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Red stares at herself in the floor-length mirror with a feeling of profound resignation.
She doesn’t know how resignation can be profound. It's kind of numbing, but numbing in the way that it’s all over, seeping into her bloodstream and settling her thoughts. There is no panic, even though it might be reasonable to panic.
It’s just a deep pervading feeling of Well, fuck.
Red’s ears twitch, two black little tuffs sitting on top of her head. She grimaces, and in the mirror a snarl lifts her cat lips over her cat teeth.
Yeah, she fucked up.
Oh well. It’s only supposed to last an hour. Or 72 hours- the book really should have been more clear in the details.
She wanted cat vision eyes, not to be a cat.
There’s a difference. A pretty significant one.
Red lifts a paw experimentally and stares at it. The four little toes. Tiny claws. A soft pad underneath.
She flexes them, and the claws slide out.
Neat.
But she can’t tag the beast statue like this.
The whole reason she made the potion in the first place was because of how public and central the statue is. It would make it really stupid of her to attempt it with a flashlight.
She’d spent three days researching the thing, two nights stealing ingredients, and one increasingly questionable afternoon convincing herself that, well, if they didn’t want people to take it, they shouldn’t have left the ingredients sitting unattended behind only one locked door and a padlocked cabinet.
Now she had four paws and a tail. No one can ever find out.
As if summoned by the thought, there is an awful scraping sound as a key slides into a lock, and Red’s head whips around to face the door.
Oh great. Her perfect princess of a roommate is back just in time to judge her screw-up.
Actually- an idea occurs to her as the knob turns. Red launches herself onto the desk, knocking over potion ingredients and sending the book she used toppling off the desk where it lands face down, pages crinkled, just as the door pushes open.
“Red, what are you-“
Chloe stops in the doorway, gym bag slung on her slumping shoulders and scabbard knocking against the frame.
They stare at each other from across the room.
Red’s whiskers twitch. This is going to be fun.
She launches herself off the desk, tromping deliberately through the yellow sunflower powder before landing on Chloe’s bed with four coated paws.
“Hey-“ the door swings shut and Chloe’s bag drops with a loud clatter. “Don’t-“
Red leaps onto the other girl’s desk next, scattering a stack of perfectly ordered papers, tail smacking into a pencil holder that previously divided pens and pencils by color and length.
“Red,” Chloe groans, throwing her head back, making Red freeze. How could she possibly have already guessed that it was her? Then the princess sighs and looks at Red tiredly.
As Chloe stares at her, instead of the annoyance Red expects from her, her face shifts. The lines and weariness melt into something so much softer.
Red’s brain stalls.
She’s never had a look like that directed at her before. It’s strange enough that for one stupid second, Red forgets she’s supposed to be messing with her.
“Hey sweetheart,” she sighs, coming closer and holding out her hand. She doesn’t pay any attention to the mess Red made, just halting her fingers a few inches from her face. “Did my troublesome roommate nick you from someone?”
Troublesome?
Red bristles.
She turns and leaps off the desk, sending the papers scattering in sweeping arcs.
“Perfect,” Chloe mutters. For a moment, she doesn’t move, staring down at the mess. Then she slowly bends over to start collecting them.
Red watches from her spot on the floor, eyes narrowed. Her original intention was to wreak havoc, but now she’s now thinking this might be a great opportunity to figure out her deal.
She’s always so perfect. So straight and narrow. The Auradon amalgamation of morals and smiles and perfection.
She can’t possibly keep up that act even when she’s alone.
Maybe she picks her nose.
Or secretly hates everyone.
But Chloe just tidies up her desk before turning to Red’s. She hesitates a moment, and Red’s ears flick. Is she going to rifle through her things?
She almost wishes she would.
But Chloe only goes to collect a wet rag to wipe up the spilled ingredients and correct the tipped over bottles. She picks up the book Red dropped and doesn’t even glance at the title. Just ensures the pages aren’t folded before setting it in the middle of the tidied desk.
Red grits her teeth as the princess then goes to shower, leaving her there with only a glance.
Why didn’t she go through Red’s things? Red goes through her things all the time. She did it just before she tried making this potion that turned her into a cat. That’s how she got the last ingredient she needed.
Feeling petulant, Red jumps back up on the Auradon princess’s desk and knocks over the pencil holder again.
Clack.
