Archive of Our Own ^beta

DECEMBER 2^ND, 2025     

“Steph, what the hell is this?”

Steph glances over her shoulder from where she’s been rifling through her fridge, fingers carding through and around expired condiments and poptopped cans and half empty jars she really needs to dig the maybe moldy contents out of and recycle. The mold potential being exactly the scary thing preventing her from opening them. And the horrors of recycling at her apartment complex. She pushes herself up on her feet a little higher and cranes her neck. She can kind of see an envelope in Pete’s hands, orange and purple, their school colors.

“Uh…flash it this way, babe?”

Giving her a very unimpressed look, Pete does. Steph turns back around. “Oh, yeah, that.” Her fingers close around a jar of applesauce she thinks is still good. “It’s whateves.” She closes the fridge door with her hip, twists the lid off, and is happy to find that the applesauce is still good after all. “Thanks for the reminder, though; I’m gonna call my grandma about it. She’s less of a hardass than my dad was. She’ll smooth it all over if I bat my eyes and pout a few times.” Steph grabs a spoon and leans against the counter as she digs into the applesauce. Snack successfully acquired.

“That’s—Steph—what?! I don’t even—I—okay, back up. We’re backing up. I’m taking this two-things-I-wanna-say-at-once truck and putting it in reverse.”

“Beep beep,” Steph says, smiling over at Pete. Endeared. Frazzled as he is, he does smile back. He takes a breath.

“When did you cheat on an English paper?”

“Allegedly,” Steph says in a tone very aware that she’s bullshitting and not at all trying to hide it. “Uh, it was a few weeks ago, when you had that thing with the games club.”

“Go Grandpa Ultimate Pokémon Tournament?”

“Yes, that!” Steph says. “Okay, so I had that, which was—what did that guy say? ‘Grab a fuckin snack because…?’”

“…Despite the name, speedruns are not speedy, especially not ones for these old ass Pokémon games, yeah.” Pete has to say it around a wobbly smile so he doesn’t laugh.

“Yeah.” Steph sets her applesauce down. “Anyway, I had that,” counting the events on her fingers as she goes, “Jimi’s acapella show, and that big ass update for Satisfactory came out. Where was the time for me to read that book? Enlighten me, Pete.”

“Guess you’re not hitting up the English department when they finally make you choose your major…” Pete mutters. Steph can tell his shoulders have lowered a bit, but he still looks a little on edge. “You didn’t just ask for an extension?”

Steph feels heat rise in her face as she goes to grab her applesauce again, give her hands something to do. Just the gentle but very real humiliation that goes along with completely overlooking something. “I’ll be honest. It didn’t even occur to me,” she says.

Pete crosses over to lean next to Steph in the kitchen, pressing his shoulder up against hers. He offers the letter out to her, pulled out of its tackily colored envelope. “Well, I’m flattered that you cheated for me this time, but you have a meeting scheduled with the Honor counselor tomorrow, Steph!”

“What?” she slides her applesauce haphazardly back onto the counter and grabs the paper. Towards the very bottom of it, past the final fold, it reads,

At this time, we have scheduled a meeting between Ms. Lauter and NMU Honor Counselor Zada McGuire for 9:00 AM on Wednesday, December 3^rd, 2025 to discuss these charges. You may admit to the violation and retract the assignment in question to cancel this meeting, at which time the instructor teaching the course the violation occurred in will determine the consequences, or call the Honor office up to 24 hours in advance to reschedule this appointment. Not (a.) appearing at this meeting or (b.) taking either of the two aforementioned actions will result in being placed on academic probation effective immediately.

“Fuck, dude!” Steph says, bringing her hand up to her forehead. Pete brings his hand up to rub at her back, going up every few motions to rub his thumb against the spot that always tinges sore, just above where her bra usually sits. “And 9 AM? In December in fucking Michigan?” Steph lets out on an astonished laugh, “They’re gonna fucking kill me, not put me on academic probation!”

Pete laughs with her, still rubbing her back. “You’re not just gonna take the zero or whatever Franks decides to give you?”

“No! I mean, one, he’s a cunt, two, college in 21^st century America is a capitalistic institution that serves to sedate middle class teenagers’ anxieties—” your grandma was a senator for like three decades, Pete mutters under his breath, “—as they enter the working world, throw them into debt on top of it all to really emphasize that there’s no making it out of the neoliberal machine, and prioritize the perspectives of people who’ve never done an ounce of fieldwork in their life, and I’m the problem if I cheat?” After a beat, she continues, “Three, we cut up a guy’s body, we can get some stuck up English professor off our backs.”

“Our and we? Also, stop saying that! I know you know that was all Ruth and Grace. Mostly.” And likewise, Pete knows she knows and just likes to rile him up sometimes.

Steph holds her hand out, and Pete stops rubbing her back so he can hold it. She smiles up at him, and he can hardly help planting a soft kiss on her lips. “Yeah, our and we,” she says.

“Our and we,” Pete resounds, bumping her hip with his. “Now, I think I oughta tell my coconspirator to get to bed if she doesn’t want me to scrape her out of it tomorrow morning.”

Steph groans and puts her applesauce back. “You’ll come with me?” she asks, throwing her spoon in the sink.

“Not a chance.”

“Pete!”

“I love you very much, but this was fundamentally not my fault. You can take my good gloves, though.”

“…Alright, fine. I guess I love you too.”

DECEMBER 3^RD, 2025

Pete wakes Steph up the next morning shuffling around in her arms after his alarm buzzes. She groans a little before saying in a raspy whisper, “This is my least favorite thing about you,” snuggling herself up closer against his back and throwing her leg further over his hip. “The Sun isn’t even up yet.”

“It’s December.”

“Mmhmm. Who give a shit.”

Pete flips over so he can hug Steph, kissing at her face. “Do you think Descartes was being octopus girlfriend when he said that?” Steph nods, blinking through unfocused eyes and wild hair. She hugs Pete hard enough to squeeze. They can feel each other shivering a bit at the air that rushes in under the covers as they shift around—even with the heat on, their nest of blankets, and their pajamas. “You can stay in bed,” Pete says, “I gotta eat.”

“Come get me up around 8?” Steph asks, loosening her death grip on Pete.

“Okay,” he says. Slowly, she gives him a kiss and pulls her limbs off of him. She snuggles back into the sheets.

In an ideal world, Pete thinks, he’d make waffles this morning and pass one off on Steph cut into quarters and packed like a sandwich when she rushes out to make her meeting. Then, he remembers he doesn’t actually have anywhere to be until 10 (class) and he can do that, actually. So, he pulls Steph’s waffle maker out of the high shelf she keeps it in since she almost never bothers with it. While he’s letting the batter sit and the baking powder reaction bubble, he goes to get Steph up. She’s completely scrunched into the covers with only her eyes showing when he comes in the room.

“Are you making something?” she asks. “I heard you banging around in the kitchen.”

“Waffles,” Pete says. He holds out his hand for Steph to take, but she puts her face in her hands.

“Oh my god,” she says, that sort of brain ache she gets waking up in the (near-)dark loosening. “You’re just, like, the best. I don’t even have anything else to say.” She takes Pete’s hand then.

“Thank you, baby.” He spends some time squeezing her hand before taking it back in a firm grip. “Alright, up, Steph, up.” He gives her a tug and she sits up, brushing her hair off her shoulders and out of her face with her other hand. He pats her hand a few times before letting go. “See you in a few.”

Pete has time to eat his waffles on a plate by the time Steph comes out with her clothes on, yawning and coming to lean against the counter with him by the sink. She glances a bit anxiously at the clock on the microwave. “I don’t know if I have time to eat these is the only thing,” she says.

Pete reaches across the counter and hands her a stack of cut up waffles wrapped in aluminum foil. “Bam.”

Steph puts a hand over her heart. “You are so sweet,” she says. “Wanna date?” Pete gives her finger guns and clicks his tongue. Steph clicks her tongue right back at him, and they spend a solid minute clicking back and forth at each other as they go over to Steph’s closet to bundle up for the weather. Pete gives Steph his good gloves, and Steph wraps her favorite thick, fuzzy tree-patterned scarf around his neck. “Good luck, Steph,” Pete says.

“You going back to your dorm?” Steph asks, leaning up to give him a kiss.

“Yep. Text me or call me about how the meeting goes, okay?”

“Okay.”

Pete’s able to take a bus back to upper-level dorms in just a few minutes, but the Honor building isn’t so close to a road. Angrily munching on her waffles, Steph frowns the entire walk, up to and including when she pushes the heavy, well-insulated door to the building open and shuffles inside, throwing her balled up aluminum foil waffle-wrap in the trashcan next to the door. She takes her scarf off immediately, but it’s still way too hot inside, the sudden temperature change making her fingers tingle as she slips off Pete’s gloves.

“You can put your coat on the rack by the terrarium,” the receptionist sitting at a desk that looks way too big for just them to be sitting there says, typing something as they speak. Steph turns her head, and sure enough, there’s a large, sort of tropical-looking terrarium sitting on the other side of the room. Steph wonders if it’s this hot in the building every time of year.

