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Chloe was, originally, super excited to have a roommate that year. She had an idea in her head of it being like a constant sleepover. Becoming close to another girl and giggling and sharing clothes- like having a sister!
Chloe has always wanted a sister. Instead, all she got was Chad. That’s not to say she doesn’t love Chad- she really does- but… it’s just different. Chloe’s never really had any female friends before, at least not close ones. Most of the children Chloe was around were the boys in her tiny tots Swords and Shields team, and then the boys in her junior Swords and Shields team, and then the boys at Auradon prep Swords and Shields team.
Until Auradon prep, she was the only ever girl on the team. And guys are fine and all, but she’d still always felt a bit separate from them. They liked her just fine. Most people liked her just fine (as long as they didn’t talk to her for too long). So she had assumed the distance might have been because of her status. But then she became friends with Hazel freshman year and- her friendship with the girl was just different.
So Chloe was very much looking forward to more female friends, and surely living in such close proximity to someone was bound to spark a bond. That enthusiasm died the moment she learned that her new roommate was the rude girl she had met at the Welcome Ceremony. The one who threatened Chloe’s life just because she ventured to try being friendly.
Red of Hearts is the exact opposite of what she’d been hoping for in a roommate.
Mean, and outspoken, and against anything having to do with rules. And she’s messy, she learns quickly. Chaotic. Their first day in their shared room, she already had a pile of clothes dumped onto- and spilling off of- the desk meant to contain homework and textbooks.
Chloe tries being a good roommate. At first. Maybe Red was just in a bad mood when she approached the first time- but on her second attempt, she had looked at Chloe like she had a second head before firmly stating that she wasn’t ‘interested in playing nice.’
Playing nice? Playing nice? What does that even mean? Why can’t she just be nice? It doesn’t take all that much effort. Although, maybe it does, because Chloe finds herself very quickly over everything to do with the girl. She decides that after only a week.
If Red is going to stay up all hours of the night keeping Chloe up, why should she try to keep quiet in the morning when she gets up for her run? Instead of dim light and softly closing drawers, Chloe finds herself shoving her drawers closed a bit harder than it actually takes and pulling doors shut without twisting the handle to soften the click of the bolt.
Maybe it’s a bit petty, but it’s not like Red doesn’t do things to irritate her entirely on purpose.
Chloe finds a grumpy, vindictive satisfaction seep into her veins as Red groans in pitiful complaint and turns over in bed, dragging her pillow over her head. It’s her third day of being brazen and vengeful. It’s strangely cathartic. She kicks a stray boot out of her side of the room, too, as she crosses to the bathroom, and it thumps loudly against the desk already stacked high with clothes.
“What is your problem?!” Red snarls, sitting up suddenly, hair wild and in her face as she glares through the messy strands.
“Oh, I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Chloe asks innocently, shutting herself in the bathroom with her change of clothes. By the time she comes back out shortly after, Red has already rolled over and gone back to sleep. Chloe rolls her eyes and pulls on her running shoes. She doesn’t slam the outside door in case it wakes anyone else in their hall.
……………
Unfortunately, her issues with her roommate are not confined to their dorm. And also unfortunately, their antagonism becomes well known. It is not Chloe’s fault. She would be perfectly fine pretending the Wonder doesn’t exist- since that’s what it seemed like she wanted- but then there she is. In the hallway, in her classes, just- there. Leather clad, and contradictory, and irritating smirk painted in mischief.
She hears her snort as Chloe lifts her hand to offer an answer for a question their teacher asks the room at large, and a spike of annoyance shoots through her. She gives the answer shortly before turning irritated eyes on the Wonder, who is too busy doodling in the margins of her book to bother paying proper attention. Her school textbook. A shiver of revulsion rolls through her. It’s an instinctive discomfort over the act of blatant vandalism.
She feels the childish urge to tattle. Her hand twitches, wanting to lift into the air. It battles with her knowledge that people don’t like tattle-tales. She doesn’t care about what Red thinks, she already hates Chloe- but the rest of the class doesn’t. She’s managed to suppress her urges of making sure everyone adhered to the rules since she came from Ellasburg.
But, well, it’s Red. Everyone already knows they don’t get along. Chloe’s hand raises.
“What the hell, Charming,” Red challenges just as they walk out the door. Chloe intends to ignore her and just keep walking, right up until she feels a hand curl around her arm and tug her around.