The pens and pencils scatter. She swipes the newly stacked papers back onto the floor.
Whump.
Then she goes back to sit in the center of the bed for the perfect view of her face when she walks out of the bathroom.
Twenty minutes later, she gets an eyeful alright.
Chloe’s eyes land on her desk, and the most flat expression falls over her face as her eyes turn to where she is perched in the middle of her bed. “I’m calling you Red until the other one comes to take you back to where you belong,” she says.
Red stares.
Not because Chloe’s vexation is everything Red imagined it would be. But because Chloe had stepped into the bathroom without a change of clothes in hand, and now she’s stepping back into the room like she believes no one else is in it.
And, damn.
Damn, damn.
Well, she’s not hiding some grotesque deformity.
Red lets her eyes linger just to be sure. It isn’t like Chloe can tell that she’s staring.
And-
Okay. Fine. Maybe Red looks for a little longer than strictly necessary.
Red’s eyes snap back up innocently when Chloe looks at her spot on the bed. Then she turns back to the desk.
At first, Red thinks she’s going to complain. Maybe tell her off for scattering everything a second time.
Instead, Chloe just pauses in her efforts to towel dry her hair and starts picking things up. One paper. Then another.
She moves without her usual efficiency, pausing between each one like she has to remember what she’s doing. When she reaches for the last few, her fingers fumble against the edges before finally catching them.
Red’s ears twitch.
She watches the princess straighten the stack. Once. Twice. A third time, even though the edges are perfectly aligned.
There is something wrong about the way she’s moving.
Not wrong, exactly.
Just… tired.
Not the kind of tired that comes from staying up too late, or dragging herself through a morning she doesn’t want to be awake for.
This exhaustion looks like it has settled somewhere deeper. Like she’s fragile and already beaten down.
She doesn’t find the humor in it. Her stomach twists in something close to guilt.
A knock at the door has Red flinching at the unexpected noise, just as Chloe taps the last paper into a neat pile. She places them back in the middle of the desk, paper edges parallel with wooden ones.
“One moment,” she calls.
Her voice is different. Brighter.
Red’s ears prick forward as she hurriedly drags on some sleep clothes she blindly fishes out of her drawers. They are oversized and swallow her frame. She pauses just before the door, expression flickering as she takes a deep breath.
And Red learns the first interesting thing about her roommate as a blinding smile replaces the slight downturn of her lips. Her exhaustion vanishes in a blink. Her shoulders straighten. Her chin lifts. Her entire face morphs as she pulls the door open.
Chloe Charming is a liar.
“Oh, hey Cassidy. What’s up,” she asks cheerfully.
It’s not in the same way Red is a liar, with false words and straight face and blatant untruths. She’s a liar in body language.
It’s kind of fascinating to watch.
Red’s whiskers twitch.
Chloe’s smile is perfect. The same as it is every time she sees it. Too perfect.
Red can’t see the person on the other side of the doorway. Only legs that shift side to side in anxious energy.
“Hey, so, you know how I forgot to do that assignment for Mr. Marsden’s class? Well, I told him I accidently left it in a friend’s room and he said if I turn it in first thing in the morning, he’ll give me full credit. Only, the thing is, I didn’t actually do it. Please, please, please can I borrow yours? I know you like to make copies of all your finished assignments.”
“Cass,” Chloe sighs, but even that sounds different than the ones she gave off when she thought she was alone. “You know I don’t like-”
“I know- I know, okay?” she cuts the princess off, and for some reason it has the hair between her shoulder blades bristling. “But I promise this is the last time. Please, Chloe? I really need this grade. You don’t want me to fail, do you? You know how my mom gets when my grades drop.”
Chloe gives. Red can see it in her posture before the words even pass her lips. “Okay. Yeah, fine. But this is the last time. I’m serious this time.”
“Of course!” The other girl brightens immediately, bouncing on her feet. “Oh my gods, thank you so much.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Chloe agrees amicably, moving to her desk to rifle through one of her drawers.
“I love you so much for this, you have no idea,” the other girl continues to prattle on, grinning as soon as she gets her hands on the packet Chloe passes over.
“Just try not to forget next time.”
“I will, I will.”
The door closes. Chloe’s smile immediately drops. She leans back against the wood with a slumping exhale that comes from her entire body. Her head is the last to softly thud against it.
