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“Oof.”
There’s a paper coffee cup slammed on her pulled-out writing surface with a force that makes her glad the cup has a plastic lid, and a familiar figure slouches in the lecture hall chair next to Jules.
Aisha is, like Jules, a second-year student at King’s, but unlike Jules she normally does not take up British Literary History I. Still, here she is, pulling out her own table. Jules raises one eyebrow.
Aisha’s eyes find hers above the cup she’s picked up and now downing at an alarming rate. “What?”, she asks, and then her eyes move to look at her own cup in a comical sight, “Oh.”
She sets the cup down and reaches in her impractical, very pink handbag (“It’s not impractical, my laptop fits in there!”, even though Jules is pretty sure her handbag and laptop have never once been in near vicinity of each other). “Don’t worry, I got you something too.”
Jules, having been in the finals for the junior handball league six years in a row when she was a kid, luckily has the reflexes to grab the orange juice out of the air, and then has to shake her hand, because fuck, her friend throws hard.
“Thanks,” she says, screwing the cap off and taking a big gulp. Aisha smiles self-satisfied, and Jules can’t help but look at her from the corner of her eyes. They’d met during a shared philosophy class in their second semester last year, where they’d sat next to each other and, about fifteen minutes into their first lecture Aisha had leaned over to her and asked, “This is Intro to Physics, isn’t it?”, to which Jules had slowly turned to her (away from the giant screen in front that clearly read ORIGINS OF PHILOSOPHY: ANCIENT GREECE), and, not sure if it was a joke, whispered back, “Uhm, no?”. Aisha had then disrupted the whole class by having the whole row get up to let her pass, and left the lecture hall with a sunny smile and golden curls bouncing, and with Jules disappointed that she hadn’t said anything else to the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen.
A week later, the same girl had waved at her before making her way over, and gleefully told her how she should really pay more attention to the classes she signed up for, because turns out she did now have to take Intro to Philosophy, instead of her intended Intro to Physics. “Oh well,” she’d said, “lesson learned for next time. I’m Aisha.”
But as far as Jules knew, this semester Aisha had only taken up her intended science and engineering classes, so what the fuck was she doing in a humanities class?
“Oh, well, you know how you said Prof. G was gonna do Shakespeare this week?”, Aisha starts to answer her questions, “and you know how Dani did history here a few years ago? Yeah so I was telling that to Dani, and he started laughing, and was like ‘Prof. G always acts like he’s been cuckolded by Shakespeare personally’, or something, and then he told me about how they always made him rant whenever they didn’t feel like class, and I thought, I absolutely need to see this,” Aisha takes a deep breath, “so here I am.”
Jules feels her cheeks grow red. Aisha talked to her brother about her?
It took a bit of effort on her part to push through the heady feeling at that apparent fact. “You’re here to listen to my prof talk about Shakespeare?”
Aisha smiles brightly. “Specifically, I’m here to listen to your prof act like Shakespeare offended him personally, I’ve heard it’s really, really entertaining.”
At that point, the doors at the front of the hall open and Prof. G walks in, back straight and fully buttoned in a sleek black suit. His hair’s the only messy thing about him, curling under his ears and looking like he’s only just rolled out of bed, having naught to wear but his fanciest costume. Like he’s going to a wedding.
“That’s Prof. G?” Aisha whistles lowly. “Fancy. Why is he wearing a tie?”
And he is wearing a tie, a dark blue one with gold flecks as stars. Jules has to bite her lip to stop from unintentionally chuckling out loud. “I don’t know, he’s never dressed like this.”
Aisha doesn’t have the same qualms about giggling, and her brown eyes are sparkling. “You think he’s got a hot date after this?”
“I think he’s married, actually.”
“He can still go on a date, then, you know. Besides, he’s not wearing a ring.”
“How can you even see that from here?” Jules strains her neck to where Prof. G, fancy suit and all, is taking his laptop out of his bag, looks at it, then puts it back and takes two or three books out instead, plus a series of notes.
Aisha preens. “I’ve been blessed with good looks and 20/20 vision.”
“Wow,” Jules snorts and elbows her. “Leave something for the rest of us, won’t you.”
“Greetings, everyone,” Prof. G’s cheerful voice carries loudly and stately through the lecture hall, making everyone shut up and turn to the front immediately, Jules and Aisha included. “For those of you who don’t know me, I am Professor Robert Galden. Today’s two-hour lecture will focus on late sixteenth-century English literary history. If you have any questions before we start, I suggest you ask them now. No? Then we’ll immediately go on.”
Prof. G – sorry, Professor Robert Galden – leaves no pause after asking for questions, and it seems like he’s straight up reading from his notecards. He really must have something distracting to do after this, if he behaves this weirdly. He’s never not asked them about their weekend before.