Chloe huffs, pulling her arm away as she’s spun. “What?” she snaps. She tries to ignore the way a couple of classmates stop to watch the confrontation with wide, eager eyes.
“You tattled on me? Really? Are you three?”
“Are you,” Chloe says back. “You have a notebook. If you absolutely have to doodle to keep yourself awake in class, try drawing in that- not on school property.”
“You’re unbelievable,” Red scoffs.
“I’m unbelievable,” Chloe laughs. “You’re the one who makes death threats over a friendly greeting, who can’t keep your things to your half of the room, and then gets upset when I do the exact same things that you do to me. You’re the one who didn’t ‘want to play nice.’”
Red takes a step closer, crowding Chloe enough that she can see her own reflection in her dark, furious eyes. Her nostrils flare. “Do not test me, princess. I promise you’ll get a failing grade.”
Chloe scoffs, crossing her arms. They are standing so close that the hairs on her arm brush the front of Red’s chest, but she doesn’t back up. She’s not scared. Red can’t intimidate her- not here in the middle of a school hallway. Her mom is scary, sure, but her mom isn’t here. Red has no power here. “Yeah, I might be more intimidated if you didn’t act like a tantruming four year old.”
Maybe she should be more cautious about angering the girl. After all, Red does know where she sleeps. But she just can’t dredge up anything except indignant dislike.
Red growls at her, shoving forward and past. Their shoulders collide harshly, and Chloe shakes her head as the Wonder stalks off down the hall.
……………….
Maybe she escalated things, getting Red in trouble. Not that she didn’t deserve it. And it wasn’t even like it was close to being her first detention. But she’s just so…
Aggravating.
Ugh. It makes her angry just thinking about her stupid smirk.
…………………
“Come on-”
“No, I don’t- just leave me alone-”
“No, really, come on, just let me see it-”
Chloe sighs, closing her locker and turning to the altercation a few lockers down. She ensures her book bag is zipped before stepping forward. “Flint,” she says, a frown pulling at her lips. “Knock it off.”
The older boy turns, glancing at her as his hand remains curled around the smaller kid’s gaping backpack, books almost spilling out. The other kid is still clinging to the other end, trying to pull it back.
“Oh, come on, Charming, this has nothing to do with you.”
“Really? Cause from where I stand, you’re bullying freshmen again. It’s not cool, and it’s not funny. So knock it off,” she says firmly. “If I hear of you doing it again, I’ll have you benched for the rest of the season.”
“Whatever,” he scoffs, cheeks reddening as he shoves the bag back into the freshmen’s hands and turns away.
The kid gapes at her, before his jaw snaps shut and his head ducks to stare at the ground. “Thanks,” he says, before hurrying away.
A locker slamming closed right next to her has her jolting. Red blinks at her blandly. “You know you didn’t help him, right?”
“What are you on about,” Chloe sighs tiredly.
“That kid. You just painted an even bigger target on his back. Your protection only lasts until you’re not there, and you just proved that he can’t fight his battles on his own.”
“Is that what you think?”
“That’s what I know,” Red shrugs, leaning back against her locker.
“So, what, by your logic I should have done nothing?”
“Obviously.”
“There is something seriously wrong with you.”
And, strangely, that’s one of the better interactions that they’ve had.
………………
Chloe is so absorbed in her homework that she flinches as the door suddenly flings open and is loudly kicked shut. She can’t help watching the trail of noise and chaos as her roommate kicks off each shoe, one at a time, on a path toward her side of the room, but not quite making it.
She tosses a duffel bag that rattles suspiciously beside her desk, and then throws her jacket haphazardly onto Chloe’s bed, running a hand through her ruffled, wild hair.
Chloe sighs, awareness twitching at the new mess. She is just… so exhausted. She can’t deal with this right now. Her.
Chloe turns in her chair, watching the girl as she moves freely throughout the room. She winces as the Wonder immediately turns on music, as if she can sense Chloe’s impending retreat into bed. But she doesn’t even look over as she bustles in and out of the bathroom, taking off makeup and humming along.
Chloe pushes her laptop closed, deciding definitively that she’s done for the night as she crosses over to Red’s side of the room. Her skin is already crawling as she reaches out to turn off the speaker.
Red finally turns to her as the room is plunged into sudden silence.