The Honor building as a whole looks at least 150 years old in that sort of off-putting way of too much open space and creaky wooden floors but also modern with its new stark white interior paint job, metallic detailing, and higher tech devices and appliances than totally necessary. Newly rid of a good half of her layers, Steph fills up her water at the automatic water bottle filling station close by the front desk. The number in the top right corner changes from 20172 to 20173.

“Do you have an appointment?” the person at the front desk asks once Steph meanders back over, glancing up at her over the too big desk.

“Uh, yeah, my name’s Stephanie Lauter,” Steph says, rubbing her palms against her double-layered pants. The tingles in her fingers haven’t quite left yet.

The receptionist clicks their mouse a few times. “Mmm,” they say. Fuck yourself, Steph thinks. “Okay, you’re gonna be seeing Zada. You can take a seat, and she’ll be out shortly to bring you back.”

Steph doesn’t have to wait long at all on the plastic-plush white couch, having just rolled in a minute or two before her appointment time and probably being the first appointment of the day at that. The counselor is a woman in light gray dress pants and a white button down, hair tied back in a sharpslick ponytail that almost looks wet in its smoothness. She brings Steph further back into the building into her office.

“Pick a seat, any seat,” Zada says, referring to the only two other chairs aside from hers in the room, one squarer and a little more padded and the other slightly taller, rounded, and more rigid, both sitting side by side across from Zada’s (normal sized) desk. Steph picks the harder chair; the air’s prickling chill against her cheeks had kept her sharp and alert as she had made her way over to the Honor building, and she’s not keen to let a softish chair in a warm room lull her into letting her guard down.

“I brought your file up before you came in,” Zada says. “I assume you read that letter backwards and forwards a dozen times,” not exactly “but for reasons of legality, integrity, and honor,” emphasis and wry smile on the last word, “Professor Franks in the English department has accused you of violating the NMU Honor code by cheating on a written assignment for his ENG 205 class. Uh, let’s see, according to his report,” Zada clicks her mouse a few times and leans in closer to her computer screen, “‘M. Lauter violated both my expectations of Honor for this assignment as well as the University’s by copying the analysis of notable scholars Lorde and Ahmed. I furthermore would accuse M. Lauter of using generative AI to produce this already plagiarized work, a practice that circumvents the learning experience of constructing one’s own written communication and argumentation and, moreover, violates even further the spirit if not the letter of NMU Honor policies.’” Zada takes a breath, and Steph through concerted effort keeps her expression neutral. She continues, “As of five minutes ago, I didn’t have any sort of email from Professor Franks saying you two had handled this yourselves, so…what’s your perspective here?” At some point during the speech, Zada has started clicking her pen. It’s completely captured Steph’s visual attention.

“My perspective is that I didn’t do this,” she says, feeling very far out of her depth. She hadn’t even reread that stupid fucking paper before coming over. She’s not an idiot, though—she remembers lightly rephrasing those quotes she copypasted from those journals and touching up the AI language a bit. With reasonable doubt, all a coincidence. What’d her dad always say? Don’t talk to the police, but if they approach you, be polite and do not make any sudden moves or reach into your pockets. Always ask if they have a warrant; if you’re being detained; and above all else, Stephanie, ask for a lawyer and keep your mouth shut.

Zada nods a bit to herself like she expected that. “So, just to be clear, you’re declining to retract your work for the assignment?”

“Yes,” Steph says, meeting the counselor’s eye. She doesn’t find anything of note; she seems overall disinterested in the situation, another kid accused of cheating under circumstances she wasn’t there for and doesn’t know.

“Alright, Stephanie, that’ll be your choice if you decide to make it; no one at Honor should ever try to pressure you into making any decisions about your case or approaching it in any way that contradicts what you want. That being said, do you realize that taking this path regarding your case could result in your expulsion if you are found by a five-sevenths majority of a randomly selected jury of your peers to be guilty of the Honor infraction?”

“I do understand that,” Steph says, reinforcing her growing suspicion that she—and honestly, probably not even her grandma—is really gonna have to go all in on this if she wants to give the consequences to her actions a middle finger again.

Zada finishes clicking her pen with one last resounding click. She sets it down. “We can get this rolling, then. I’m gonna assign you a student representative. The Honor panel will review your work and make a determination of whether there’s enough evidence to formally charge you before we schedule the formal trial, but I’ll just let you know ahead of time that I’ve very rarely seen the panel determine that there isn’t enough evidence. Anyway,” Zada starts typing and clicking around on her computer, “your representative will be…Chi Vuong, they/he pronouns it says, they’re not here today for a few more hours, but I’ll give you their student email. We also have an app that lets representatives talk with you more easily, but that’s something you can figure out with Chi.”

To get spied on. Yeah, right.

Steph types Chi an email on her phone half leaned over on the couch in the lobby; pees; grabs her coat, scarf, and gloves; and goes trekking off to find a snack before her 12 PM Nature and Cities class.

She texts Pete, meeting fucking suckt, babe 😒. tell u abt it the next time i see you

“Seriously?” Pete’s roommate asks, opening the door.

Pete looks up at xem from where he’s lying on his bed reading Systems Analysis and Design. He scrunches his face up and moves his non-dominant hand in a ‘what do you mean’ sort of motion. “Seriously what?” he asks.

“You’re usually at your girlfriend’s right about now.”

Pete doesn’t know if that’s entirely true, but. “Okay? I’m supposed to do the exact same thing every day every week or…?”

“Funny,” Cory says with just this side of an edge in their voice. Pete can never really tell if they hate him or not.

“Do you want me to leave or something?” Cory scrunches their face up.

“You know I hate practicing in the practice rooms,” Cory says. Xe fiddles with their flute case, standing in that kind of restless, awkward way you do when you go to someone’s house for the first time.

“Okay?” Pete says. And that’s his problem why? Steph would say, but she also hasn’t been decked in a parking lot for hanging out near a popular girl. Absolutely none of that means Pete is gonna make this an ounce easier for Cory, though. Cory runs a hand down xer cheek and then side to side across xer mouth.

“Look, I can’t force you to do anything. I’d prefer it if you would leave, I guess! But this is my room too, and I’m just gonna start playing if you don’t go.” They unzip the flute case, and Pete can’t help but laugh under his breath.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” Pete says, closing his book and going to get his bookbag together. “I’ve got class in not too long.” He slips on the bracelet Steph got him for his birthday and gets himself ready for the weather. “See you whenever I’m back!” he tells Cory.

“You’re here literally like 25% of the time.”

“Yep!”

Getting kicked out of his room early means Pete gets to resume his reading on the seats outside his CS 311 class, the class happening before his still inside. Or at least, he starts to. Anjali Salmaan jogs up the staircase right around the moment he first turns a page.

“Hey, Peter,” she says, standing closer to him than she normally does with a bit of a sheepish look. “Sorry,” she says, eyes darting to his book, “this is important. Can I talk to you for a sec?”

Anjali is also in the computer science program and also part of the games club. Pete’s never seen her in something other than a long sleeved shirt, and she wears her hair in a short bob, the ends of it only just curling around her ears when she tucks it back. Pete thinks she’s pretty cool. But she’s acting super weird right now.

“Uh—?” Pete starts, but Anjali cuts him off.

“Look, it’s about your girlfriend. Rumor has it Franks accused her of cheating.”

“What?” Pete says, a little pissed off and a little stunned, “Who the hell is talking about Steph like that? And why?”

“Oh, it’s nothing bad,” Anjali starts, but then some other members of their class start meandering over and Pete and Anjali hear the telltale shuffling and chair scrapes of students minutes away from class ending, watching the time on their phones like hawks. She lowers her voice to a whisper, leaning even further over Pete’s book, “We just think we could help her out and expose a massive fucking problem at NMU.”

Pete glances around. The people in the class before theirs have started filtering out, and some of the people from their class are giving them strange looks. “What?” Pete whispers back. “Who’s ‘we?’”

“The NMU Atheist Coalition.” Their professor slips by them to get into the classroom. “And members of some of the marginalized religion clubs around campus. They heard we were pursuing this and wanted in, and why not accept help? Even from people at the forefront of pushing the dangerous, propagandic lie of religion onto new generations.”

“I…didn’t know you were in the Atheist Coalition,” is all Pete manages to say to that.

“Oh, yeah,” Anjali says. “Anyway, do you have anything immediately after this? We could talk in that weird little back entrance by the engineering library.”

“No, I can…I can do that, Anj.”

“Awesome,” Anjali says, backing up and raising her voice. “Software engineering, right?” she says as she goes into the classroom.

“Steph,” he grumbles to himself. Not that he won’t follow along, for her sake. He’d take a bullet for her.

Pete starts to think Anjali will forget about sequestering him away after class after their professor springs an annoying group final brainstorm session onto them, fit with making them rearrange their desks and awkwardly talk about any ideas they might have for a thing they probably just started thinking about. As soon as class is over, though, she whips her head around to make eye contact with him, and Pete knows he’s had no such luck. After she puts her desk back to where it was before class started, she walks over to him with bouncy steps and drags him along with her.         

Anjali plants them at the first landing of the staircase by the lesser used side entrance to the building, closest to the historical collection people only go to if they’re really desperate or intense about something and just out of the reach of the camera by the door. She immediately pulls her laptop out of her bag, starts logging onto a VPN, and starts searching through a media drive from a site Pete’s maybe heard of in passing.

