said, threatening to put an unreasonable amount of clauses in their housing contract). There were vague plans in motion for a camping trip right after finals, or maybe another day or two in the city if they were up to it. More time with some of the best roommates Eiffel could have asked for, even if it had taken him a while to get used to them all.

Minkowski seemed to be thinking something along the same lines, because she suddenly cleared her throat, breaking the silence that had fallen. “You know, if you guys aren’t busy, and when your internships are all over, you could…” She closed her eyes for a second, as if preparing herself to not regret her next words. “You could come hang out here for a little. I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind.”

“That,” Eiffel said, taking in the beautiful scenery around them again, “sounds like a plan.” He was honestly pretty sure he could spend the rest of his life here and never get sick of it, even if it was a little middle-of-nowhere-y.

The flashes from the fireflies were getting more erratic now, and Eiffel realized with dawning horror that nobody had given them anything to eat or drink in there. On impulse, he reached forward and picked up the jar, pulling his hand free from Hera’s for a moment to wrench off the top. Jacobi complained, but everyone else was content to watch him free the bugs.

They flew out of the jar in a rush, desperate to return to the familiar woods where their families and friends awaited them. They scattered across a darkening sky with stars that were just beginning to show their faces, and their yellow flashes looked like satellites up there, heading off to their own homes in the sky.

Chapter Text

“Well, dear listeners, I have to tell you, this has been a very special show for us today,” Eiffel said into the microphone, shifting a little in his seat. His feet were up on the desk in the broadcasting booth, and the air conditioner behind him was producing a cold breeze that was reinvigorating, even though they were only midway through spring. His best friend was sitting next to him, their wheeled chairs squeezed together precariously between stacks of books and records. She was tapping her fingers on the desk nervously, which was definitely an improvement from the leg-bouncing she’d been doing earlier. Eiffel caught her eye and gave her a reassuring smile.

“Hera and I really appreciate you tuning in this afternoon, and well, uh, we hope to see you again next time. Or, we hope you see us. Hear us. Whatever, you know what I mean.” He tilted the microphone to his side. “Hera, anything you wanna tell the audience before we play ourselves out?”

She stopped tapping her fingers and took a breath, leaning forward a little. It reminded Eiffel of his first time broadcasting, something she’d never stopped encouraging him about. She was probably the reason he was any good at it in the first place - it helped to imagine that he was only speaking and playing music for her.

“Th-thank you all for listening,” she said into the microphone, her eyes trained on Eiffel. Maybe she was imagining she was only speaking to him. “Now, Doug and I are happy t-to leave you with…”

He pulled the microphone back to his face. “Beethoven’s fifth symphony in B minor.”

“C minor,” Hera corrected.

“What she said.” Eiffel grinned at her, pushing back his chair and pressing a button on the computer. He held the song off for one more second. “Have a wonderful weekend, dear listeners!”

Familiar string instruments boomed from the speakers as he stood, pushing back his chair and pushing Hera’s into the desk. She picked up her sweater from the back of the chair and held it tightly to her chest, taking deep breath after deep breath. Eiffel watched her for a moment, considering if he should offer to take her sweater or not, before he gently took her arm and guided her out of the recording booth.

He waited until the door had shut behind them, the girl after him (whose name he had recently learned, for the first time) flashing them a smile as she stepped inside. Then he turned to Hera, smiled, and said, “Good show, Hera.”

She gave him a look, her arms still tangled up in her sweater. “Was it r-really?” she asked, doubtfully.

“Yes! Are you kidding me?” He reached up to one of her shoulders and gave her a small shake. “Probably my best show ever. I don’t know if I’ll be able to have you back, though. The audience might like you more than me.”

That got her to crack a smile. “Well, I wouldn’t be s-surprised.”

“Alright, ouch.” Her smile was irresistible. Eiffel leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then started briskly down the hallway towards the double doors.

Hera laughed, jogging to catch up with him. She jostled him as her shoulder brushed his. “What was th-that for?”

He shrugged, grinning uncontrollably. “You just looked nice.” He paused, remembering that he could be completely honest with her about these things now, and added, “And I love you.”