Half an hour into the lecture, Prof. G is delivering a passionate speech about the works of a lesser-known playwriter on the end-of-the-sixteenth-century London scene, who would’ve gotten really big if he would’ve been able to actually translate his apparently byzantine but very well constructed dreams to paper. Then, not being very patient, Aisha stands up, putting her hand up at the same time to make sure Prof. G spots her.
He doesn’t even blink at the intruding movement. “Yes, Aisha?”
(Which is kind of weird? Because Jules is sure that Aisha’s never had a class from Prof. G before, plus Prof. G’s made it clear at the beginning of the semester that he’s not very good with names, so please forgive him if he gets it wrong?)
“Yes, thank you, professor. I was wondering, talking about dreams and playwrights and the late sixteenth century, was he also the inspiration for some of Shakespeare’s work? Or were dreams in general a popular topic to write about during that period, and therefore also with Shakespeare? And more importantly, could you give us your personal opinion on Shakespeare, no holding back, unpopular opinions and everything? Please?”
That last bit was accompanied by Aisha’s typical smile when she wants something and knows she can get it, sugar sweet and with fluttering eyelashes to boot. Jules holds a hand in front of her mouth to stop a snort from coming out.
Prof. G either doesn’t notice the obvious setup, or maybe he likes the change of topic and the chance to speak about another of his passions, because his eyes light up, so much that Jules can literally see it from here, and he gives a small smile. “Yes, William Shakespeare. One of the greatest dreamers of his time. The greatest works always start with even greater dreams, and Shakespeare did not only create from his dreams; he used the concept of dreams themselves as inspiration also, making it a central theme in many of his works. Take ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, for example –“
“How did you even know that? You don’t even like Shakespeare?” Jules leans over and whispers to Aisha, who’s taken her seat again.
“But you do, and I do sometimes listen to you, you know,” Aisha whispers back, and Jules feels herself getting warm. Maybe good that Aisha is too distracted to notice, because she leans back and says, “Do you think I should have been more obvious about what I wanted to hear? This is too much praise and too little weird irrational dislike to me.”
Jules pushes against her shoulder, hoping desperately her friend won’t notice her burning cheeks. “Told yah. Maybe you can learn something instead.”
Aisha sticks out her tongue, but does turn her whole attention to the front of the lecture hall.
“So that was kinda boring,” Aisha says, grabbing Jules’s arm as they exit the lecture hall and head for the park in front of King’s literature faculty building. Autumn’s only just started, and the sun is still out, so it’s the time to enjoy its last rays before the cold inevitably kicks in again.
“You think so?” Jules says, turning her head towards her friend. Sure, Shakespeare isn’t for everyone, but she thought Prof. G’s lecture was quite nice. Different, kind of weird, but still. Interesting. He seemed incredibly passionate about the subject, at least, so guess Aisha’s brother’s cuckolding theory wasn’t very correct.
“No, yeah, I guess,” Aisha strung out the word as if saying it against her will, “It was kinda good. I can see what you like so much about Shakespeare.” She heaves her bag higher over her shoulder, and then drops her head dramatically against Jules’. When Jules raises her eyebrows in teasing glee, Aisha pouts. “But I just really wanted to hear the prof call Shakespeare a boyfriend-stealing twink!”
Jules throws her head back and laughs.
—
It’s Open Throne Day in the Dreaming – which is not the official name, Matthew, as the boss has informed him many times, but he will keep calling it so anyway, because these kinds of days feel exactly like the Open House at his niece’s elementary school that he went to once. Or like that scene in The Princess Diaries Two, which his girlfriend made him watch one time and which he rewatched on his own later because they spend the whole movie making out.
(He’d love to see the boss run after a chicken, one day. As a birthday gift, maybe. Hob will probably help him make it happen.)
Point being, ever since the not very good really bad century, the big boss has let himself be convinced by Luce and the boy toy, and even a little bit by Matthew himself, thank you very much, and took their advice to rule together with his subjects by heart. Partly.
He’s still usually a bit grumpy about it, but he loves his dreams and nightmares and it seeps into everything that he does. Subtly, but it does.
Which makes this whole scene incredibly weird.
Because Dream just… hugged? A dream?
Granted, he’d been crying for one reason or another, but Matthew had never. Not Ever. Seen Dream stand up from his big black throne and hug one of his subjects.
And then he asked Matthew to lead her to the kitchen to get him ice cream, because ice cream is the infallible cure for all sadness. Said with a completely straight face.
This must be a joke, right? He must be messing with Matthew, personally. Right?
When he gets back to the throne room after about thirty minutes (but who’s to say in the Dreaming – and yes, he did spend some time talking to the dream, who did seem to feel a lot better after ice cream?), the line has significantly shortened. Currently, there’s a nightmare with an alligator’s face and tail doing a whole demonstration with broad hand gestures and pointed words, and there’s Dream of the Endless on his throne, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, listening attentively.