“Can we just agree to stop,” Chloe sighs tiredly, knowing that she’s admitting defeat just by asking. “All we’re doing is making each other miserable.”
Red’s eyebrow raises. “But what if I don’t want to stop, princess?” she asks, lips twitching and spreading wide in mischief. Even wiped of makeup, they still look stained as she crosses the room and lays her hand overtop of Chloe’s that still rests on the speaker. She holds her gaze as she ducks closer. Uncomfortably close. Close enough to feel her breath against her face. “What if I just like seeing you squirm?”
Chloe blinks. And then Red presses the play button on the speaker. She does it without pulling her eyes from Chloe’s, and music pours back out of the speakers. She feels heat travel up her neck and pool in her cheeks. She feels her pulse speed up, and she just- feels stuck.
Red’s lips curl again. Then she reaches out to grab her jacket off Chloe’s bed and turns away.
………………
There are certain things Chloe resolutely refuses to bring into arguments. They aren’t any actually agreed upon boundaries, but they are ones she has for herself.
Red’s mother is one of those. She only made the mistake once, before she swore to herself to never go there again. A short, angry, “the only one worse than you is your mom.” Red had flinched, hard, genuine hurt flashing across her face for the first time.
Then fury. “And you’re a doormat who isn’t even a real person- just the sum of everyone’s expectations because you don’t have any actual personality to call on.” It’s meaner than usual. It’s achingly pointed and jabs her between the ribs. But she understands that she hit a soft spot first.
So, okay, no talking about Red’s mom.
No matter how much Red pisses her off, she won’t ever bring up the nightmares, either. She doesn’t need to make the mistake of saying it, to instinctively know that it would be crossing a massive line. Not just with Red, but morally. Their dorm is supposed to be a sanctuary. There are some things you can’t help learning about each other when forced to live together in such close proximity. It’s not a conscious choice to reveal those kinds of vulnerabilities.
She refuses to let herself sink that low into throwing something like that into Red’s face.
She sees her having them as she comes back from her runs- Red tossing and turning and making little noises of distress. That’s when Chloe will slam her drawers a little harder than usual, jolting Red awake, and they will both pretend that Chloe didn’t do it out of kindness- pretend that Chloe hadn’t long ago stopped revenge waking her when she realized just how little the other girl actually slept. Red will just roll over and bury herself back into her blankets instead of growling at her, but Chloe knows she’s awake by her tense muscles.
………………..
Chloe’s brain spins and spins with words and formulas and definitions. It’s all a bit maddening every time she thinks about all the things she has to memorize come Monday and the start of exams. Her head throbs and the words are becoming even more jumbled than usual.
She knows she should take a break. She knows forcing herself through the difficulty doesn’t ever work, but there is a minor panic sitting in her chest. She doesn’t have much time to review, and her old tests blur in front of her eyes as she tries to string together words and letters into something that makes sense.
She hates science. It always has words that are slanted and long, and letters beside each other that shouldn’t structurally go together, and it’s just hard. It’s always been harder than her other subjects. Mitosis and Miosis might as well be the same thing for all that they just float in her head no matter how many times she goes over which is which.
It’s her stupid brain. She’s used to it, for the most part, but dyslexia really does make things more difficult than they should be. She often wonders if she wouldn’t spend so much time on her studies if it just came easier to her. If she didn’t have to try so hard just to keep up. Not just keep up, but to excel.
Chloe jolts as a hand touches her shoulder, and her head whips up with burning eyes to see the librarian hovering over her.
“The library is closing, dear. You better get going if you want to make it in time for curfew.”
Chloe blinks again, panic spiking as she searches out the clock. She’s been stuck on this one page for an hour. It’s already almost curfew? She scrambles for her pile of books and papers, shoving them into her bag. “Sorry, Miss Welch.”
Chloe hurries to her room, heart pounding in discontent. She didn’t get through all of the material she needed to. Maybe she could just squeeze in a few more minutes before getting to bed. She should at least glance at her math formulas before turning in for the night-
A wave of sound hits Chloe’s ears as she enters her room, making her flinch. It looks like a genuine explosion went off in their room- more so than usual- as Red doesn’t even look up, dancing across the floor. She rifles through her piles of clothes, bobbing her head to the music as she discards the items she picks up almost as soon as it’s in her hand.
Chloe watches as she throws another shirt on the growing pile on Chloe’s bed.