For several seconds, she simply stays there, staring off into space.
Then her head turns to regard Red in the middle of the bed. “Don’t look at me like that,” she says. Red blinks. “I know, okay? I know.”
She shakes her head and slaps her hand at the lightswitch.
The light flicks off, but the world isn’t plunged into darkness. Just darker. Red’s eyes adjust almost immediately.
The room blooms into shades of blue and silver, edges suddenly sharp enough that she can see the individual threads in Chloe’s blanket. She can still see every step the princess takes on the path to her bed, and the grimace her face twits into as she stubs her toe.
Well, at least that part of the potion worked.
………………..
Red jolts awake to the sound of an alarm. Normally her roommate’s alarms are quiet enough to sleep through- if she’s not already miserably half-awake and restless- but the noise stabs at her ears, and it feels like betrayal.
She turns over to glare, only for her disgruntlement to burn right out. Oh yeah. She’s a cat.
Her tail flicks down against the top cover of her bed.
Chloe shifts and deftly silences the alarm with a practiced swipe of her hand. The motion is smooth and deliberate. For a moment, she doesn’t move. Then she turns her head, eyes sweeping over the room- and something she sees makes her bolt upright.
She stares at Red, eyebrows creasing. “She didn’t come back last night?”
Red stares. Is she…? That’s concern on her face.
Chloe immediately reaches for her phone and drags it into her lap. Red’s curiosity spikes as Chloe stares down at it, biting her lip. She glances at Red again.
“She’s probably fine, right?”
Red stretches, then leaps down off her bed and onto Chloe’s so she can peek at what she’s doing. She’s surprised to see it open to their message history.
It’s not a very long one. They’ve sent maybe two messages to each other in total; Chloe asking if Red wants any takeout she was picking up, and Red responding back with a middle finger emoji.
Chloe had sent back a thumbs-up.
Red had left her on read.
Chloe’s fingers move from hovering over the keypad to reaching out to Red to touch her. The princess’s fingers just graze her cheek before she realizes she’s doing and jerks.
Chloe withdraws quickly. “Sorry.” Her hand goes back to the phone, as does her gaze. “She probably won’t respond anyway…”
Red’s ears flatten. She doesn’t know why that bothers her.
‘You alive?’
They both stare at the drafted message. Chloe quickly erases it and throws her head back with a groan. “Why is this so hard?”
Why is it, Red wonders. What’s she even getting so worked up about?
“Okay, okay,” Chloe chants under her breath. Then she quickly types, Come get your cat. Pets aren’t allowed in the dorms, and hits send before she can think about it.
Chloe immediately gapes, like it wasn’t her own fingers that pressed the buttons. “Why did I say that?!” She squeals, falling backward into her pillows. Red watches the girl writhe, pressing her palms into her eye sockets and kicking her feet.
What is… happening right now?
Whatever fit the girl is having abruptly ends as she propels upright with a gasp. “Oh my god, you don’t have water. Or food. Or a litter box.” She scrambles out of the bed and succumbs to a moment of panic in which she turns, and turns, and turns. Red follows, bewildered, winding warily around her feet.
Then Chloe snatches up a bowl that holds some of her jewelry, dumps its contents onto the desk, and rushes to the bathroom. She uses hand soap to wash it out before filling it with water.
She places it on the ground before Red with wide eyes before retreating her hands to her thighs.
“I’m sorry I don’t have food right now. I’m sure Red will be back any minute..” Chloe sighs, rocking backward and settling fully onto the floor. “Oh, I hope she gets back soon. I really don’t know what to do with you.”
Red is kind of thirsty, so she laps at the water while Chloe watches over her. She doesn’t know why the other girl hasn’t left yet. She’s supposed to have Swords and Shields soon. That was the whole point of the wake-up alarm.
She doesn’t move.
“She’s not so bad, you know,” she says softly. Her fingers twitch, like she wants to reach out again, but she doesn’t. Her hands remain in her lap, gaze aimed at Red, but kind of distantly.
“Red- She is…” she blows out an exasperated breath, “complicated.” She seems to search for some way to describe her, and Red’s ears swivel and point directly at her in anticipation. She is finally about to hear Chloe’s genuine, unrefined thoughts about her.
Chloe flops backward onto the hardwood floor and stares up at the ceiling.
