Chapter Text
2019 October 12, Saturday
Christine
Tonight was a mistake.
Paige wanted to go to the party at the new dorm that's still under construction, so of course Christine said yes; she'd go to Antarctica and back if her complicated best friend asked her to. But they were barely in the door when some drunken asshole staggered into her, basically pouring an entire cheap lager directly down her cleavage. Some of the people who saw turned away in second-hand embarrassment, but the asshole's equally-drunken mates all laughed and clapped him on the shoulders.
It's basically the worst outcome she can think of for going out in public and meeting other students.
All she wanted was to get through the evening without attracting too much attention—besides some light flirting with partygoers of various genders in a probably-futile attempt to figure out her sexuality, at Paige's insistence; why can't anything be easy?
Now Paige is acting like a mother hen, blotting her with paper towels she found somewhere, but Christine just wants to go back to her room at the Hall and bury her mortification and her face in her pillow for the next million years. After a minute or so of fussing with Christine's top and trying to come up with a way to salvage the night, Paige eventually relents and suggests they just have a movie night at home—after Christine showers off the lager stink, of course.
Jodie
Jodie walked over to the party with Paige, Christine and a few other girls from the Hall, but split off to do her own thing as soon as they walked through the door. She loves her friends, but they have different ideas of a good time, especially since they're planning to flirt while she reserves the serious flirting for Connor; unfortunately xe has a group study session and won't be able to make it for the first few hours, so until then she's just here to dance a little, meet a few people, and (not coincidentally) show off her latest thrifted goth ensemble.
She's near the DJ booth sipping a cider when in the opposite corner of the room she notices the saddest sad sack of a boy she's ever seen; he looks so miserable it's almost like he's here against his will. He's a puzzle piece that doesn't fit, from the clothes that are shabbier than almost anyone else here to the fact that he's the only one in the room who isn't at least trying to have a good time. Her outgoing, curious and caring nature is urging her to figure him out, cheer him up, maybe even fix whatever is wrong. Jodie has been that miserable boy before, more than once, and her recently-recovered empathy won't let her ignore him.
Stef
Stef Riley wants to want to have a good time tonight, but it's too hard to put aside the weight of everything and really live in the moment; hell, just living at all is too much effort lately. Maybe in a few more drinks he'll loosen up and just not think about his troubles for once; maybe it won't work and he'll step in front of a train tomorrow.
He's trying to recharge a bit of his social battery, recovering from random small talk in one corner of the room with the drinks tables, when he notices a strikingly beautiful goth girl looking in his direction. She's so pretty, in her almost-parody of lacy funeral attire, that his brain skips a bit. It's not that she's physically outside the norm of "young, fit uni student" but there's just something about her personality, her intentionality, the way she inhabits herself, that elevates her to something more.
Stef has no hope of ever being that beautiful, so why even try? It's just one more pebble among a hundred on the "make tonight my last hurrah" side of the scales.
Jodie
He caught her looking but instead the of the friendly acknowledgement, disinterest, or even open ogling she was prepared for, he suddenly looks like his heart is breaking; a look of pure anguish passes across his face for just a moment before he can get it under control, but his eyes are still more moist than they were before. What is it about her that could've brought on such a reaction?
Does she remind him of someone he's lost? She likes to think she's unique enough for that to be unlikely, but she has to admit to herself that she's not the only goth girl in Almsworth, much less the entire East of England. She wants to go to him, she wants to take herself out of the situation so that the sight of her will stop hurting him, she doesn't know how to fix this and a mild but growing panic is starting to set in. After another moment that feels like an hour, she takes the plunge and crosses the room; anything has to be better than allowing whatever happened when their eyes met to continue.
Stef
Oh God. She's started walking over. The goth goddess is going to be here in seconds and he doesn't know what to do, what to say, how to render himself retroactively small enough to escape her notice in the first place. Her face is friendly but there's something approaching pity in her eyes, the way a mother would look at a toddler who'd scraped their knee. Way to go, stupid boy, stupid Stefan, couldn't keep up a mask of being a reasonably normal person long enough to get through even *one evening* without ruining it for someone else.
Oh shit. She's here, she's talking to him but he's so stunned by the whole situation that he can barely hear, can't make sense of her words at first.
"...re you okay??? Do you need help?"
Things start making sense again, barely, and it occurs to Stef that she probably expects an answer, and is probably getting more worried the longer he doesn't provide one. "Um, yeah, I just got a bit dizzy there, probably should switch to water for a while."
"Oh, good. As I said, I'm Jodie. Nice to meet you..."
"Stef. Stef Riley. Linguistics."
"Nice to meet you Stef! I saw that you seemed upset a minute ago, and just wanted to make sure I hadn't done anything to offend? I didn't mean to stare earlier, I was just trying to figure you out."
"Oh, no, it's okay, I was just thinking about things I shouldn't have and got carried away. I love your outfit, by the way."
