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Dave was bored. There was no other way to put it, bored as hell. Ever since his GCSE results came in and he got college sorted out, he basically had nothing to do.
“As much as he was a right pain in my ass, Carl did make things interesting.” Dave thought as he stared out the window.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
Oh dear, it sounded like Old Man Johnstone had done something again like walk into the road or forget that bottomless Friday didn't mean drink yourself into a coma and pass out on the pavement.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
That driver seemed really annoyed, might be from out of town.
BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
“GET IN LOSER, THIS ISN'T A QUESTION. I DIDN'T DRIVE TWENTY MINUTES FOR YOU TO BE ASLEEP!”
oh… OH!
Dave grabbed his coat, put his shoes on and rushed out the door where a green-haired nineteen year old was impatiently beeping on the horn of what looked to be a very used car.
“Dude, I’ve been sitting out here for five minutes,” Carl said, “Get in the passenger seat, I'm taking you to college.”
“What?” Dave asked as he entered the car and put his seat belt on. It smelt like day old pizza, that one specific Sprite flavour that Carl likes that's from the USA and a faint hint of-
“I can see you wrinkling your nose so before you ask, yes the car smelt like smoke when I got it.” Carl replied, driving, “Dad has an old friend who wanted to get rid of it but no-one would buy it and apparently he's not spending money on something I will ‘inevitably crash and write off’. Like I was the one who weaponised fireworks on the high schooler, get this, when Mark was nine.”
Carl was one of those people who came from a large family, (Dave had lived next to Carl for most of his life and knew the names of maybe five of his siblings) however unlike Dave, whose family had lived in the village for generations, Carl’s family had moved to the village about thirty years ago, according to Dave's parents and no matter how many stories you heard, there would always be more and often more insane than the previous ones.
“So how is college?” Dave asked as Carl drove along the country road.
“Oh, great, I finally have a room of my own however there is this one girl in my year who I'm sharing a flat with, and she is just so annoying, she puts everything on the tallest shelf possible, always hogs the remote and if I swear she is doing this, she moves anything of mine below someone else's thing so I have to look under everything. She is the most annoying out of all of my flatmates, although two of them are moving out this year.” Carl ranted, accidentally turning on the left indicator and then turning it off, “Anyway, I finally, finally got my driving license so thought why not pop down to see you and most importantly, show you the college.”
“Oh, so you passed.”
“Yes and before you make a joke about it, I need to remind you about your last drive test.”
Dave inwardly cringed. Last time, he didn't shut the door properly and it swung open into traffic, almost knocking a motorcyclist out.
“Anyhow before you give me a desire to jump out of this car, how far away are we from campus?” Dave asked.
“Oh, not far surprisingly, with a car it's soooo much quicker,” Carl said.
Time skip
The car rolled into the campus, its headlights finally on after Carl did a quick google search.
“So this is what the campus looks like?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, although you will have to learn to run if you have Human Geography and Biology on the same day because they are faaaaar.”
“CARL!”
Bang.
A dark figure had just walked into the road and gotten hit.
The car's two occupances looked at each other, their eyes widened.
“Did you just…?” Dave asked the start of, before trailing off.
"Maybe it's a really big dog or pig?” Carl asked in a high pitched voice that signalled that even he didn't believe those words.
A groan came from outside.
"Oh my god, Carl! You hit someone with your car.” Dave yelled, getting out and running to the person.
"Oh no oh no oh no, they’re gonna sue and I'm gonna get so many points on my licence and I'm going to get my licence revoked." Carl fretted as Dave took a better look at the man Carl had just hit.
He had brown hair that went down to his shoulders however there was a small side braid near his right ear. He seemed to be wearing brown trousers and a pink hoodie. Dave moved him into the recovery position as Carl got out of the car.
"He seems fine, right?” Carl asked nervously.
"Doesn't seem to have broken anything, it's more likely he got injured hitting the road than by the car.” Dave assessed.