“Red is a bit like cinnamon candy,” she decides after a while. “Shocking to the system and almost painful at first, but the longer you sit with the flavor, the less it hurts. You even- kind of- start to become fond of it. The taste lingers in your mouth long after it’s gone. The smell clings to your senses wherever it’s been.”
Red has never had cinnamon candy before. It hasn’t made it into her daily sample of sweets. But now she really wants to try it.
She feels rooted to her spot, mind reeling on a useless loop in which nothing actually seems to process or load.
She’s learning lots of things about her roommate.
The most flabbergasting is that she doesn’t seem to hate Red. She doesn’t understand how the girl doesn’t hate her. She tried very hard to make it so in the beginning, until she realized being antagonistic to the person you’re living with is exhausting.
Dismissive and standoffish is safer. Easier.
It’s what Red understands, and the feeling was mutual by that point anyway. At least, she thought it was.
“I’m going to get her to like me,” Chloe declares to the ceiling. “...Eventually.” She sighs miserably. “First, I have to get her to not hate me.” Red stares. Chloe doesn’t sound like someone making a joke.
She sounds serious. Painfully, hopelessly serious.
Chloe drags her phone out of her pocket to look at the screen. “She hasn’t responded.” She glances at Red, biting her lip again.
“I’m going to get you some food,” she decides and sits up. Red watches her dress and putter around the room. She expects the usual frantic perfection.
Instead, Chloe spends nearly a full minute staring blankly at one sock in her hand as though she has forgotten what it’s for.
Red’s head tilts.
Chloe sighs.
“Right. Sock.” She puts it on. Then the other.
When she straightens, she looks down at Red. “Don’t destroy anything while I’m gone.”
Red blinks innocently.
Chloe narrows her eyes. “I mean it.”
Red flicks her tail.
The princess hesitates at the door. For just a moment, the smile slips. Then she bounces in place, shoulders rolling back, and a blinding smile lights her face. Chloe opens the door and disappears into the hallway.
The lock clicks behind her.
Red sits alone in the suddenly quiet room. Her ears swivel toward the hallway. She looks at Chloe’s desk.
Perfectly aligned papers.
Color-coded pencils.
And then there’s the jewelry dumped haphazardly into a pile because Chloe had been too worried about a cat to put it away properly.
Chloe is… complicated, Red suddenly realizes.
A little thrill goes through her.
That’s much more interesting than perfect.
……………….
Red thought she was prepared. She was expecting maybe a little packet of tuna on a paper plate that she might need to choke down if she’s going to be stuck this way longer than a day. She is hoping her tastebuds changed with her body. She’s not a huge fan of fish.
It turns out, Red isn’t prepared for shit.
She hears the key in the lock and the turn of the handle. She rolls over when she hears the door start to open, and then she stares.
What the fuck?
Chloe’s face is hidden by a bag of cat food sitting on her shoulder. Two more are tucked under one arm. Several bags are twisted around her wrists, making the skin around it turn pale. Chloe kicks the door shut with her foot and allows the weight hanging from her arms to carry the items to the floor. The bag slides off her shoulder, which she tries to catch but fails as her hands remain caught in plastic.
She winces and looks up at Red.
Red continues to stare.
For a girl so insistent that no pets are allowed in the dorms, she sure has enough stuff for one to be moving in.
“I-” Chloe says, faltering as she glances down at the scattered items. “Panicked,” she finishes lamely.
She starts picking through her purchases, setting up a whole ass litter box that Red swears will go unused, and presents two cute little glass bowls with silver hearts on them. Chloe immediately fills one with water to replace the jewelry bowl, and empties an entire can of wet cat food into the other.
“I wasn’t sure what you might like,” she says nervously, like she’s waiting for Red’s judgement.
Oh, Red has judgement. But it’s more over the fact that she got three different dry cat foods, and a bulging bag of canned food, for a cat she didn’t ask for, nor plans to keep.
She watches more things appear out of the bags. A brush she places absently on the desk. A cat bed she arranges on the end of Red’s. She constructs a whole ass scratching post, using tools and everything to set it up.
Red is actually horrified.
Even more so when the cat toys come out. Rattling little balls, stuffed mice, and then- a feather toy. “I read that cats need stimulation,” she says, waving it in Red’s face proudly.
Red stares at it. Pink and blue feathers attached to a string, and a jingling little bell. It’s absolutely absurd.