Chloe’s hands shake as she removes a jacket that’s not hers off the top of her desk and sits down, pulling out her textbooks again.
As Chloe reaches into her desk to pull out her noise cancelling headphones, Red finally seems to notice her. “Didn’t you just come from the library?”
It’s not even anything actually rude- the disbelief truly genuine and kind of horrified- but it feels like her roommate's voice just drags along every one of Chloe’s raw nerves. The music, the stress, her headache- and she snaps, “Don’t. Just- don’t.”
Red stills. Her eyes become more considering, searching, and that rubs Chloe wrong, too- Chloe feels utterly wrong. Chloe glares at her, eyes burning. She feels the tears teetering on the edges of her lashes, and it’s humiliating, but she just clenches her jaw and stares her down in challenge. She doesn’t know what she’ll do if Red starts pressing- because she always presses. She’ll probably actually cry.
Red reaches out for her speakers, and Chloe’s air hitches- because she’s going to turn it up- she just knows she’s going to turn it up- but then the sound dims significantly. So soft the music hardly reaches her cotton clogged ears.
Red drops her gaze as she reaches down and collects some pants off the floor.
Chloe watches her for a moment, disbelief freezing her in her spot, as Red slowly goes about moving her things off Chloe’s bed and back to her own.
She swallows thickly as she jams her headphones over her ears and turns back toward her math notes. She stares blurrily down at her book for maybe twenty minutes, not taking in anything, before giving up in helpless misery. She crawls into bed without changing, or putting her shoes where they belong, or brushing her teeth. By then, Red has moved all of her things out of Chloe’s side of the room and is watching Chloe tug the covers over her head just before actual tears start dripping out of her eyes.
…………………
Chloe expects Red to throw it in her face the next time they argue, or get on each other’s nerves. To be called a crybaby or something of that nature.
But Red doesn’t bring it up. She’s actually a lot less annoying the rest of exam week, and Chloe only falls into actual tears twice, but even those she doesn’t deliberately make worse. She might even be trying to make it better as she just takes one look at Chloe’s face and starts picking her things up.
“Are you… being nice?” she manages to choke out in disbelief between overwhelmed, hitching, sobs.
“Fuck you, I just felt like cleaning,” she grumbles, setting her shoes at the end of the bed. Red has never, in all the weeks they’ve been roommates, put her own shoes where they belong before.
It’s not anything big, but it’s the first she’s seen that Red hasn’t proven to be absolutely awful. Awful people don’t care when others cry.
That doesn’t mean Red is all sunbeams and rainbows now, though. She’s still a giant asshole. Chloe can just recognize that she could be worse.
………………
Chloe doesn’t glance up as Red brushes into the room. She does when she sets something down on the corner of her desk as she passes her on the way to her side.
She immediately starts to frown, but falters at seeing that it’s a plate of brownies. Not Red’s usual tactic for annoying Chloe, but no less confusing. “What are these for?” she asks, gingerly picking one up.
She is kind of getting hungry, even though she ate only an hour ago. She was actually just about to break out her snack drawer.
“Hm?” Red asks distractedly, making a beeline for her bed and kneeling down to reach underneath it. Chloe takes a bite, enjoying the fudgy center. Huh, did Red make these? She didn’t figure her for a baker.
“The brownies?” Chloe takes another bite.
“They’re for a party I’m going to,” Red grunts, dragging a jacket out from under her bed. She discards her normal red leather one and shrugs on the black one. It fits her irritatingly well. “I don’t suppose you want to go?”
“I’m good,” Chloe says dryly, finishing off her square and reaching for a new one.
As the new jacket settles around her roommate’s shoulders, and she flips her hair out of the collar, she turns. “Figures. Don’t wait-” she freezes, eyes locked on Chloe’s hand with her second brownie, and it occurs to her too late that setting them on Chloe’s desk probably wasn’t an offer for her to snag one.
“Sorry. Was I not supposed to take any?”
“Um,” she steps closer, slowly collecting the plate. “No, if you want one, it’s fine. It’s just, I don’t really think you want these, princess.”
“Why not?” Chloe asks. “They really aren’t that bad. What recipe did you use?”
“A special one,” Red deadpans, and Chloe just blinks uncomprehendingly. The Wonder snorts, amusement sinking into her expression as she starts to smile. She shakes her head. “Weed, princess. They have marajuana in them.”