“Okay,” Anj says, switching back to a tab of her NMU email, “so, this,” pulling up an email, “is the email G. Vinny sent us last December right before winter break; we’ll probably get one that’s very similar in a few weeks, etc. etc. You’ll notice it mentions specifically the holiday Christmas a total of four times,” Anj says, highlighting them all with the ease of someone who’s definitely done it numerous times before.

“I did think that was weird,” Pete comments.

“Right? Like you’d think, ‘hmm, weird that they’re still using that sort of language at a public university in 2025. You’d think someone would have talked to them about it or a group of students,” gesturing at herself, “might have complained.’ But here’s the thing. We have.”

Back to the drive, Anjali pulls up an email from 2015. “This is just the earliest one we were able to get a hold of, but this is an email from 10 fucking years ago from a student to the NMU diversity and inclusivity council about how intense NMU’s Christian-centric language is. They never got a response, and as far as we can tell, the only students who do ever get a response on these types of emails are, like, club presidents or on student council or football players, and that ‘response’ is just a probably automated ‘thank you for bringing this up; we’ll look into it’ message. Well, this past year, someone from the NJS and someone from the NMS started talking about this with each other, and we started investigating this together, and, look, the details don’t matter, but this goes deep, Pete.” Anjali’s voice has gotten a bit louder as she passionately regales the story to Pete, but she’s sure to whisper the next part, “This is like the crown jewel of our collection.”

Notably, Anjali doesn’t slide the laptop over to Pete. Instead, she pulls up a tax form or some sort of acknowledgement of money transfer from Kalkaska Impact and zooms way in so Pete can easily see. She scrolls to one particular line, noting the receiving party, Jennifer Davies. “That’s the vice president of the University’s wife,” Anjali stresses. “And you’ll notice,” she zooms out and clicks off to a page on the NMU website, “NMU has this list of donors page and Kalkaska Impact isn’t on it, but what they also don’t have is any sort of record available to the public of these donations.”

Pete rubs at the back of one of his eyelids with a finger. “And what does any of this have to do with Steph?” he says on half a groan. Frankly, Pete wishes he hadn’t seen any of this. Anjali holds up her index finger, a ‘hold it right there’ type of motion.

She pulls up another email. “The NMU Atheist Coalition, accompanied by some of the religious societies around campus, just recently got our FOIA request to get to the bottom of this denied. After we’ve been working on this for a fucking year. The decision we all made out loud and on paper was that we’d done all we could and to just let this be, but well….”

Pete puts his whole face in his hands now. “I don’t like where this is going!”

“Alright—you like your girlfriend getting expelled and having to revamp the entire immediate trajectory of her life a lot better?”

“God,” Pete mutters to himself, “what are you even suggesting, Anjali?”

Anjali leans back and gives him an appraising look. “I’m suggesting you give me Stephanie’s number so I can talk about this more in depth with her.”

“No,” Pete says immediately, “no, you’ve gotta tell me more about this if you want me to give you her number.”

“Why? She can talk to you about whatever we talk about, if she wants.”

Pete gives her a look. “Um, because I love her and would like to look out for her whenever I’m able? It’s—” he looks around and whispers, “—it’s not even a hard no, Anjali. Where I think you’re going with this. I’d just like to hear it myself first, for her sake and mine.” Not for the first time in his life after high school, Pete wonders what the person in front of him, Anjali, would say if she knew what he’d done before he shed the rough, off-putting skin of Hatchetfield.

Anjali clicks her tongue. “I’ll say this. If they won’t let us get what we need to know the above table way, there are more direct ways one could go about getting non-public information.”

Pete sighs. “Give me your phone.”

From Pete to Steph: Hi, babe! Sorry ur meeting suckt :( Hope you’re having a good day besides that. You might be getting a weird call or text at some point

DECEMBER 4^TH, 2025

Chi is nice enough to meet Steph at the Chipotle closer to her apartment but farther from the law school. Steph mulls around for a while in the corner farthest from the tables and where they make the food until someone Steph thinks looks like the picture associated with Chi Vuong’s student email account walks through the door. They look around a bit, move a few steps away from the entrance, and go to pull out their phone as Steph makes her way over. “Chi?” she asks.

Chi nods with a smile. “Stephanie?” he asks. Steph gets a chance to look at him; his black hair is cropped short against his head, and he has clear, rounded glasses with thick frames that bump against his cheeks when he smiles.

“Or Steph,” she says, smiling back.

“Nice to meet you!” Chi says, sticking out his hand to shake. Like she always does when someone roughly her age offers to shake her hand, Steph accepts after a split second of surprise. “Let’s get some food, why don’t we?” When he turns around to get in line, Steph can see that he’s got pins on his backpack—they/he, QSU, a Vietnamese flag, a very well-made silver scales of justice symbol, and a smattering of TV- and movie-themed pins and Pokémon. It makes Steph’s skin feel a bit less taut.

They find a spot at the picnic tables close by that are largely abandoned in the blowing snow. Steph half wishes she’d got a burrito to warm her hands up, but having to deal with eating a burrito while meeting with the person responsible for not getting her expelled for the first time would be so not worth it.

Chi talks to her about some unrelated things for a while—they stick on mostly music—and it’s only after a while of talking about Metal Galaxy that Chi says, veiling it around a sip from their water bottle, “So, did you do it?”

“Damn!” Steph says, and after a beat, both of them start laughing.

“You’d think I’d learn my lesson on asking that after one of my representees—what an awful word, right?—nearly choked on their dumpling at the dumpling cart, but it’s too good not to ask.”

“Okay, I do kind of agree,” Steph says, still laughing a bit, “but, um, what? Can you even ask me that?” Chi shrugs.

“You don’t have to answer. It’s just that I have kind of a different attitude about Honor than a lot of the other Honor representatives. I don’t care if you did it, frankly. I’d rather make sure students who spend the amount of time, effort, and money everyone here does getting into and attending NMU don’t get kicked out for dumb shit that pales in comparison to the shit NMU does and has done.”

Steph nods along. Of course, she knows; NMU is on Odawa land, the school very much taught eugenics, the med school had instances of graverobbing early in its history, students of Color were de facto banned for several decades, usual fucked shit along those lines. But something feels pointed, specific beneath the surface, about what Chi is saying.

“Is there something in particular—?” Steph starts, voice instinctively on a whisper.

“I have it on good authority that NMU is in the back pocket of Kalkaska Impact under G. Vinny. We’re trying to figure out how to deal with it with all the time and money a bunch of college students have. They rejected our FOIA request, which fucking sucks.”

“Oh!” Steph says, very much the first time she’s heard about this. “What’s—I mean, why do you think that?”

Chi laughs a little. “The whole of it is so far beyond the point of this meeting, but it all comes back to all those weird messages Vinny sends out about Christian holidays and avoiding using ‘they’ like the plague. It doesn’t have any bearing on your case.”

Steph never does say outright whether or not she cheated, but she does mention that her grandma and dad used to be politicians and never outright defends herself. She and Chi look at her paper, the assignment instructions, and Professor Franks’s accusations (something Chi has to pull up) before deeming the meeting over. Chi gets Steph to send him all the information from her end and tells her he’ll contact her again after having some time to assess the situation and think of a strategy on his own. They’re putting their laptops away and packing up their things to leave when Steph’s phone starts buzzing. She’s confused for a second looking at the screen before she remembers the text and subsequent thirty-second rundown she’d gotten from Pete. “Oh,” she says to Chi, “my boyfriend said I might be getting a call—I think about this?—that might be what this is.”

Chi scrunches up their face in confusion. “Your boyfriend said…?” but Steph is already answering the phone.

“Hey?” she says, about 70% as confident as she usually is when she answers the phone.

“Is this Stephanie Lauter?” the voice on the other end of the phone asks.

“Um, yeah it is. Who’s this, and why are you talking about me with my boyfriend behind my back?”

“Peter didn’t even tell you what my name was? That’s fucked,” Anjali says, laughter tinging the words. On the other side of the picnic table, Chi has started making hand gestures and mouthing things at Steph. Put it on speaker phone, speaker phone! “My name’s Anjali. Anjali Salmaan. I have a proposition for you.”

Steph had been kind of angling herself away from Chi in trying to ignore his efforts at her attention, but she turns back to him with a confused, furrowed brow as she asks, “Okay, Anjali, what kind of proposition?”

Just as Anjali starts to answer, Chi’s face lights up and they say, “Anjali? Anjali Salmaan?”

“You know this person?” Steph hisses, pulling the phone a bit away from her cheek but not far enough for Anjali not to hear.

“What? Who are you talking to?” echoes faintly in Steph’s ear.

“Of course I know Anjali. Tell her I’m here, too—put her on speaker phone already, Steph!—remember what I was saying about us trying to deal with NMU and Kalkaska Impact? Well, it’s—”

Steph, sort of half-processing both what Chi is saying and Anjali’s questions on the line, pulls her phone away from her face and presses the speaker phone button. “…you there?”

“Anj!” Chi says, “It’s Chi!”

“Chi?” Anjali asks, “You know Stephanie?”