Red bats at it once.
Chloe’s entire face lights up. “Oh my gods.”
Oh, hell no.
Chloe starts dragging it across the bedspread, and Red, having lost her Wonders-damned mind, darts after it.
“Look! You’re playing!”
She is not playing.
“You’re having fun!”
She is plotting her murder.
“You like it!”
Chloe is right. Red does hate her.
Red chases the toy right off the bed and halfway up the wall as Chloe flicks it into the air. A genuine, unadulterated thrill goes through her as she catches it in her paws and smacks it down to the ground, biting the string to pin it there as the pole bends.
………………
So, Red has gotten completely off track with her goal of discovering Chloe’s deepest darkest secrets without her realizing it. It’s fine, though. She’s learned a lot.
Red darts out from under the bed, chasing after a little dust mote across the floor as it floats up into a yellow patch of sunlight. She diligently ignores the little giggle from across the room as she lets her mind turn.
For one, Chloe’s little Perfect Princess act is just that. An act. Red had already suspected as much, though she doesn’t understand why she does it. What she gets out of it.
She supposes, maybe she does it for the same reasons Red played along with her mom for as long as she did. Still does, if she’s honest, when under her direct supervision. But she doesn’t appear afraid. There would be absolutely no blowback for Chloe denying that girl’s request last night. In fact, what she did would technically be cheating, so it would fit more with her image to deny it.
So it’s got to be a people pleasing in general thing.
Which is stupid.
She clearly knew she was being taken advantage of. At least, she had to suspect. So why’d she go along with it?
The little mote flies up her nose as she inhales, and she sneezes, sending more specks of dust spiralling up into the light. For a moment, her eyes follow them, flicking back and forth between each one. Then she spots a more interesting target and slinks toward the corner of the bed.
Chloe, Red has decided, is a complete and utter dork. And a spaz. A diagnosis that probably draws more from her people pleasing tendencies rather than her compulsive need for an image of perfection.
If the text message debacle that morning didn’t confirm it, her panic over cat supplies did.
It’s completely ridiculous. And stupid. But it puts some of the other things she’s done and said in a new light, made clearer as she imagines her agonizing over every message and sentence she’s said to Red.
Red rushes from around the corner of the bed, attacking the shoelaces she’d been stalking. Chloe yelps as Red rolls over her foot, onto her back, and over to her other side, gnawing on the string with her back teeth.
Red supposes- it’s possible- she might have misjudged the princess.
A touch brushes against the top of Red’s head, and her head jerks up. The fingers come again, scratching toward the back of her skull, and Red’s body surges, pushing up against the hand.
Wait- fuck- no.
This is not happening.
Red swats the hand, glaring at the appendage and the girl.
Chloe boops her in the nose in retaliation, and Red’s tail lashes. Alright. Screw this new understanding. She’s going back to the torment plan. She is going to make her cry in frustration.
Red jumps up onto the desk that Chloe has been sitting at for the last hour toiling over homework- which is ridiculous. It's not even noon on a Saturday. Homework is for 10 PM Sunday panic. Or Monday morning if you’re feeling imprudent.
Red smacks the pencil holder over.
Chloe sighs and picks it up.
Red immediately does it again.
“Really?” Chloe says. She gently pushes Red off the desk and picks it up again.
As soon as Red’s feet touch the ground, she leaps back onto the table and smacks it hard enough to send it spinning toward the edge of the desk. Chloe catches it before it tips, and deposits it into a desk drawer.
Well.
Fuck.
Then Chloe produces that Wonders damned feather toy, and Red promptly forgets her entire revenge plot as she goes charging after it.
She realizes her mistake about three seconds later. Not because she gained any self control, but because Chloe is laughing.
Not the quiet little giggle Red has heard from her before, or the controlled thing Red has caught sometimes from across the hallway.
She’s actually laughing, head back and gasping for air. It’s not polished. It’s not polite or fit for a princess. But it is bright and unrestrained.
It makes Red freeze. Her brain stalls.
“Oh my gods,” Chloe wheezes.
The feather flutters by her cheek, and she catches it. She sinks her teeth into feathers and drags it backward, planting all four paws against the floor.
Chloe pulls, like Red is a fish on the end of a line.
Red pulls harder. Then the feathers slip free, between the gaps in her teeth, and Red tumbles backward while Chloe makes that sound again. Joyful. Honest. Who’s to judge it but a simple minded cat?