The second half of the brownie pauses halfway to Chloe’s mouth. Then she drops it with a gasp and leaps to her feet. “You brought drugs into our room?! You fed me drugs?!”
“Hey, I didn’t feed you anything,” she says defensively, but it’s spoiled by the amusement curling the corner of her mouth. “You decided on your own accord to eat. Besides, you’ll be fine. You only had half.”
“I already ate one of them!” Chloe shouts, hands going to her hair in panic.
Red’s mouth gapes. Then she laughs outright. “You are in for one interesting night, princess.”
“Oh gods, is the room spinning?” Chloe gasps, hand moving from her hair to her neck. “My heart is racing. Is it supposed to do that?”
“It takes a while to kick in,” Red rolls her eyes. “This is all you. Maybe it will actually mellow you out. Just relax. Take the night off. Enjoy it.”
“Oh, gods, what if someone finds out? What if my mom finds out? What if I get kicked out of school?!”
Red sighs and sets down the plate. “Okay, you need to calm down or you’re going to give yourself a panic attack and a bad high.”
She reaches for her, but Chloe yanks out of her grip. “I need to go to the nurse.”
“Whoa-ho there, princess,” Red says, blocking off the door, hands up and placating. “No need to go tell a teacher. Everything’s fine.”
“You drugged me!”
“Again, you ate it. I didn’t know you’d just eat anything set on your desk without question. Who does that?”
“I thought you were being nice!” Chloe snaps, anger, for the moment, overcoming her panic.
“Then this is entirely your fault. Because when have I ever been nice?” Several times, even if she always pretended she wasn’t. She blocks Chloe again as she tries to reach for the door a second time. “Seriously, princess. Don’t go tattling on me again.”
Chloe holds her gaze, hand on the cool metal of the doorknob as Red’s body blocks her from actually pulling it open. “You're all bark, no bite.”
“Oh, I bite,” Red smirks, leaning her head even closer. Chloe’s eyes drop to a glinting tooth that looks sharper than an average human’s. “You just have to ask nicely.”
Heat floods Chloe’s cheeks, and she yanks her hand back toward herself with a sharp gasp.
Red immediately relaxes with her retreat, as if the matter is settled, and shrugs out of her jacket that she lays on the back of Chloe’s chair- always careless about personal space. She slides down the table leg until she’s on the floor, still technically between her and the door, and then kicks the chair slightly out. “Come on, princess. Sit down and study. I’ll watch you until it wears off.”
“What about your party,” Chloe huffs grumpily. She’s mad at herself for backing off. The flirty line had just surprised her. That’s probably why Red did it. She already said that she liked seeing Chloe squirm.
“There will be other parties,” Red shrugs. “But this will probably be the only chance I get to see you high as a kite.” That could very likely be the reason she’s staying. It fits. Or even just to make sure she doesn’t go find a nurse the moment she’s not prevented. But she can’t shake the inkling that it’s just an excuse to hide the fact that this is actually Red being nice again.
Chloe huffs, flopping back into her chair.
She wants to keep studying. She should keep studying while she can. But as she hunches over her books, she keeps getting distracted about Red sitting by her feet, idly playing on her phone, and wondering what it will be like when she starts feeling the effects of the drug. Will she even notice when she starts feeling it? She has zero experience with this kind of thing.
“You’ve been on that page for a while.” Chloe blinks, pulled out of her thoughts, and rubs at her eyes. “How you feeling? Started kicking in?”
“I don’t know,” Chloe grumbles, refocusing on the book she’s trying to get through. After a moment, she shoves the book away and tilts her head back, closing her eyes. The lights are buzzing louder than normal. She can almost feel the current under her skin. Yet it still doesn’t feel as overwhelming as it normally does. It’s almost a background noise instead of something she has to deliberately set aside.
“Can’t concentrate,” Red asks, amused.
“The letters won’t stop swimming,” Chloe grumbles.
“Don’t worry, you’ll be back to your happy-go-lucky, boring self in no time. It’s just a side effect of the brownie.”
She wishes this would go away after a night off. “No, it’s a side effect of my learning disability,” she grumbles.
Red’s head swings toward her, genuinely startled. “Um. What?”
“I’m dyslexic,” Chloe huffs, shoving away from the desk and standing. She feels weird. In her body. In the room. Her existence in the room. Gods, she’s hungry. It’s like a carving ache. Why does the plant make you hungry? That’s so random. She reaches for her snack drawers, pulling it open and dragging out the bag of pretzel sticks she’d been thinking about before the brownies were set in front of her.