"Thanks, I got the dress at a thrift shop last time I went shopping with my partner. Xe spotted it first but it's much more my style and size."
He gives her his best attempt at an innocent smile at that news, which apparently works since she gives him a warm smile in return. Well that settles that then, she isn't coming on to him, just taking pity on the underfed wallflower. There's that word again: pity. Did Stef screw up by complimenting her outfit, and make her think *he* was the one making unwanted advances? Sometimes trying to be a person around people is exhausting, but he's trying his best, maybe just this one last time.
Jodie
Okay, so, this Stef guy seems cool so far; she got a decent response from both the news that she's in a relationship and the neopronoun she not-so-casually dropped in. He seems to have kinda ground to a halt conversationally though, as if his voice is a crossbow with a long reloading cooldown. Can't go letting the poor guy keep ruminating on whatever's hurting him though, so-
"Hey, do you like tabletop games?"
"What, like Cluedo?"
"No, more like World of Darkness, or perhaps you've heard of Dungeons and Dragons?"
"Oh, sorry. Dungeons and Dragons I've heard of but I never had enough people to play it with, just Russ and..."
He trails off as another stricken look crosses his face; it's a blink of the eye before he schools his features back to calm, but something about that "and..." obviously hurt him deeply. Well, she might have a remedy for that! She happens to have heard online that a few other geeks were setting up a VtM one-shot in an out-of-the-way side room. "You're in luck, Stef," she grins as she grabs his unoccupied hand to drag him along for his first visit to the World of Darkness; he doesn't resist and even comes along fairly eagerly, despite mumbling vague apologetic nonsense about don't want to intrude and don't want to be a bother and other such rubbish along the way.
This is going to be fun.
Stef
This is actually fun!
Stef still doesn't fully comprehend the rules or even how to play really, but Jodie does and is guiding him through his turns while also skilfully managing her own with a mix of flamboyant theatricality and careful decision-making he envies almost as much as her looks. He was given the choice to either make up his own character, which seemed complicated, or take the easy route and use a premade character sheet. He did the latter, and with Jodie there for support he didn't even really mind that the only ones left were women, despite the way the idea made his stomach clench uncomfortably at first.
He's well past that now though, and after an indeterminate time doing improbable things involving inscrutable maths he's really getting into his pretend un-life as Althea Vayne, denizen of darkness.
As this gaming session is winding down he notices that several hours have passed, but he still offers to stick around and help clean up after—it's not like he has anywhere else to be, or anyone waiting for him, and he's finally been able to put his troubles aside and enjoy himself for a bit. And to think, it's all because he almost broke down in front of this nosy (and intimidatingly put-together) goth who seems to want to be his friend, at least for tonight; maybe she'll drag him into her friend group the way she dragged him into the gaming session, maybe they'll never see each other again and he'll have made at least one happy memory since...
His mind skipped its track again. It can't have been for long, since no one is giving him funny looks this time, but some thoughts sneak up unawares. He forces himself back into the moment, clearing empty drinking containers and rubbish from the snacks they passed around and leaving the actual gaming gear to the experts; he's going to do his best not to let his memories *or* his deepest needs ruin this rare interlude of normalcy.
Jodie
The game is over, the folding table's been packed away, the room has even been tidied quite a bit—mostly by Stef—and it's bloody late; time for Jodie to make her way back to the Hall. Even though they've been busy gaming Stef really opened up once he got comfortable with the group, and he got along swimmingly with Connor once xe finally arrived around midnight.
As she makes her goodbyes and waits around for Connor to finish xyr rambling conversation with the GM, Stef seems disappointed but still much better off than when she first spotted him; he hopefully asks, "are you two doing anything after or just going home?" He's like a stray puppy, this one, pleading to be taken home, but she has to be up tomorrow—later today, she corrects herself—to edit and crosspost clips from her stream earlier this—no, yesterday—afternoon, and Connor and xyr study group are getting an early start on a big class project.
"Oh, we've got things to do most of Sunday, so Connor's just walking me back to the Hall and going back to xyr flat xemself, horrid little drafty place that it is."
At that, Connor returns and puts xyr arm around Jodie's waist, which she can't help but give a quiet giggle at how much she enjoys.
"I suppose I'll head back to mine as well, and I'd bet it's just as horrid and drafty. Do you think it might be the same building?"
Connor and Stef compare notes and, by coincidence, the two horrid little drafty flats are a floor apart and on the same side of the same windswept building, so it's agreed the three of them will walk to her residence and then the two of them will continue to theirs.
"So, where are we heading first?" Stef asks on the way to the exit.
"Dorley Hall, on the edge of campus. Do you know of it?"
“Oh, hey,” he says, warm from the newfound companionship and still talkative from the high of his first real gaming session, “I know a funny thing about Dorley Hall…”