For a moment, Red doesn’t mind being overlooked. Not when it’s allowed her to see this side of her roommate.
Red gets to her feet. She stares at the toy, then at Chloe.
Chloe stares back, lips twitching in mirth. “You want it again?”
Red’s tail flicks. Grudging. Then again.
Red lunges. “Hey-!” Chloe chokes on a laugh as the feather darts away with Red following it close behind.
For the next several minutes, her life becomes an undignified blur of feathers, sliding claws over hard floors, and Chloe’s increasingly delighted laughter.
She catches it once. Twice. Six times.
At some point, Chloe abandons any pretense of doing homework and lies flat on her stomach on the floor, dragging the toy around in wide circles. Red follows every movement with single-minded intensity.
This is ridiculous, she’ll think every now and then.
Left.
She’s a person.
Right.
She is a rebel.
Up.
She has a reputation to uphold.
Down.
And then Chloe will laugh again, and she’ll think, Fuck it. It’s not like she knows I’m a cat.
The feather darts across her nose, and Red’s paw shoots out, pinning it. Chloe reaches down and scratches the top of her head.
Red’s eyes begin to droop. She arches into the touch. Chloe’s fingers move slowly between her ears, gentle.
And she thinks, also, I’m glad she’s feeling better.
It’s a startling thought. She doesn’t know when she started to care about the other girl’s emotional state. Maybe around the time she realized that she actually has emotions, and isn’t just a humanoid personification of an etiquette textbook.
The idea of her own emotional stability becoming entangled with this neurotic princess’s, is horrifying. That means she’s going to have to get involved. She’s going to have to say something.
This is why she doesn’t let herself get attached. It’s such a hassle.
Chloe’s sudden gasp jolts Red to attention. She hadn’t realized that she’s closed her eyes, or melted entirely under the gentle touch.
Chloe’s sudden stiffness has Red clambering to her feet, hair prickling.
“Red…” Chloe says, frozen, terror underwritten in her tense vocals. Red frantically follows her line of sight, trying to spot what horror caused this reaction.
And then she sees it.
Eight legs. Small. Not even the size of a penny.
Red looks at the spider. Then back at Chloe.
The creature starts crawling, and Chloe flies off the floor and onto the bed. “Get it- get it- get it!” She shrieks, pointing at it in a panic that makes Red’s eyes widen.
Oh.
This is exactly what she’s been looking for. This is the first time Red has ever had genuine leverage over the Auradon princess. A fear of spiders.
A ginormous one at that.
Chloe continues pointing at it and shaking. “Please.”
Red looks at the spider. And back, claws tingling. She has never felt so powerful as she raises a paw in threat. Chloe watches. Red bats the spider.
It disappears behind the dresser, and Chloe’s face goes white. “Where did it go?”
Red sits down, watching the other girl’s face morph into despair.
For a moment, she soaks in the hilarity of her fear. Then she realizes that she has made a terrible mistake.
Because now Chloe is staring at her like she’s the only person in the universe capable of saving her.
“Red.”
Red’s tail flicks.
“Red, please.”
And suddenly, the princess needs her.
Fuck.
She’s attached.
But, well, fine then. Chloe is the one who wanted her to like her. Now she’s got to deal with the consequences of what that means. After she deals with this spider (and becomes human again), Chloe’s ‘friends’ are about to have a very rude awakening.
Red stalks toward the dresser, body low, tail out behind her just brushing the floor. Her feet grow warmer with every step, a prickle spreading down her spine. She crouches down to peek underneath the dresser, viewing the dust and newly settled cat hair. She spots one of her socks she doesn’t remember losing, and takes a mental note for later.
She doesn’t see a spider though. Her ears twitch as Chloe lets out a pathetic, terrified whine.
Red lays on her side and sticks her arm underneath, waving it around blindly.
“Red- Red!” Chloe calls out, alerting her to the fact that the spider is making another break for it. The bug has darted out from the dresser on a direct path for the bed, disappearing underneath it.
Red scrambles to her feet and charges after her target, throwing herself onto the bed with the intention of cutting it off from the other side- probably unnecessary, but maybe not. Besides, Red is having fun.