The moment the gator nightmare slows down a bit, the boss starts shaking his head and interrupts.
“So, wait. Have you talked about these concerns with your union?”
-
What.
“Union?” The nightmare asks hesitatingly, and Matthew gets it, because he would also think the boss was making a joke. If the boss has ever made a joke in his life, but he hasn’t, so.
“You don’t have a union?” The boss asks, and he looks surprised, but the most surprising this is that Matthew can actually read his emotions from his face. What the fuck?
“You should really think about starting a union,” the boss goes on, standing up and descending the one step of the otherwise forever ongoing stairs to get closer to the nightmare, “First of all, it will increase your bargaining power immensely if you bargain collectively. Second, it would be so much easier to make collective decisions about how to improve working conditions, much more efficient than wasting your time waiting in a line and my time having to address all the same requests one at a time.” Dream smiles. “Don’t you think?”
“Yes?” The gator nightmare still looks like she expects a camera team to jump out of nowhere, announcing that she’s the latest victim of DreamTV’s latest prank show. Matthew doesn’t blame her.
Dream smiles brightly at her. “Yes, I thought so. So here’s what we’ll do -” and then goes into a whole spiel on how to best start with their union.
Matthew has the sudden urge to go take Dream’s temperature, because surely he must have a fever, when from behind him a voice sounds.
“What. Are you doing?”
The boss’s boy toy stands incredibly still, and he looks in suspicion at the scene playing out in front of them. Matthew flies over to his shoulder. “Boss has eaten something weird, I think,” he says with glee, because aside from the weirdness this is the absolute funniest thing that has ever happened here, “he’s discussing unions.”
Hob’s eyes crinkle, like he doesn’t know what to do with his face, and then he settles on frowning. “Thank you, Matthew,” he says, and then he’s off.
Dream looks up, and his face lights up when he sees his lover stalking toward him. “Hello, love.”
“Everyone out,” Hob says, in such a definite manner that the remaining dreams and nightmares almost scramble to obey. Turning back to Dream, he frowns even more when he sees him waving at his parting subjects. “Stop that. We need to have a talk.”
The boss’s eyes widen in surprise, but then his whole face easily relaxes in a smile. “Sure, love. What’s up?”
And Matthew isn’t really up for being here for an argument, and even less for when they inevitably end the argument in throne sex – it has regrettably happened before, and even more regrettably, Matthew has accidentally witnessed it once –, so he quickly scrapes his throat and calls, “Yep, out of here too! Bye boss! Bye Hob!”, before flying away as fast as possible.
“Holy shit, Luce, you’re never gonna believe this,” Matthew says, slightly out of breath from how fast he flew to the library.
Lucienne, as per rule, is buried with her nose in a too-large pile of books, and only offers a distracted, “Hmm?”
“Okay, so I was just in the throne room, yeah? Doing the boss’s Open Throne thing. Anyway, then he was physically touchy, and he started talking unions? Which is weird in itself because when the hell is the boss the one who encourages his workers to form a union? But then also, it’s the boss! Anyway, and then the boy toy came, I mean, Gadling came, and anyway -” he takes a deep breath for the big reveal, and Lucienne offers another distracted, but encouraging “Hmm?”
“They totally Freaky Friday’d!”
“Really?” Lucienne asks, putting one book on a slightly smaller pile.
“And it’s not even fucking Friday! It was fucking weird, you know? Bet it was a sex game gone wrong, mark my words!”
And then Lucienne looks up, but right past him, and says, “Ah, my Lord, I have found what you asked me for,” and Matthew turns around abruptly to the boss and Hob standing in the doorway to the library, Hob with red cheeks and the boss with Hob’s usual broad grin looking very out of place on his face.
“It wasn’t a sex game!” Hob – no, Dream – says loudly, indignantly, at the same time as Dream-actually-Hob says,
“Well, I wouldn’t say it went really wrong, per se.”
—
Me (4.06 pm)
So turns out your borther was totally right about the cuckolded prof g thing
*brother
Im pretty sure he called Shakespeare a dateruiner at one point
But that he got the last laugh at the end at least
Or whatever
Aisha<3 (4.09 pm)
NOOOOOOOOO
AND I MISSED IT
HE DID THAT TO BULLY ME SPECIFICALLY
Me (4.10 pm)
Im pretty sure his boyfriend was also there
Aisha<3 (4.11 pm)
oh okay so the pretending to be cuckolded by ss is a weird nerd people sex thing I get it now
Me (4.11 pm)
DON’T SAY THAT ABOUT MY PROFESSOR?????
Aisha<3 (4.12 pm)
just spilling facts here babe
Me (4.15 pm)
Never say that again
I will literally pay your coffee and tell you everything that happened in detail
If you never say that again
Aisha<3 (4.16 pm)
it’s a date
<3