“Huh,” Red says, watching her pick through the bag for the saltiest pretzel. “You just got a little less boring.”
……………….
Chloe and Hazel are talking about the rankings of their first tournament and upcoming opponents to look out for, when the other girl abruptly starts laughing as her eyes are trained over Chloe’s shoulder. “Oh, this is going to be fun.”
Chloe turns, heart leaping in excitement for whatever their coach has planned for them, but that eagerness immediately fades as she sees her friend’s idea of ‘fun.’ More like a walking disaster.
Red at least looks irritated as she trails behind their coach onto the mats, wearing the blue and yellow school issued uniform for the Swords and Shields team. Chloe might feel like laughing herself if she wasn’t overwhelmed with the horror of what it might mean.
Their coach doesn’t make it any better, only offering a short, “Say hello to your new teammate. Charming, I want a report on her skill level by the end of practice.” Which means Chloe will not be able to avoid the girl (not that her efforts ever do any good in that regard).
Red stares back at her in clear disgruntlement, hinting at how these next three hours are going to go for them. Chloe decides right then that she will not let the other girl ruin this sport for her. So instead of demanding answers that Red would probably talk around anyway, just to annoy her, Chloe says, “You look adorable.”
“Shut up,” she immediately snaps. “Uma’s making me join a sport after she found my spray cans. Says I have too much time on my hands.”
“She’s not wrong,” Chloe snorts, though she doesn’t know why that sport has to be Chloe’s. “And it’s Principal Uma.”
Red’s jaw clenches. “Princess, they are about to hand me a sword. I will slit your throat.”
What is Chloe’s life that the death threat doesn’t even phase her anymore? She lifts an unimpressed eyebrow. “You’re not as scary as you seem to think you are,” Chloe yawns. It’s completely coincidental. She’s just tired. But it is impeccable timing.
Red’s eyes shift. Less grumpy, more pointed and calculated. “Maybe not,” she lifts her chin and steps closer. “But I bet I can still make you scream.”
“Scream in what,” Chloe scoffs as her yawn ends, “- fury?”
Red’s gaze deliberately flickers down Chloe’s body, then slowly trails back up to her face. “Sure, if you want to be boring.”
Chloe nearly chokes on her own saliva, heat rushing into her cheeks as she sputters. A satisfied smirk curves Red’s lips as she strides past toward the cabinet of practice swords kept for students who don’t have their own. Chloe’s wide eyes follow her until she feels someone else appear at her shoulder.
She turns her head to find that it’s still Hazel, who is now looking at her oddly. “Were you guys fighting or flirting?”
That’s what Chloe would like to know. “Fighting,” she spits out. “Definitely fighting.”
…………….
Red is frustratingly decent at sword fighting. She’s not better than Chloe, but on a day that she’s not at her best, she could give her a run for her money, probably. With the way she fights, her training is probably more in the line of pole arms. She hadn’t expected Red to have any training at all with as lazy as she seems.
……………
“Red!” Chloe barks out as she shoves through the doors into the cafeteria. Her eyes instantly find the girl, her small collection of friends around her, and she storms over. Several eyes look up to follow her path, including the girl herself. Chloe gets to the table and can’t help slapping it a bit in anger as she leans forward, lowering her voice. “I know you don’t like me-”
“On the contrary, princess,” Red immediately interrupts, folding her arms over the table and leaning forward in return as a smirk pulls at her lips. One of the boys at the table snickers. “You’re the best part of my day.”
Anyone else saying it, she’d take that as sarcasm. No one likes arguing every time they see someone, which is exactly what Red and Chloe do. Though with Red, that claim could very well be true. It’s probably true, actually. It would explain some of the things she does. She’s an asshole like that.
Chloe can feel her jaw jump in aggravation. “Why did I find bottles of booze in my drawer?”
“Because if Uma raids our room and finds them in my drawer, she'll fry me alive.”
“So you hide them in mine? Not only are you under age, but alcohol is prohibited on campus, Red. I’m not going to be a party to you getting in trouble for your rule breaking.”
“Lighten up, princess,” Red huffs, “It’ll be gone by Friday. I just needed somewhere to store it, and Uma’s been on my ass all week.”