Suddenly the man started to stir and opened his eyes. They were a piercing dark green but he became less imitated when his face took on a puzzled look and he tilted his head in curiosity at Dave and Carl.
“Hello there chaps, could you tell me what happened? I think I stepped into the way of your car, very sorry about that.” the man said, from his voice and the way he said his words, he definitely wasn't from England.
Dave got out his phone and turned the torch on, “Follow my finger." before starting to move his finger up and down and right and left slowly.
“What are you doing?" the man asked.
“Checking if you have a concussion." Dave replied, “Don't worry, I know how, thanks to Carl over there."
“Yeah, he's done it to me several times and always been correct.” Carl said.
"Actually, it's ten, you just don't remember the other three," Dave snarked back before muttering under his breath, “it's a miracle you got into college with all the accidents you got into."
“College? You two go to college?" the man asked as Dave finished the test,
"You are fine.”
"Yep, well only me, but Dave is joining this year." Carl said as Dave helped the man up.
"Do you want a lift back?” Dave asked.
“Um, Dave, I'm pretty sure it's my car?"
“Um, Carl, I'm pretty sure you hit him with your car?"
Carl grumbled but didn't fight back as Dave opened the back door for the man before getting in himself.
Carl asked the man where he lived and he replied that he lived about 5 minutes away by car and gave directions to his house. However Carl handed the man his phone on Google maps and told him to just put in the postcode.
“So, what is your name?" Dave asked from the passenger seat.
“Porkins Netherin and what about yours and your friend’s?" Porkins asked back.
"My name's Dave Walker and the ray of sunshine that hit you is Carl Cueva." Dave replied, pointing at Carl, "and what are you doing on a college campus?”
“I'm going here next year, or this year depending on if you're using the academic year or the calendar and I thought I would have a look around a bit.” Porkins said.
“Oh cool, I'm going there too. Are you going to live off-campus or in student accommodation?” Dave asked.
“Probably student accommodation.” Porkins said as Carl lowered his window and flipped a driver who had just cut him off, “My parents say I need to talk to more people as we moved here from America a year and a half ago.”
“Oh, so how many times have you been shot?”
“CARL!” Dave scolded, remembering why Carl had very few friends at the village.
Lucky, Porkins didn't seem to mind, “Oh no, that's just a stereotype, like I could ask you if you fought any bulls recently.”
“Actually I'm not Spanish. My parents were born in Spain and moved to England before I was born.” Carl explained.
“But you get your heritage from your parents don't you?” Porkins asked.
“Shut up bacon.” Carl said, focusing on the road.
“Ignore him, he's an ass.” Dave said, “So-”
“Beep beep, your Uber’s over.” Carl interrupted.
“Oh, sorry,” Porkins said, unbuckling his seat belt, “I need to get out here.”
“Sure that's fine, I hope you get a good college room.” Dave said as Porkins got out of the car.
Porkins then started to walk off but then turned around and walked back to the car. He went to Dave's side of the car and signalled for him to roll the window down.
“Are you okay?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, um,” Porkins began, “could I get your number because I really don't know what I'm doing here half the time and you seem to know a lot.”
“Oh yeah, sure.” Dave said as Porkins handed him his phone and he inputted his number in. He finished and handed the phone back.
“Thanks for the lift.” Porkins shouted back as he walked up to his front door.
“Thanks for not suing Carl.” Dave said, smiling as Carl yelled,
“I gave you the lift!” before elbowing Dave on the side for the suing remark.
The car then pulled away and started the routine back to the village.
Dave stared out the window, looking at the houses as they passed.
“Sooo,” Carl said, smiling like he won the lottery, “nice guy wasn't he?”
“Yeah, quite nice.”
“And you gave him your number?”
“Carl?”
“What, Dave, my bisexual friend, a fact that I am mentioning for no reason?”
“Shut. Up.”