“You’re not gonna believe this, Anj. I’m her Honor representative; I was just meeting with her to go over the case.”

Steph can hear Anjali gasp in surprise over the phone. “No way!” she yells over the line, “This is crazy! This is perfect.”

Chi reels himself in a bit, excited grin still on his lips. “As a law student, I do not like your tone. As myself, I love it,” he says.

“Plan at hand, plan at hand,” Anjali says, “I can kiki with Chi some other time.” Steph is still reeling from everything that’s happened since she picked up the phone. “Listen, Stephanie! Chi’s great, I’m sure they’ll do a great job representing you, but from what I’ve heard about the whole thing, you’re kind of fucked. I have a bit of a more direct way of dealing with things, if you catch my drift, and I’d love to meet up with you in person to talk about it!”

“La la la, I’m not listening,” Chi says, mock holding their hands up over their ears. “But if there’s anything I could do to directly help you two under plausible deniability, just let me know!”

“You rock, Chi,” Anjali tells him, and he takes the opportunity to start packing up his things and leaving for real.

“I’m heading out, Anjali, you and Steph talk!”

Anjali offers them her goodbyes, and Steph feels a sudden dread wash over her body, a vision that vanishes as soon as it appears of the next few months of her life. Her throat dry and face warm even flecked with snow, like she might cry, Steph calls out,

“Wait, Chi, do you think I’m fucked?”

Chi makes a wobbly sort of face at her. They throw up a peace sign and turn on their heel.

GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!! *Nia Jax screaming and throwing shit video*

That bad? :(

wanna come over and give me cuddles, cutie pie?

💞💞💖

Steph swings by the rec building in her Honda Accord, a hand-me-down from her dad before he went out and got himself a hybrid car. And, y’know, killed. Pete is standing out on the sidewalk when she rolls up, neck craned down to hide his face in his scarf as he shuffles on his feet to keep his blood pumping. He squints a bit in the darkness, and when he sees it’s Steph’s car, his face comes right out of his scarf into a bright smile. Steph rolls her window down as she rounds the curb.

“Hey, cutie. Going my way?”

Steph can hear Pete’s laughter trail around the car as he walks to the passenger side, setting his copy of Cyberpunk Red in the floorboards of Steph’s backseat before climbing into the front passenger side. “You sound like Hannibal Lecter,” he says going through the door, smiling and accepting Steph’s kiss.

“Yeah, I’m gonna eat you,” Steph says, her teeth glinting in her grin in the dark.

“Alright, well, how are you, Hannibal Lecter?”

Steph’s teeth disappear back into the dark, the crinkle around her eyes smoothing and steeling out, and Pete immediately knows he’s nudged a sore spot instead of a playful one. “Pretty sucky,” Steph says, “but at least I’ve got a cute guy in my car.” The humor doesn’t quite hit in the way it normally would, and it doesn’t reach Steph’s face or voice. Pete frowns too as he thinks of what to say or do for Steph in the moment, but as Steph shifts the car into drive, she lets out a breath and holds out her hand for Pete to hold. He takes it with no hesitation and watches as she jerkily starts to bring the car back around the curb with one hand. “We could do Thelma and Louise instead,” she says, finally getting to the part in the parking lot where she can drive straight. Pete just shifts his weight in his seat so he can put his head on her shoulder.

Steph brings them around the upper-level dorms so Pete can drop off Cyberpunk Red and grab some stuff to stay the night.

(“Seriously?” Pete asks Cory while walking through the door, watching as xer eyes widen and they search around somewhere vaguely to the left for something to say before he follows up that he’s just grabbing some things and will be out with Steph that night.

He hears xem mutter, “Dick,” under their breath and manages not to laugh until he gets to the stairs, telling Steph about it when he gets back in the car.)

Steph collapses face first onto her couch, right arm dangling towards the floor. “I am so tired,” she says. “Just, like, mentally!”

“Aww,” Pete breathes out, going over to place a supportive hand on Steph’s shoulder. Steph turns her head and narrows her eyes at him.

“Did you eat yet?” she asks.

Pete makes a motion that’s a mix of a shrug and, sheepishly, a head shake. “Go grab a microwave meal,” Steph says, and he pats her shoulder one last time to go off and do just that.

“Tell me about what happened today!” Pete calls from the kitchen.

Steph tells him. About Chi and Anjali calling and Anjali’s suggestion that they meet up right that moment. “I could have, is the thing,” she says, “or even later today. But I just cannot deal with all this shit right now.”

“Good for you, Steph,” Pete comments, swirling his noodle bowl around in its container before putting it back in for its final minute in the microwave. Anj had been there at the Cyberpunk session too; she’d just smiled at Pete, said hello, and played as usual. You can’t learn a thing about her at games club.

“That’s why I’m meeting with her tomorrow,” Steph finishes, and Pete laughs.

“Nooooo, Steph,” he says, all empathy despite the giggles.

“Is the vibe…” Steph trails off and Pete ducks his head around the corner to look at her, just as the microwave beeps, “like,” she pushes herself up on one shoulder and makes an ambiguous hand gesture, “I’m gonna break in and steal shit, or am I reading this completely wrong?”

“No, that’s 100% the vibe, baby, I’m sorry to say.” Pete ducks back into the kitchen to grab his food.

“God damn it,” Steph emphasizes, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Am I, like, gonna do that?” she asks.

Pete doesn’t answer as he comes back into the living room from the kitchen, noodle bowl and fork in hand. He nudges at Steph’s leg with his knee. “You gonna let me sit?” he asks, and Steph scrunches up her legs. Once he’s settled in, she stretches her feet back out onto his lap. “That’s all the way up to you, Steph.”

Steph groans, and Pete gives her a bite of his noodles.

DECEMBER 11^TH, 2025

All things considered, Steph thinks she crushed that stupid English final.

All things being staying vaguely on top of the plans Anjali has been making to raid the Honor dean’s office—if not the vice president’s office if that doesn’t yield anything of value—with Chi’s general air of support and “completely off topic, but” notes on where certain things are; Chi’s notes on her case just in case plans A and B don’t work and they have to do it the ‘proper’ way (or in case I don’t go to prison before that, Steph has been thinking the whole time); actually fucking studying; having a boyfriend; Franks keeping her back after the last class to tell her, and Steph can fucking quote this because it’s seared into her brain thank you very much, “You made a reprehensible choice not owning up to what you did. If I had my way, you wouldn’t set foot in the exam room. You obviously have no respect for your education or anyone else’s”; and just the general fucking weirdness of being 20 years old and in college.

Pete makes a sudden jerking motion in his seat. “Did I leave my phone charger back in my dorm?” he asks.

“If you did, it’s dead now; I am not turning around. But I’m pretty sure I did see you put it in your backpack.” Pete’s backpack being in the backseat. Pete’s shoulders lower a few inches as he acquiesces to Steph’s point. Steph grins at him with a quick glance out of the corner of her eye.

It might sound a little nuts, but she’s actually been really looking forward to this two-and-a-half hour drive. Not that Steph’s particularly thrilled to be back in Hatchetfield, but getting to spend two-and-a-half hours with Pete—the silent cloak of winter break over them and all their socials as their NMU worries and responsibilities rumble away under Steph’s tires and the hum of the heating—is such a precious, welcome respite. So much so that Steph had hopped in her car and rode up to the building Pete’s last exam of the semester was in the moment he’d texted her; swung as briefly as possible by his dorm to get him all packed up for the next few weeks, too loud for the exam season dorm silence rule despite their best efforts anyway; and whisked the two of them away just like that.

By this point, they’ve settled into the drive. They’re on the same highway algebraic equation number that they’ll be on for at least the next hour, and they’ve gone flipping around and found a playlist that they both generally like for the drive. Steph has a hand on Pete’s thigh, thumb circling absentmindedly, humming and half-singing along to “Sleigh Ride.” Next on the playlist is “Scrood Bi U,” and Steph’s lips stretch into a grin for just a second.

Pete, gazing her way, knows exactly what she’s smiling about. “You know it’s lovely weather for a sleigh ride to get screwed by you,” he sings in perfect key and time with the song, and Steph breaks down into helpless giggles.

“Pete, I’m driving!” she gripes, “I’m gonna run us off the road!”

“Yeah, don’t do that,” Pete says.

“bad idea right?” comes on shortly after Pete and Steph struggle to keep it together through Lords of Acid, and they spend some time headbanging and singing at the top of their lungs before Steph’s phone buzzes in the center console. “It’s from Anjali,” Pete says, watching the message pop up.

Steph grabs the phone and props it up against the top of the steering wheel, sort-of-not-really in her line of sight while watching the road. “She’s complaining about G. Vinny’s email wishing us all a merry Christmas.” Deeming the message not worth her response, Steph tosses the phone back down and, incidentally, corrects back into her lane.

“It’s so obvious now that she pointed it out,” Pete says. He had winced at the message that morning, checking his emails with a hot mug of microwave hot chocolate to make sure everything was going as expected for his exam.

“It is,” Steph agrees, “but I wish she’d leave me alone for the next two weeks. I’m already coming back early to break some more fucking laws in my life.”

“Did you guys ever iron out that plan?” Pete asks.