“Principal Uma,” Chloe snaps, and then insists, “And it’ll be gone today. If I come back to the room and it’s not, I’m dumping it down the sink.” She doesn’t wait for an acknowledgement. She’s not interested in arguing with her rule breaking roommate. She made her ultimatum, and she absolutely intends to follow through. The other girl is lucky she doesn’t go straight to their principal herself. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t go straight to the principal herself.
…………….
“-so the fundamental aspects of our world are…” Chloe paces the lengths of the table, turns, and paces back. “...are…” She huffs, looking down at her cards as her heart pounds and her brain races to nowhere. It’s terrifyingly blank. But her index cards, in contrast, are overwhelmingly full. It takes her a moment to find where she left off in her speech. She hates public speaking. It’s awful. “...inherently good. Which again brings us back to my point: Villains are created, not born.”
Chloe groans, shuffling her last card to the end of the deck and taking a deep breath that does very little to actually calm her down. She knows she needs this class. It’s just- formal things like this are so much pressure. She is literally being judged, and her words get scrambled before she even looks down at her cards.
She should have written the words bigger. Or have one of her friends stand in the back with giant cue cards.
Chloe turns again, pacing the other direction, stress mounting. She knows this speech. She’s practiced it over and over for days, reciting it in the shower, and during practice, and she’s dreamed about herself standing in front of the class and giving it (she always always screws it up in her dreams, but she does dream about it). It’s the first thing running through her brain when she wakes up in the morning.
She hates this class. Probably more than science. Definitely more than science.
She stares down at the ground just past her cards, trying to recall the beginning to how it starts. “Hello. I’m Chloe Charming, and today I’m going to be talking about-” she reaches the end of the table and turns-
Colliding with someone else.
Chloe gasps, not just in shock, but because her cards flip out of her hands and go scattering across the cafeteria floor. “Red!” Chloe yelps, lunging after her speech that she will be giving right after lunch.
Her roommate looks down at her in genuine surprise for a moment. Then her face smooths out into amusement. “Okay, that was not my fault,” she huffs.
Chloe’s stress reaches a bursting point as she erupts, “You ruin everything!”
Red lifts her eyebrows at Chloe’s outburst, turning to fully face her. “Not everything,” she drawls, looking down at her as she scrabbles to collect her cards. She pries one out from under Red’s boot. “But I can ruin you, next, if you’d like.” The words could be equal parts threat and equal parts flirting. Not knowing which one stalls her brain against her previous panic and any following retorts.
Chloe freezes, looking up at the other girl uncertainly. Red blinks, and then bends down to collect a couple stray cards that went sliding under the table. “Right, sorry- clearly not the time.” She plucks them up, then reaches for more, holding them out to the stack Chloe should really start trying to sort. “Holy crap, how long is this speech going to be?” she huffs, snatching up more cards.
“The required ten minutes,” she gets out stiffly.
“Don’t worry, no one will notice if you screw up. They’ll be lulled to sleep within the first two.”
Chloe is so confused by Red; she doesn’t know if she’s trying to be insulting, or comforting in her words. Oddly enough, the banter seems to fall on the latter, soothing her enough that she’s able to take one deep breath. Even if her shaking only eases just slightly. She takes the offered cards slowly into her hand, looking at the Wonder who hadn’t just rolled her eyes and walked away.
She doesn’t know why she didn’t just roll her eyes and walk away.
She clears her throat. “I’m surprised you’re giving me that long. What, is my boringness not as effective anymore?”
Her roommate’s teeth flash behind painted crimson lips.
“Like I said. Not so boring.”
………………..
Chloe huffs, staring into the chasm of her locker. There’s her backup sword. An extra pair of gloves and a small emergency shower kit. But no jacket. She could have sworn she put it in here. She doesn’t use her locker much, preferring to drag her main gear back and forth from her room, but she keeps her letterman jacket in here when she’s not wearing it to and from tournaments.
She saw it just before practice, even.
“Hey, I’ll see you at dinner,” Hazel says, slamming her own locker and gliding toward the door. She’s one of the last remaining people aside from Chloe in the locker rooms.
“Kay,” Chloe says absently, glancing around at the benches. Maybe she pulled it out for some reason? Then her eyes catch on the only other person remaining. She catches the tail end of an ‘ING’ just before wild red hair is untucked and falls over top of it.
Chloe blinks in disbelief. “Did you steal my jacket?” she asks.
