Chapter Text
“Word on the street is that you are going to partake in the ritual.”
Gods, his voice was annoying. Not that it wasn’t silky, or well-spoken, or pleasant… he just kept talking to her.
“Word on the street is that your mother screwed your horns on too tight, but you don’t see me blabbing about it,” Graves grumbled.
Apollo scoffed, but she didn’t miss the way his hands twitched, as if he wanted to check to see if his stupid perfect hair and his stupid perfect horns didn’t look stupidly perfect. What did he care if she was going to be in the ritual, anyway? She glared at him, and he scoffed again. Haughty little prick.
“Fine. Let’s just start. Where’s your textbook?” Apollo said, turning towards his bag. A cold wash of dread coursed through Graves, and not the good kind that she usually enjoyed. She glanced at her bag. Her bag, empty of all the right things and full of all the wrong ones.
“I forgot it,” she replied hastily.
Apollo rolled his eyes, mumbling something likely insulting in Ixian. “You forgot your book?”
Graves just nodded silently. Her bag flap started to flip up, and she hoped that she didn’t look desperate when she leapt to fix it.
Apollo narrowed his eyes. Well. Guess she looked desperate.
“You never forget your things,” he said. His tone was probing.
Graves prayed to whatever god was listening that she wasn’t sweating. “The lich moved it out of my bag when I wasn’t looking.”
Apollo shivered at the mention of her best friend. She knew he got squeamish at the thought of the disembodied hand that gave her powers. As much as the Ixian respected a solid opponent, he hated speaking of her necromancy. All of the school did, actually. Not that she cared. But he dropped the topic, moodily sliding his textbook across the table so they both could look at it.
“I’ll do the math. You start the graphs.” It was a command, not a request. The so-called Prince of Ixia had issues with “please” and “thank you.”
Graves turned to get a pencil out of her bag, only for a little hand to poke out of the gap, clutching a pencil for her. She snatched it, patting the hand back into the bag. Whirling back around, Apollo was watching her suspiciously.
“You’re acting weirder than normal today. Which is a lot, considering it’s you.”
Graves didn’t like the appraising look he was giving her. Or the fact that his sharp features looked good when arranged into a severe expression.
“Just do your part, Golden boy,” she snapped. He clicked his tongue at her and turned back to his pages, but not before turning his textbook just enough that she’d have to crook her head at an uncomfortable angle to look at it. Asshole.
She turned to her own work and started to sketch. Unfortunately, she only got in a few minutes of real work.
“Bad hand pinched me,” came a whining whisper from her bag.
Apollo’s head shot upright. “What was that?”
Graves groaned. Was there any salvaging this?
“Nice lady, the hand keeps poking me!” the voice squeaked again. Graves let her head smack onto the desk. Her other classmates didn’t even flinch, accustomed to wild antics from their table and too far away to actually hear what was happening.
Apollo got up from his spot, walking around to her side of the table. She turned her head to the side to watch him. He gave her a glance as he set his hand on her leather bag, as if to see if she’d stop him. When she didn’t, he popped the clasp and opened it.
“What the hell is that?” he exclaimed. She kicked him in the shin. He doubled over, glaring at her, and she put one finger over her lips to shush him. He set a hand on the desk, leaning over her, far too close. His cologne wafted over her as he repeated: “What. The. Hell. Is. That?”
Graves looked over at “that.” A small, dark creature, with large luminescent eyes and even larger ears. Clad in pinstripe PJs, he was shoved into her slightly too-small bag, clutching the lich hand in one little claw and his pillow in the other.
“I’m Rem!” the critter supplied helpfully.
Apollo looked at her in disbelief. “It talks?”
Rem shook his head. “Not it. Rem!”
Apollo then made a bunch of noises, ranging from wheezing to indignant. Finally, he landed on, “Does the OSIC know?”
Graves narrowed her eyes menacingly. “No. And no one is going to tell them. He said that his mom told him to hide from the OSIC.”