“Ski masks, spray paint over the security camera outside, break in with Chi’s keycard, profit. Something like that. Freeze our tits off, whatever.”

Pete nods along, processing the information. He doesn’t totally understand, but he supposes he doesn’t need to. “I’m, uh, kind of partial to those,” he says after a beat.

“To Anjali’s tits?” Steph asks. Pete knocks her with his elbow.

“You know what? Yeah, Steph. That’s exactly right.” Steph giggles at him again; she feels like she’s always laughing when Pete’s around. They spend most of the rest of the drive in comfortable, easy conversation.

They find themselves getting a bit sad when the road signs start getting a bit too familiar, little warnings here and there that they’re very close to Hatchetfield. Pete says, “Maybe one day we’ll be going home together,” and Steph’s breath hitches. She grabs his hand and brings it up to her lips, giving the back of it a few shy, gentle kisses, eyes occupied by the necessity and excuse of the highway traipsing through the setting Sun. When she finally gives Pete’s hand back to him, there’s a whisper of a lipstick stain across his skin. A dedicated, hopeful maybe right back.

It’s around that point when Steph’s grandma calls. Steph puts the phone on speaker.

“Hi, Grandma,” she says. “We’re maybe like 20 minutes away? I’ve gotta drop Pete off, then I’ll be right over.”

“Hi, Ms. Hammond,” Pete chimes in. Steph’s grandma pointedly doesn’t say anything to him.

“You haven’t said a word to me since you left at the end of the summer, Stephanie—aside from when you just texted me this morning telling me you’d ‘b’ by some time this evening, lowercase letter b,” Steph’s grandma says to her, voice harsh but not quite scolding.

“Okay,” Steph says. Pete has to cover his mouth so he doesn’t laugh. Steph can practically hear her grandmother roll her eyes over the phone.

“Meaning I’d like to know you aren’t dead every now and then.”

“I’m 20 years old,” Steph retorts.

“Okay,” Steph’s grandma says right back to her, and Pete has to angle himself away from the phone now, “and I’m 75. I’ll see you in 20 plus change.”

“There actually is something I want to talk to you about, when I get home,” Steph concedes.

Steph’s grandma lets out a loud breath over the line. “Well, I’ll be here,” she says. Steph says bye and ends the call.

“Oh, she definitely thinks you’re pregnant,” Pete says.

“Oh, for sure.”

Steph drops Pete off in the same melodramatic fashion they always do when they don’t see each other for an extended period of time. She leans over the center console and clings onto Pete’s waist, moving on to his hands when he gets out to grab his bags and comes back to say his final goodbyes. They kiss a bunch, whisper half nonsensical ‘I’ll miss you :(’s and the like, and pout and wave at each other once Pete gets up to his front door. Literally they can see each other whenever they’d like during break; they’re just not in each other’s back pockets. Steph drives to her grandma’s and sleeps for the rest of the day.

DECEMBER 12^TH, 2025

The next day, rolling out of bed around noon, Steph spends some time cozied up near her grandmother on the couch, earbuds in watching The Craft while her grandma watches gameshows on TV. Steph stretches as her movie ends. “Grandma, can I talk to you now?” she asks.

Steph’s grandma sighs, lowers the volume on the TV, and turns to face her. Steph continues, “So, um. Say I got into some trouble. Would you—would you help me out? If I needed it?”

“What kind of trouble,” Steph’s grandma deadpans.

“I might have cheated on a paper,” Steph says, “and, just, y’know. If I was ever in any legal trouble.”

Steph’s grandma raises an eyebrow at her. “You didn’t just own up to it?” she asks.

“No? Why would I do that?”

“Picking and choosing your battles, Stephanie! I bet you wouldn’t be in half the ‘trouble’ you’re in now if you’d just taken the 0 or retaken the class or whatever would’ve happened and moved on.” Steph cringes because, yeah, that’s true. “Mmhmm,” her grandma accentuates. “But the short of it is I’ll do what I can, Stephanie.” She goes back to watching TV. Steph supposes she can’t expect everyone to jump to making blood pacts for her. It’ll have to do.

DECEMBER 29^TH, 2025   

Steph and Pete eventually do find some time to spend together—besides their frequent texts and calls—nestled into those last few days of the year. Steph pops by Pete’s house with the intention of driving around somewhere, maybe catching a movie or making out parked somewhere remote in a park, but more or less gets pulled inside by Pete’s parents, who dote on her for a bit before letting her and Pete go off to Pete’s room, snacks in hand.

“Sorry, that was a bit much, right?” Pete asks on an embarrassed laugh. “They’ll be going out in like 30 minutes anyway; they took the day off to do their annual pre-New Year’s run of the town. I don’t actually know what all they do on it.”

Steph, meanwhile, is happily eating her granola bar on Pete’s bed. “It didn’t bother me at all, baby,” she says, bumping their shoulders. They talk about things they’ve spoken to each other about before, what’s been happening since they went home for break mainly, just with twists and details that hadn’t come up in their conversations that weren’t face to face. Pete’s parents come in to say goodbye by the time Steph has moved over to rest her head on Pete’s chest. Pete jumps a little as they do the knock-and-come-in-as-they’re-knocking maneuver, has a moment where he thinks maybe they should move, but Steph stays put, so he relaxes back down as he waves them off with Steph.

A bit later, Pete gets up to use the bathroom, and as he’s washing his hands, he hears Steph talking on the phone. When he comes out to sit back next to her, he’s able to piece together that she’s talking to Anjali. Steph rubs at the back of her eyelid with her free hand.

“Yeah, I bought the spray paint, Anj,” she says.

“And you can’t bring your phone!” Pete can hear Anjali say faintly on the other end of the line. “Remember to leave it at home.”

“I know, I know,” Steph mutters, then, “wait, I can’t bring my phone?”

“Yeah?”

Steph moves the phone away from her mouth a bit, points at it, and mouths to Pete, Can you hear this shit? Pete nods at her. Steph rolls her eyes. She moves the phone back flush against her cheek. “I hope you’re not implying that you’re not coming.”

“Uh, yeah, that is what I’m ‘implying’ I guess. Why would you think I would come?”

“Because this was your idea!”

“Well, not just mine. But, uh, yeah, I’m not sticking my neck out for this. I thought we’d established that you were the one who had a reason to do that.”

“Well, thanks a fucking lot, Anjali.”

“Are you still gonna go?” Anjali asks, brushing Steph’s comment off.

“I’ll fuckin see!” Steph says and, in that way that tears forward when you feel your control of a situation pissing you the fuck off ripping out of your grasp, continues, “While we’re being cunts, it’s so incredibly fucked how you talk about religion. You think you’ve got something so big and fucking important to say, but you don’t! You can’t! All you do is put down minority religions when you mean to be making commentary that would actually be worth shit about Western Christianity, which you don’t!”

A beat.

“I was raised Muslim, jackass.” Anjali ends the call.

Steph and Pete stare slack jawed and open mouthed at each other. Steph pulls the phone away from her face about a minute or so later, mumbling, “Jesus.”

There’s a brief moment, just a second, where they read each other on if they’re gonna address that last part. The answer’s no. “What the fuck?” Pete asks instead. “I can’t believe she won’t go with you. That’s such a dick move!” Steph pushes herself back against Pete’s pillows and sighs. Pete moves to be shoulder to shoulder with her again. “What are you thinking, Steph?”

Steph glares at her clasped hands, a deep scowl on her face. “I’m thinking I don’t know how I’d break into the Honor building by myself—nor do I really fucking want to.”

Pete screws up his lips. “Why don’t I come with you?” he asks.

Steph laughs, on the verge of a sniff. “You wouldn’t even come to the Honor building with me when I was just going for my first meeting.”

“Well, yeah. You were just whining about that; this is important.”

“Really?” she asks.

Pete fixes her with a look—a seriously, how could you think different? sort of look. She smiles tentatively back at him and Pete nudges for and receives one of her clasped hands to solidify his next statement. “We’re a ride or die, Steph.” Yes, singular. Yes, we.

“Hell yeah we are,” Steph says, smiling with her teeth. She giggles and tucks her head into the space between Pete’s head and shoulder. “Are we, like, insane?”

Pete shrugs with the shoulder not currently balancing Steph’s head. “Something we could figure out through therapy?”

They both look at each other. “Naaaaaaahhhhh.”

Pete knocks his head back against the headboard and sighs. “Vow for our twenties: no more major criminal offenses after this,” he says, pinky outstretched. Steph accepts his pinky swear.

JANUARY 5^TH, 2026

Who’s to say whether it’s better or worse that Steph and Pete have opted to take Pete’s bike on their way to break into the Honor building at 1 AM in January when the wind chill is cold enough to hurt and there’s a foot of snow on the ground, Pete pedaling and Steph clinging to him in puffy winter clothing?

They hitch the bike about half a mile away; maybe a bit close, but it is, and they can’t emphasize this enough, freezing outside. Pete has a sore spot and a thinning stretch of fabric around his ankle from where they’d slid and he’d stopped them, helmetless, on a patch of ice, those little fuckups better than spilling their brains out on the pavement.