Red turns, lifting an eyebrow. “No.”
Chloe’s jaw clenches, as the shocked bizarreness fades into certainty. “Yes, you did. I saw my name on the back of it.”
“So what?”
“So, give it back,” she snaps.
“No. I think I’ll pass. It’s not like you use it, and if I’m going to be forced to go to these stupid practices, I want a stupid jacket.”
“Red…” Chloe practically growls in warning. She is patient, but even she can tell she’s about to reach her limit with the other girl. She always feels like she’s at her limit with the other girl. Like she’s standing on this edge she is more and more willing to just take that step off of.
“Chloe,” Red mocks, then challenges childishly, “What are you going to do about it?”
Chloe never pictured herself as a violent person. Never one to react on pure emotion without thinking things through first. But as Red moves to walk past her, before Chloe can logically think of her next steps, she reacts. She grabs the Wonder’s wrist and slams her back against the lockers. This is what Red wants, isn’t it, she reasons after the fact to keep the guilt that wants to immediately swim in at bay. A reaction?
The realization doesn’t calm her any. “Are you trying to make me snap?”
Red stares back at her intensely, eyes flicking back and forth, mildly surprised but also not. Her muscles are tense, but she doesn’t push back against Chloe, doesn’t fight the tight grip. She sinks against the wall, almost lazy, and something about it just ratchets Chloe’s heart faster in fury. Red’s eyes drop down to watch her jaw jump, and an infuriating smirk twists her lips. “Very much so,” she says, voice coming out slightly gravelly.
A shiver goes down Chloe’s spine. Her eyes quickly take in the girl she has pinned, heart racing from her apathetic nonchalance. She’s never wanted to hurt someone before. Yet Red brings out all of those awful, bubbling emotions in her through her sheer existence. The other girl radiates smugness, and Chloe just wants to wipe it from her face. She just wants to-
She releases Red’s wrist and quickly reaches for her face instead, yanking her forward. As their lips and teeth collide, Red moans, curving into her as Chloe’s hands rip the jacket from her body. It falls to the floor with a soft thump before Red’s hands lift to find her shoulders.
Chloe doesn’t know what they’re doing. What this is. It’s not love. Not good or kind or anything like she grew up witnessing of her parents. It’s messy, and slightly wet, and Chloe wants to punish her even as she wants to draw out that first noise again.
Chloe twists her head and bites her, hard- vindictively- making the Wonder gasp.
“Fuck, princess,” she utters, head falling to the side and chest pushing into Chloe.
“My name. Use my fucking name,” Chloe growls in another spike of irritation, shoving her back against the lockers and pinning her there with her body.
A small squeak escapes the other princess as she wedges a knee between her legs to keep her from escaping. Not that she’s trying to escape. “Chloe,” Red gasps. Her hands tighten over Chloe’s shoulders, then drop to scrabble at her waist, trying to draw her closer.
Chloe immediately soothes the indents her teeth left, with her tongue. She feels kind of bad about it. She really had bitten her hard. Then she remembers that Red deserves it, and she bites her again.
Chloe has never experienced this before. This… heady, slightly dizzy feeling of awareness and engrossment. There is something so enthralling about having Red under her control, squirming against her. And it’s not like Red couldn’t get away if she really wanted to. Red wouldn’t let herself be pinned if she wasn’t perfectly happy there. Red wouldn’t be trying to drag Chloe closer, or wordlessly protest the removal of Chloe’s mouth from her neck, up until the point her mouth becomes occupied again with Chloe’s.
The fact that Red could fight back, but isn’t- doesn’t want to, even- makes her submission all the more delicious.
When Chloe finally gets up the strength to rip herself away, she’s breathing heavily. There is a warm heat that pools low in her stomach as she watches Red’s chest rise and fall quickly, too. Her lips are swollen, the marks on her neck angry and as dark as her hair.
For the first time since Chloe has met the Wonder, she appears utterly lost for words.
A thread of smug satisfaction coils through her. Finally, she won. Got her to shut up.
She flicks her eyes down, spotting the letterman that instigated all this, and bends to snatch it up. She considers it in her hand for a moment. Then she meets Red’s eyes as she shoves it into her chest.
“I’ve changed my mind,” Chloe says. “Keep it.” The idea of the Wonder wearing her name on her back fills her with the same viscous satisfaction as she felt sinking her teeth into her neck and leaving behind those marks.