Apollo dragged a hand over his face. “A mother. It has a mother. Do you know who this mother is?”
“She’s me!” Rem chimed in. He tried to climb out of the bag, but Graves set a hand gently on his head, pushing him back down. He settled in, but not without giving her a pouty stare. His grievance was forgotten as soon as she fluffed his pillow, and he burrowed his face into the fluff.
“That’s all I can get out of him. “She’s me,” Graves said quietly.
“So? He’s got a mother. Why is he in your bag?” Apollo replied. He was still standing far too close for comfort.
“He was wandering around outside! It’s cold! What was I supposed to do?” Gods, this conversation was getting out of control. She resisted the urge to pull the buns in her hair.
“He’s got a mom! Somewhere! Just put him back outside and she’ll find him,” Apollo said, too haughtily for her taste. She stood nose to nose with him, close enough to see where his red skin had darker red flecks. Freckles. He had freckles. Apollo blinked in surprise at her proximity.
“If you can look him in the eyes and throw him back out on the street, be my guest,” she challenged.
“Fine,” he snapped. He turned sharply, peering into her bag.
She started counting.
One.
He’d look into Rem’s big, shiny eyes.
Two.
He’d see the tiny clawed hand, clutching the pillow desperately like a child with their favorite blankie.
Three.
He’d see the little patches on Rem’s pajamas, clearly sewn by someone who loves him dearly.
And bingo. Apollo turned back around, somehow both belligerent and sheepish.
“Whatever. What do I care. He’s your problem, not mine.”
Graves rolled her eyes. “That’s a weird way to say you were wrong.”
Apollo actually growled at her, putting his hands up to mime shaking her by the throat. She just quirked an eyebrow at him. He huffed and walked back to his seat. Before he could sit down, the bell rang, and he sighed. He didn’t spare her another glance as he grabbed his bag and left the room.
~—~—~—~
Graves’ favorite spot in the cafeteria was in the back left corner. No one came to the back left corner, and no one even really looked at it due to the heinously creepy mural of their school mascot. It was the perfect place to eat in peace and observe everyone else.
Until a certain lanky fiend started walking towards her table, leaving a trail of longing stares and sighs in his wake. People waved at him, and called his name or said some sort of vague praise about his fencing. He barely addressed any of them, yet they still fawned.
Graves sighed too, albeit hers was long-suffering instead of longing. “What are you doing?”
Apollo smacked his tray down onto the table with a loud bang.
“Everyone here lacks talent and is entirely underwhelming. I will not deign to sit with them and therefore waste my precious time,” Apollo said. His voice dripped with disdain. He sat down with an uncharacteristic flump.
“And yet, you’re sitting with me. No way I’m the exception,” Graves shot back.
“Of course not,” he replied indignantly. But the downward shift of his eyes away from hers betrayed him. Hm. Interesting.
“Where’s your lunch, anyway?” Apollo said. He still wouldn’t meet her eyes. She jabbed a thumb towards her backpack.
“Lil man ate it all.”
Rem sat content in her pack, licking the remnants of her PB&J off his beak and talons. He looked up at them jovially. Apollo made a noncommittal sound, and slid his French fries towards her. Graves raised an eyebrow.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m only giving it to you because I don’t like them,” he snapped. She shrugged, deciding not to point out the fact that he picked them out of the lunch options in the first place. Free food was free food. Rem tugged her sleeve and pointed a claw at the fries. She sighed and gave him a few, enjoying the little chirps he made when he ate.
“He’s going to get fat,” Apollo grumbled.
“What do you care?” she replied. “He’s not your problem anyway.”
“He is my problem. We didn’t finish enough of our lab report.”
Graves opened her mouth to respond, then closed it. He was, unfortunately, right. Their side discussion of Rem put them behind where they should be by now.
“So what are we gonna do?” she asked instead.
“We’re going to have to work on it outside of school.”
She paused. Set down her fry.
“Like…. Go to each other’s houses?”
He scoffed. “As if. I’m not letting random strangers into my house.”