“This is so scary,” Steph hisses as she takes the first few steps into the snow. All she has on her is a can of spray paint in one of the baggy ass pockets in her snow pants, a thing of pepper spray, her keys, the ski mask she has clutched in her hand, and Chi’s keycard to the Honor building—which he dropped at their last meeting before break and Steph nefariously picked up, if anyone asks.

For the third time since they started off that night, Pete says, “You still don’t have to do this, Steph. Say the word, and we can turn right around—get back on my bike and just go home.”

For the third time since they started off that night, Steph says no. “This is for me and everyone else at this dumbass school. Let’s do this.”

“Alright, then. I’m with you.”

Steph and Pete put their ski masks on for the second leg of their journey. “This is, like, such a relief actually,” Pete says. They’d wanted to change up their looks and seem less suspicious while riding strictly along the road, but Pete’s ears have been numb and throbbing even under the scarf he pulls down to get the mask on ever since the wind had started whipping around his bike. He crowds close to Steph as they walk, and she reaches out to take his gloved hand in her own.

After they settle into the walk and Steph’s hackles come down a bit, she lets out a quiet sort of giggle. She whispers, “We probably look so fucking stupid right now.” She jiggles their hands. “We’re coming to kick your ass!” she says in a mock yell. Pete snickers as they round a corner and halfheartedly shushes her.

They’re coming up through the side of campus that’s a bit empty after they moved Student Health, mostly empty buildings and parking lots as students, faculty, and the administration debate over what to do with the space. They get to the top of a hill, breathing open mouthed as their boots impact and leave the snow, and they get a pretty clear view of the Honor building and the rest of campus, streetlamps on here and there and the light being bounced all around by the glimmering snow. There are some campus police cars scattered around here and there, one closer to the Honor building than Steph and Pete would really prefer.

“So, if they catch us,” Pete starts as they catch their breath; at Steph’s silence, he continues, “do you think they’ll put the school on lockdown like that time that guy killed himself in the library?”

Steph doubles over, crunching her knees in and putting the hand not holding Pete’s out on her leg to stabilize herself, trying very hard not to scream with laughter. “Oh my god!” she says, then takes a few more seconds to compose herself more. “That is not funny, fuck you,” she whispers, straightening out and wiping at the breaks in her mask. “My tears are freezing to my face,” she says.

Pete’s smiling, but he unwinds his and Steph’s hands and wraps his arm around her shoulders anyway, leaning his cheek against her head as his expression smooths out, gazing over the school. It is scary. They might get caught. And Pete can’t even call his mom and dad if he gets in a situation where they need to book it—thick, puffy pants and boots through the snow.

“Tell me the plan one last time?” he whispers, barely audible against the wind.

“Right,” Steph says, nodding to herself, “right, okay. When we get to the Honor building, I’m gonna walk up at that angle the security camera doesn’t capture and spray it with my spray paint. Then, we’re gonna get into the building using Chi’s card, keep all the lights off, and use the stairs to get to the dean’s office. If it’s locked, we can smash the scanner in and go through what all’s inside as quick as we can before-slash-if the police or someone get there if it sets off some sort of alarm. Profit? We leave with something important. Fuck. Fuck!” rubbing her palms against her pants, “Let’s go.”

She takes a step forward, holds out her hand. Pete takes it, and they forge ahead.

The rattle of the spray paint can is loud in the absolute quiet, and the press of the plastic nozzle against the pad of Steph’s bare finger stings. Red coats the lens of the camera and dots onto the semi-driven sidewalk. Bringing their arms away from their mouths and noses, Pete and Steph look at each other expectantly. Nothing happens. Steph makes a motion, and their clothes swish as they run up to the door.

Steph flashes Chi’s keycard up as she fingers her glove back on, and the door clicks open just as easy as anything. She pulls it open with a grimace, waiting for some blaring alarm or the sudden manifestation of someone ready to chase her down with a gun. At the silence that follows, Steph pulls the door a bit further open and slips inside, holding the door a bit as she goes so Pete can follow behind her.

When the door closes behind them, it’s nearly pitch black. It’s warmer than it was outside, but not so much that it particularly matters for much more than lowering their risk of getting hypothermia—the heat turned up just enough that the pipes don’t freeze. “Pete?” Steph whispers out, fear lodging in her throat again. There’s a click, and the flashlights Pete had brought along beam light through the darkness. Pete holds one out to Steph, and she takes it.

“Sorry,” he whispers back, “took me a sec.”

Steph nods, shakes herself out. “I think the stairs are this way,” she whispers, “follow me.”

It takes them a bit of time, their steps uncertain, Steph’s sense of direction off in the dark, and the fact that she’s only actually been in this building a handful of times. Finally, at the top floor, around a corner and in a little pit in the hallway, they find the dean’s office. A single white dot indicates the lock on the door. Steph flashes Chi’s keycard up, and it flashes back red.

“You knew that wasn’t gonna work.”

“I knew that wasn’t gonna work.”

Just in case, Steph loops her fingers around the handle and pulls, but the door doesn’t budge. She looks over her shoulder at Pete. “I know I said we might have to do this, but I was really hoping we wouldn’t.” She steps to the side, flashlight loose in her hand, and looks over at Pete with everything but the shoulder movement of a shrug all across her expression.

“You want me to do it?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t know!” Steph hisses. “If you would, I guess!” Pete hesitates and lets out a breath. “No, you’re right, you’re right. This is on me.” Steph clicks the flashlight off, tightens her grip, winds her arm back. Pete shines his flashlight over to give Steph a good view. She waits a moment, flexes her fingers, breathes.

Her arm swings forward and smacks the flashlight into the scanner. There’s a sound like a crunch as a big crack breaks through both the scanner and the flashlight lens. “Shit,” Steph hisses, shaking her hand out and still looking that white dot right in the face. She pulls the door again, and it still doesn’t go. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Try again, try again,” Pete encourages, and Steph cracks the flashlight into the scanner again. The crack on the scanner grows into a shatter-type pattern, but the light remains. Pete tells her to go again, and with the third hit, there’s a click, the fracture pattern obscuring the white light, if it’s even still on. Steph gazes wide-eyed over at Pete, and he makes a frantic motion at the door handle. Give it a try!

The door opens. “Holy fuck!” Steph whispers. They’re in the dean’s office. Steph turns her flashlight back on, cracked, and shines it around the room alongside Pete.

“Um, you check the desk; I’ll start checking those file cabinets?” Pete asks.

“Works for me,” Steph says, and they separate to opposite sides of the room to search through their respective drawers.

For a while, they rustle through papers. Early on, Pete hooks a drawer that won’t budge and pings Steph on it. They find budget documents, some passwords scrawled on sticky notes, letters from various people, office supplies. Nothing that sticks. Steph squeaks as her hand fumbles over a key shape.

“Pete,” she hisses, “Pete, try this.” She holds out the key in her hand, and he snatches it, clumsily unlocking the file cabinet drawer in his gloves. He opens it to a thin stack of papers, and he goes carefully looking through each one. Steph runs out of places to look in the desk, so she goes over to investigate the printer.

In the stack of papers, Pete finds a set of three papers stapled together, two printed and the third handwritten. As his eyes scan over the documents, jumbled words and phrases light up in his mind, the vice president of the University’s name, handwritten dollar amounts, mentions of bonuses, and the initials HO scattered here and there. Pete pulls the stapled papers fully out of the file cabinet. “Steph, I think I found something,” he says, and Steph rushes over from the printer.

Steph starts looking through the papers, even starts to pick up on some of the same things Pete had, when a loud voice that sounds like it’s coming through a megaphone sounds around the whole building.

“This is the police! If there’s anyone inside, come out with your hands up now!”

Pete and Steph’s hearts immediately drop into their stomachs.

“Oh my god,” Pete says, breaths turning shallower and shallower.

“Oh, babe, keep it together please. Please.” There’s no helping the tears that start streaming down Steph’s cheeks, soaking into her mask. She holds Pete’s upper arms in her hands, rumpling the pages, not giving a damn about it. As she swallows around the soreness in her throat, her mind clears. She needs to handle this. She will handle it.

“Okay, listen to me, Spankoffski. I’m gonna walk down and turn myself in—”

“Steph, no, you can’t—”

“Yes. I’m gonna walk down and turn myself in. Take these papers and get out of here, Peter! Take the back door and run in the opposite direction. Go home! My place or yours, whatever you want.” She rustles through her pocket and pulls out her keys, folding them into his hand.

“No,” Pete says, breaths ragged, and Steph’s heart aches that she can’t press him into her arms and help him calm down, “no, Steph. I can’t just leave you here! What if that officer—wh-what if—”

“Pete! If you don’t get those papers somewhere safe, there is a 100% chance I’m getting expelled and probably several misdemeanors on top of that. You too probably on some of those points! You have to do this. Please.”

Pete nods, blinking fast and looking down at the ground, and Steph has one hysterical moment where she almost laughs at the fact that they’ve both been wearing ski masks this whole time. “Okay,” he resolves. “But Steph, please be careful. I’ll come find you first thing tomorrow morning, okay? First thing.”

“Alright, Pete.”

The megaphone sounds again: “I am now entering the building! If anyone’s inside, come out with your hands up, announce your presence, and don’t make any sudden moves!”