“R-really laying it on thick so I don’t c-come back,” she said dryly.

“Maybe. But it’s true.” They pushed open the double doors at the end of the hall and stepped out into the mid-spring sunlight, which hadn’t fully committed to summer heat yet and instead remained as more of a pleasant warmth. The trees were beginning to sprout leaves again, and little by little the students had returned to the outside world like migratory birds coming back from the south. A freshman zipped past them on a motorized scooter, shouting with delight as someone chased them down just a few feet behind them. Eiffel smiled. Maybe he could talk Lovelace into doing something similar later today.

He started to move forward, across the quad and towards Hephaestus, but a pull on his arm stopped him. He turned to Hera, who had wrapped a hand around the crook of his arm, and raised his eyebrows.

“Come on,” she said, pulling him to the side where the sidewalk gave way to grass, which sloped down to a hill. “I want to sit d-down for a minute.”

Eiffel obliged, graciously deciding not to point out that they had been sitting down for the past hour. He was always up for some alone time with Hera, anyways. They had a quasi-date scheduled for that night, cooking dinner together at Hephaestus, but the rest of their roommates would be in and out of the kitchen the whole time. Not that they minded, of course, but it was a little hard to flirt when Jacobi was standing by the fridge on his fourth coke of the night.

Hera sat down on the grassy hill. Her hand slid down his arm to his hand, and she pulled him down to sit next to her.

The hill overlooked a small field below, which was informally used for different sports or occasional school events. Eventually, the grass gave way to the woods that surrounded the school, with trees as tall as the buildings on campus shading half of the field below them. Of course, they were in direct sunlight on the hill, but it brought a refreshing warmth that Eiffel welcomed. Hera was silent as she intertwined her fingers with his, her eyes trained on something in the distance. Eiffel didn’t say anything, either, because he didn’t have to. There was already a lot of love in their silence.

They’d done something a lot like this when they were younger, in a park by Hera’s house in Boston. There was a hill there, too, and they’d sat down to watch the sunset with ice cream they’d just bought from a vendor.

“It’s really pr-pretty from here.”

“Yeah,” he’d said, unable to tear his eyes away from the trails of orange and pink across the sky. “Wow…”

Eiffel remembered thinking, then, that life probably couldn’t get better than that, even if he did have a test in school tomorrow.

He knew better now. Life got a whole lot better, Doug, he told his younger self, glancing at Hera next to him.

They were dating now, of course, but there was still that layer of best friends over their relationship. And Eiffel was discovering that he didn’t mind that at all. They were best friends, and they probably always would be. Even if they were together for the rest of their lives, Eiffel thought he’d still tease Hera for her music taste, and she’d still tell him his audience preferred her as radio host.

It was almost funny to him how concerned he’d been about the difference between friendship and romance. He’d realized, slowly at first, then all at once, that he didn’t have to be over the line between best-friend and relationship territory. There didn’t have to be territories at all. They were still best friends, just with more kissing than usual.

A smile crossed his face at the thought, and he turned to the side to look at Hera. His heart swelled at the sight of her, at the feeling of her hand in his.

Everything he’d told Jacobi and Minkowski (and Hera, eventually) had been right. He was really and truly in love with this girl. He knew it as intimately as he knew how to breathe, and as true as the sun rose in the east and set in the west and the stars were always in the sky, even if he couldn’t see them.

He used to think that love was the big, grand gestures in the movies, but maybe this was it. Love was just sitting together and holding hands with a girl you loved, and knowing you had however long you wanted for the grand gestures, if you wanted them at all. And if confessing your love to her and kissing her in the rain didn’t already count.

He’d tell Hera all of this one day, when he could put it together better. But for now, he was content to hold her hand and know that he loved her and she loved him.

He cleared his throat. “You know, Hera, I think that junior year might be our best one yet.”

She looked away from whatever her eyes had been fixed on, and her eyes flickered across his face, taking him in in the bright afternoon sunlight. She met his gaze, and a smile spread across her face. “Me t-too.”

Eiffel smiled back at her. And then he leaned to the side and kissed his best friend, a girl who finally, finally happened to also be his girlfriend.