Graves rolled her eyes. “I’m not a random stranger. I’m your lab partner. If you didn’t want me to come to your house, you could’ve just said so.”
He said nothing, just poked at his food. She bent her head to look at him.
“You know if we’re not going to your place, we’re going to mine, right?“ she said. He scowled so hard she thought his frown would pop off his face. Once again, he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
And suddenly, a thought struck her. His inability to say what he meant. His dismissal of the people at the school. The fact that he chose to sit with her at lunch instead of any other option of discussing their schoolwork. Like it was an excuse.
Like he didn’t have friends. She had never once considered it, because everyone in the school worshipped him.
Maybe it was because he didn’t feel like there was anyone that was his equal. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t also be an awkward, lonely teenager. Sort of like her.
“Fine. My house it is.” She sounded much more casual and confident than she felt. “I take the subway. Can you bear to slum it with the plebs?”
Apollo looked away. “If you insist. The stench will be unbearable, though.”
“Poor you,” she mused. They ate the rest of their lunch in silence. It could have been awkward, but it felt more like begrudging acceptance of undesirable circumstances than a gap that should have been filled. She went to stand when Rem waved a piece of fabric over his head.
“Can I use your napkin?” he twittered in his cute little voice, but Graves went still. He was holding her Archmother banner. The banner that declared not only that she was in the ritual, but which Patron she had decided to support. Did Apollo notice? She spared a glance. He was staring directly at her banner, his face wiped clean of any emotion.
He noticed.
“Don’t use that. Here,” she mumbled, swapping the banner for a real napkin and tucking it far, far back behind Rem. He hummed a thanks as he wiped his beak, then handed the napkin back. She tucked him in, clipping the flap, before she could finally bear to face Apollo.
“So. The rumors were true.” His voice was still unreadable. Graves, for the first time since she had heard the passing whisper, suddenly remembered that there were also rumors of Apollo participating in the ritual. And that, if true, they might be forced to fight each other.
If she had been asked a day ago whether she cared, she probably would have answered no. But as she stared at him from across the table, she realized that the possibility of killing her lab partner left her feeling ill. She couldn’t figure out anything to say. He was silent too.
He reached for the pocket of his school jacket, and her stomach lurched.
And then, blessedly, he pulled out the same blue banner. She actually audibly sighed in relief.
“Teammates, then,” he said.
“And lab partners. Small world.” She still couldn’t read his face. But despite her disbelief in the idea that killing him would make her sad, her relief was so overwhelming she felt like maybe she should sit down.
“I’ll see you at the subway station,” he said. And then he left.
~—~—~—~
When Graves went to the nurse complaining of a migraine too great to suffer through class, they let her in without question. She wasn’t sure if that was because they were afraid of her, or because she was very academically oriented (with straight As, not that her parents acknowledged that). But she wasn’t in an emotional or situational position to care why, only grateful that they left her alone in a little room with a cot to lie down.
She let Rem out of her bag. He blinked at her with his big, glowing eyes, and promptly settled on her lap to sleep some more. She brushed back the feathers on his head, and he began to make a sound that was a cross between a purr and a twitter. She kept petting him.
Your bleeding heart will get us killed.
She looked over at her bag, where the lich was tapping the edge with irritation.
“What bleeding heart?”
You’re fortunate the fencer boy is carrying the Archmother’s banner. And what of this familiar? the lich replied, pointing an accusing finger at Rem.
“He needed help. Just like you did. I’m just keeping him safe until we find his mom,” Graves said. Rem murmured something in his sleep, and she stroked him behind the ears to settle him.
You need to keep your promise. Good friends keep their promises.
Graves looked up. “I will. I swear.” She paused. “What will you wish for?”
The lich shook angrily. I told you not to ask. Friends respect each other’s privacy. Yet you continue to pester me!
Graves paled. She made her only friend angry. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just was curious.”
You are lucky I am forgiving.
“You are a very good friend,” Graves said.
Yes. Don’t forget that.