“Now, go!” Steph says, and she kisses him once soundly on the lips before passing the papers off onto him and nudging him off to the opposite set of stairs as the ones she goes barreling down.

Rushing down the stairs, Steph yells, hoping her voice will cover up any noise Pete’s making too, “There is someone in here! There is someone in here! I’m coming down to the lobby, I’ll come out with my hands up!” She nearly trips on the last flight, stumbling down onto the ground floor. She can hear the front door opening at the last of her steadying steps, and she takes a breath and makes sure to move slowly as she enters into sight of the entrance, hands up.

It’s absolutely humiliating being in the campus ‘jail,’ just a tiny little space built into the station that does, unfortunately, follow most of the protocols of a larger, more official jail. Steph’s eyes blear with exhaustion; there’s an analogue clock on the wall, but Steph can’t bring herself to try to read it. She presses the thick, tactile buttons of the dial phone she’s finally been placed in front of and hopes her grandma picks up.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Grandma,” Steph says. “Um, I—um. I could use your help.”

“Stephanie,” Steph’s grandma says, tone conveying the weight of things she’d like to say if they weren’t being recorded.

“Yeah, hi. I’m at the campus jail—if you could wire my bail over, that would be…that would be great,” she says, feeling a bit on the prickly edge of tears again. “It’s $250. It—I’ll pay you back if….”

“You get your money back unless you skip court, Stephanie. No one ever told you that?” She doesn’t specify—in life before that point or at the station.

“I don’t—I don’t know—”

“Stephanie, I’ll do it. In a heartbeat, you know I will. But I hope you know I am expecting a very long phone call once you’re safe. Do you have a way to make it home okay?” Sort-of-not-really: it’s not too far back to the main parts of campus from the station; from there, Steph can make something work, even if she doesn’t have her keys. It’s not any more dangerous than what Steph was doing the night before.

“Yes. I’ll be okay, Grandma,” Steph says, because it’s easier than saying all that.

“I hope you’re telling me the truth, Stephanie,” her grandma says. “Hand me over to an officer.”

They give Steph her clothes back as they let her go. Nothing else, deeming her spray paint, other person’s keycard, and, yes, cracked heavy flashlight evidence. The Sun is just rising as she steps out into the world again—having had to wait until the cop who handled bail got there in the morning. Not for the first time, Steph feels as if she’s been sent through a portal to a new life.

Sitting on the steps of the next building over is Pete, who stands immediately when he sees her coming. Steph runs into his arms.

JANUARY 17^TH, 2026

Anjali is still packing her things away, sitting crisscross on the floor, when Pete and Steph storm through her open door, having gotten into the building after someone else leaving. Pete throws a thin stack of stapled papers at her without a word. Anjali jumps, swears, twists sharply like she might have some choice words for Pete and Steph for barging into her dorm, but her attention is quickly captured completely by the evidence that’s just fallen into her lap. She’s dead quiet as she reads through every word.

“This is so close,” she says, “so close!”

“So close?!” Steph gripes.

“I bet if we got into one of their emails…” Anjali mutters to herself, but Pete and Steph aren’t really listening, pits of dread in their stomachs expanding out to sink their ability to process anything aside from the looming threat of Steph going to fucking jail.

“Are you saying this isn’t enough, Anjali?” Steph asks, and whatever she thought she’d sound like in asking the question is swallowed by the strain in her throat. Fear.

Pete catches it with a worried look. He steps closer to her, places a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Steph—” Pete starts, loud, glances into the hallway and shuts the door. He starts again, quieter, “Steph went to jail, Anj! She has a meeting with a lawyer next month. It’s—” Steph is usually so solid, so steady to the bones in the face of adversity, the person who stands up for everyone else—and on top of that, Pete knows this really isn’t Anjali’s fault either; he finds himself losing his nerve, “we have to do something about this.”

Getting up off the floor, Anjali makes a face at them. It’s the first time they’ve seen each other since break, and the gap between then and now is wide. Their eye contact is akin to that of three people holding each other at gunpoint. Anjali shifts her weight. “What else do you think I’m gonna do with these?” is what she finally settles on saying. She holds the papers up. “I think this’ll get some essential people on board to help me. Give me a few weeks. We’ll solve your problem and the University’s, alright? Chill the fuck out.”

Steph huffs, frustrated, gaze to the ceiling and eyes glossy. “Fine. Fine,” she says, soft. She hooks Pete’s arm and tugs him along out the door. What else can she do but that?

Rolling her eyes, Anjali goes back to unpacking her things.

JANUARY 30^TH, 2026

Chi tsks. “Yeah, they’re treating them as separate incidents at least. But they are assigning you to a different representative, TBA, since you, uh, y’know, ‘stole’ my keycard and all. This is a nasty email, by the way.” Steph is having lunch with Chi again—worked around both of their class schedules. Because the school is, yes, allowing her to attend as normal for now, since she hasn’t been convicted of anything. Absolutely next to everyone fucking knows, though. People in her classes whispering about her and her professors wincing a bit whenever she raises her hand has been such a pain in the ass to deal with on top of all the other bullshit she’s juggling with all this.

“Do you have any actual plan you wanted to talk to me about or did you just invite me out to lunch for funsies?” Steph asks. The news about Chi not being her Honor representative anymore worries her but isn’t entirely unexpected. She does her best to let it wash right over her; at this point, she’s resolved to just focus on the present—mostly.

Chi, on the other hand, seems nothing but calm. “Second one,” he says with a smile. “I think all we can hope for is that they hack the administration’s emails in time. But—”

“That’s what they’re doing?” Steph asks, all surprise. “Damn.”

“So I’ve heard not from any direct sources,” Chi says, winking. “But it’s fun to get lunch with people sometimes, isn’t it?”

“Yeah it is,” Steph says, offering Chi a small grin around a mouthful of barbeque tofu bowl. “It’s nice for someone to just treat me like a normal person right now too.”

“I try my best,” Chi says, mock solute.

“What do you think is gonna happen—if they do get all of this shit out?”

Chi thinks on it, chewing. They wipe at their mouth a little. “Well, I think it’s gonna be really crazy for one day. Some people are going to step down, there’s gonna be like fifty news articles on it. I’m sure a lot of shit’ll be happening behind the scenes, but the actual experience of going to the school will probably be just the same.” That sounds reasonable to Steph.

She holds out her fork. “To the leak coming out in time?” Chi clinks his fork with hers.

FEBRUARY 14^TH, 2026

When there’s a knock at her door as Steph is studying for History of American Technology, she half expects to be murdered. With slow, cautious steps, she walks up to look out her peephole only to see that it’s Pete with a bouquet of flowers. It’s Valentine’s Day!!! her brain unhelpfully reminds her only at that moment. She opens the door and immediately envelops Pete in a big hug, flowers squished between them. Pete laughs. “Hi to you too, Steph.” He takes one hand off the bouquet to wrap around her.

“You’re wearing that bowtie I got you—and that shirt I like,” Steph says in a rush, having only half taken in Pete’s outfit before she opened her eyes midway through the hug, eyes connecting with the stand-more-than-10-feet-away-and-you’ll-miss-them swallowtail butterflies flying across the dusk pink of Pete’s button down. Pete hums along in acknowledgement. “So, where are we going?” she asks, smile stretched wide across her face, begrudgingly pulling away from Pete. All in one breath, she says, “I have a gift for you, just so you know, but it can wait until after. Or you can have it now. Whatever you want.”

Pete smiles at her too, all calm energy, and kisses her on the forehead. “My gift can wait, that’s alright. I got us tickets to a Valentine’s music medley—I think it’s, um, a string quartet?” Pete does take a breath. “What’s gotten you all riled up anyway?”

“Aw, Pete, I love that,” Steph says, sincere as anything, sticking her bottom lip out in an ‘awwwww’ sort of pout. “I’m just really happy to go out and have a fun, peaceful evening with you. It just…it feels like forever.”

Pete’s smile takes on a softer tone, and he starts moving the hand still loosely against Steph’s back in soothing circles. “I’m glad, then.”

“Let me pee and get dressed?” Steph asks. She kisses Pete and twirls out of his touch as she speaks, slipping down the hallway to her room.

“If you wanted to wear that red dress you got last summer—with the split white, uh, areas, sections, whatever they’re called?—, I wouldn’t be opposed…” Pete calls after her.

Steph leans back out of the doorway, shirt already off. “Oooh, okay, Pete,” she says and winks. Pete feels his cheeks heat up, and he takes the time while Steph is getting ready to set up a vase for the slightly crunched flowers. She comes back out a bit later, red and white dress accompanied by a thick set of tights, her signature deep purply-red shade of lipstick, and her best padded bra, tits to the nines. Pete’s whole face lights up when he sees her.

“You look so pretty, Steph,” he says softly, holding out her coat for her to take.

“Thank you!” she says, offering him a kiss as she takes the coat. “How far are we walking?”

“A little far, sorry. We’ve got to get the bus then walk to the theater.” Steph nods, taking another layer and some accessories out from her closet. Once she’s all bundled up, she hooks arms with Pete and nestles into his side.

“Ready to go?” she asks.

“Lead the way.”

Steph’s legs are fucking cold as they walk around campus in February, but they make it to the campus theater in not too long. It’s not that serious, so no one offers to take their coats, meaning they have to roll them and all their scarves and gloves up and set them in their laps as they scrunch themselves into the theater’s tiny seats. They’re there a bit early—Pete’s doing—, so they chat a bit as people filter in. “You know, if I’m not expelled or sent to prison first, I am thinking architecture,” Steph says, a topic she hated to the death talking about just a few months ago. Now, though, it’s like no one wants to talk to her about it, even though she’s due to declare her major at the end of the semester, and Steph’s self-construction is nothing if not spiteful.

“Okay, one, stop saying things like that: it’s not good for your mental health,” Pete says, playing with Steph’s fingers in their interlaced hands. “Two, I was thinking architecture for you too! I think it’d be a good fit.”

Not too long after, the lights dim, and someone offstage encourages everyone to silence their phones, turn off flash, and welcome the musicians onstage. Pete and Steph unlink their hands to clap, spending the rest of the show with one of their heads leaned on the other’s shoulder to substitute the touch.

One of the musicians grabs a microphone and introduces the program—not in so many words as a full, in order detailing of the songs they’ll be playing, but just by noting that they’ll be playing new and old love songs alike, giving some musical history of love songs, hoping everyone enjoys the performance regardless of the reason why they’re there, and finally wishing them all a happy Valentine’s Day. Smiles glint across the crowd as the violinists start, playing a familiar tune originally for the piano. “golden hour.” After that, they play “L-O-V-E” by Nat King Cole.

The concert is about an hour long, and Pete and Steph recognize, among some others, “The Only Exception,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Marry You,” “In the Name of Love,” and, surprising the both of them when the musicians announce it, The fucking Butchies’s “She’s So Lovely.” The last song they play is “Old Soul” by Saint Motel, and Steph and Pete leave the theater giddy in that way that makes you careless about the world around you, giggling and twirling each other in the street while singing “Still Into You” under their breaths. Quite a few people hurriedly walk around them in annoyance.

“Baby, baby, baby,” Steph says, both of them trying to make themselves act normal again and not really succeeding, “do you wanna go get hot chocolate? Is there some place open right now that has hot chocolate?”

“I dunno!” Pete says, and they stand there blocking the sidewalk for a good few minutes scrolling through the campus restaurants directory on Pete’s phone in the cold before finding a place that works. They take the bus again to get there, and when they get inside, the coffee shop is rather crowded. That’s not surprising on Valentine’s Day, but what is surprising is the way a good half of the people in the room immediately turn to look at them and go silent.

“What the fuck?” Steph whispers to Pete, but it doesn’t stop them from going up and ordering two caramel hot chocolates. There’s not really a place to sit, so they mull around against a pillar, figuring they can drink their hot chocolates there too. Someone comes up to them, a kind of cautious and confused expression on their face.

“Hey, uh, you’re Stephanie Lauter, right?”

Steph turns her head to look at Pete with a questioning glance, unconsciously moving a step back towards him. “Why?” she asks, slowly.

“Yeah, who’s asking?” Pete pipes in behind her—sweet, but not very menacing.

The person who’s come up to them rolls their eyes. “You haven’t seen it, huh?”

“Seen what?” Steph asks. They hold up their phone—to an email. Steph’s eyes catch on the subject line: COMMUNITY OF NORTHERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY: PROOF OF FRAUD, COLLUSION WITH KALKASKA IMPACT. “What.”

Steph fishes her phone out of the pocket of the coat she’s unzipped since entering the coffee shop. When she turns the screen on, it flashes up a fuckton of missed texts and even a few calls. Steph lets them slide by as she unlocks the phone with her thumb, tapping into her NMU email and watching a slew of messages come up there too. She clicks into the original one, the one this stranger—who’s now wandered back off to where they came from—just showed her, from an account that’s just a string of numbers. Make sure this is someone you trust, the Gmail popup warning reads.

The email details how the involved parties came to suspect this was happening, breaks down the inserted pieces of evidence, and offers a two-paragraph statement on why this is an inexcusable betrayal against the University community—all of which, in Steph’s opinion, are a bit too much and all of which she skims. Then, at the very end of the email:

Finally, we would like to extend our thanks to sophomore Stephanie Lauter, who bravely acquired the document with handwritten notes from Dean Olsen. Expect this story to be hitting the news tomorrow, February 15^th.

And otters? Happy Valentine’s Day from us to you.

Pete, who had pulled his phone out to follow along once he’d seen what Steph was doing, leans over her shoulder. “Steph, you’ve gotta get ahead of this!” he says. “Get the—” just that moment, the barista calls out his name for the hot chocolates. “Fuck, hold on.” He jogs over, grabs the hot chocolates, says thank you, jogs back with them, and hands one to Steph. She says a reflexive thank you. Now with hot chocolate in hand instead of his phone, Pete starts gesticulating as he speaks, “You should hit up some local news stations. It doesn’t even have to be tonight, it can be tomorrow—but just to make extra sure this gets you out of trouble.”

“You’re so right, babe,” she says. “Tomorrow’s agenda.” By this point, everyone’s gone back to whatever they were doing before Steph and Pete walked in. There’s really nothing to do right at that moment, despite the huge news of the email. It’s late; Steph and Pete shrug at each other, huddle side by side, and drink their hot chocolates.

 Pete’s gift is a new terabyte SSD card and a box of heart shaped chocolates.

FEBRUARY 15^TH, 2026

The next day’s a Sunday, and while Steph would really love to spend the whole day cuddled up with Pete, she’s got work to do. She spends the wait times for journalists verifying who she is and finding time to fit her into their days reading through the articles the email assured would be out that day to brush up her honestly pretty limited knowledge of the whole thing. She’s never quite as bold as to tell the journalists her exact role, but she does confirm that she was involved; provide some bullshit context and narrative for the sake of the stylism of the article or whatever; and note how distressing, disappointing, and unjust it is that she’s currently facing expulsion and legal charges for her ‘adolescent mistakes’ while the school conducts itself as such. She even gets a call from Chi at one point (another attempt from the night before), which mostly consists of him yelling, “You did it, you did it, you did it!” and assuring her that if all of her charges aren’t dropped, he’s personally organizing a sit-in of—somewhere—haven’t nailed the details out yet.

MARCH 3^RD, 2026

As Chi predicted, a lot of the administration steps down. There are federal investigations, and at least one of the administrators stepping down is arrested at their home shortly after. Steph gets two official letters on the same day and dances around as she shows them to Pete, reading, respectively, Your Honor accusation has been dropped and All charges have been dropped. Due to ‘insufficient evidence on subsequent review,’ so they say. Everyone’s professors notify them that classes will be proceeding as usual, and nothing really changes around campus.

All happy jitters after her last midterm, Steph gets herself a pastry and hangs around outside on the grass, basking in the creeping spring sunlight in a lighter array of jackets than she has been wearing the past few months, enjoying not being stared at. She hangs out like that, basking, for about an hour. She even runs into Pete at one point.

The tip of a tennis shoe taps her jean-clad thigh, and Steph, eyes closed up ‘til that point, jumps and swears. She lets out a sigh of relief when she sees it’s just Pete standing over her, but she swats at his foot anyway and says, “Fuck you!” And then, in the same faux angry tone, “Good luck on your test, babe, I love you very much!”

Pete laughs at her and gives her thigh a few more affectionate, apologetic taps. “I was gonna ask what a cute girl like you was doing out here, but you’re kind of giving me mixed signals here,” he says, stealing her bit.

Steph takes it in stride, leaning back again and smoothing her voice out into a kind of frat boy cadence, “Well, if I’d have seen you walking over, I would have catcalled you,” she says. Someone passing them by gives them the nastiest, strangest of glares, and they both break down into giggles.

“Did you print out your major declaration form finally?” Pete asks once they’ve calmed down.

Steph unzips her backpack and flashes it at him. “Yep. I stopped by the library after my exam.”

“Are you actually gonna turn it in or are you just gonna sit in the Sun all day?”

Steph scoffs. “Don’t you have somewhere to be or they’re gonna lock you out of the test room forever, fail you, and warn all potential future employers against you?”

“Not if I break into a dean’s office and steal incriminating information,” Pete says and winks at her. It makes Steph’s heart flop around like it did back when she just had a desperate, embarrassing crush on him and that was all. She sticks her hand up for him to hold. Because she can, and because she loves him.

“Good luck for real this time,” she says softly.

“Thank you, baby,” Pete says, smiling. “Talk to you later?”

“You know it.” Pete’s hand slips from hers, and she goes back to basking for a while. Fortunately, no one else comes up and foot taps her in the leg—because they would die.

Eventually, she gets up and makes her way to the main architecture building, submitting her form and chatting with the professor in charge of processing it. On her way back, she passes by the main English building. Where Professor Franks’s office is. She hesitates for just a second before slipping inside with a wily, subconscious grin.

Steph doesn’t even really know where Franks’s office is—cheating and all—but she finds it after wandering around a bit, door ajar and him sitting inside, clicking around on his computer. She knocks on the open door.

Professor Franks looks up, a true scowl on his face as he locks eyes with Steph. Steph sticks up two middle fingers. Mindful of any sound recording cameras and any other students trying to focus only, she mouths, FUCK YOU!