And then the heat Red had been ignoring suddenly flares to the rest of her body, and her stomach flips. Mid-leap, she feels herself grow with one disorienting pop in her ears like a change in air pressure. The size different midflight changes her trajectory, and her knees slam painfully into the hard edge of the bed while crashing face-first into Chloe’s chest.
The princess screams as she’s effectively tackled backward onto the mattress.
Red instantly lifts up onto her arms, staring down at the other princess in horror. She is hovering directly over the other girl. Her hair falls around their faces in a messy curtain.
Red looks down at herself. Then back at Chloe. Chloe’s mouth hangs open.
“Fuck.”
“Oh my gods.” Chloe is staring at her like she’s just witnessed a resurrection. Disbelief and horror. “Red?”
Red closes her eyes. “Yeah,” she says dryly.
“The cat?”
“Uh huh.” She opens her eyes in time to watch the other girl’s widen further. “Don’t make this a thing,” she says quickly.
“You were the cat!”
“Yes, we established that.”
“I bought you, like, 17 pounds of cat food.”
“That is something that you did,” Red agrees.
“You played with a feather toy.”
Red’s eyes narrow. “Don’t.”
“You chased it for, like, an hour.”
“I said don’t.”
“You loved it.”
“No one would find your body.”
For a moment, Red sees the same unrestrained amusement she’d caught earlier spark in her eyes, and it’s almost enough to make her humiliation worth it. Then Chloe seems to remember something, because her expression changes.
“You’re really Red.”
Red’s smile fades. “Yeah.”
Chloe stares at her. And Red realizes, slowly, that Chloe isn’t looking at her like she’s seeing her problem of a roommate who appeared out of nowhere. She’s looking at her like she’s seeing someone she’s been worried about. Someone she’s been waiting for.
“You’re okay,” Chloe whispers.
Red’s throat tightens, seeing this proof so undeniable that she’s been worried about her. Her- brittle and antagonistic roommate- her. “Yeah.”
Chloe lets out a shaky breath. Then she laughs once, disbelievingly. “You are trouble, Red of Hearts.”
“Yet, you still like me,” Red says confidently, letting a smug smile split her face. “What did you compare me to? Cinnamon candy?”
Chloe’s face goes absolutely scarlet.
“Did you actually want to taste me, or was that all hyperbole?”
“Oh my gods,” Chloe murmurs, lifting both hands to cover her face. Red finally takes the opportunity to sit back on her heels and let the pressure off her wrists.
She laughs. “Hey, the spider doesn’t seem so bad now, does it,” she taunts.
Evidently, that was precisely the wrong thing to say.
Chloe bolts upright, dumping Red to the floor. “The spider!” She hisses, leaping to her feet, and the mattress sinks in under her weight, pitching her almost off the edge. “Oh my gods, the spider! Where did it go? Where did it go!? Red, please, you have to get it.”
Red looks up at the girl from the floor, gaping in disbelief. “You’re not serious.”
“Red, please,” Chloe begs. “Please, find it, please.”
Red huffs, lifting the bed skirt where she last saw it scuttling. “I don’t see it,” she tells her.
Chloe screams and launches herself off the bed. One foot barely touches the ground before she is on top of her desk, scattering her own papers without any help from Red.
“Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods. It’s on the bed. It crawled onto the bed. I’m never going to be able to sleep in this room again.”
“It’s…” Red says helplessly. “A spider. How… do you function?”
“Shut up!” she snaps, then her face immediately twists back into the doe-eyed pitifulness. “Please just find it.”
Red huffs, annoyed that her heart is starting to do that weird pull thing again in response to the other girl’s patheticness. She runs her eyes along the ground, following the edge of the bed, and then makes a noise of victory when she finds it about a foot away from the other side, out from under the bed.
“Found it,” she reassures, and takes a step toward it. “I got it.”
“Wait!” Chloe suddenly shouts, making Red halt, and turn on her. “Don’t kill it.”
“The fuck, princess? What do you expect me to do with it, then?”
“Just-” she struggles. “Put it outside.” She pulls open one of the drawers underneath her and withdraws the pencil holder. She dumps the contents, carelessly, and thrusts the container in Red’s direction. “Here use this.”
Red stares at her.
This girl can’t be serious. No, of course she is.
“Red,” she pleads again.
Red sighs and grabs the container.
All in all, actually collecting the spider did not give justice to the havoc that led up to it. Red scoops it up with little effort- the thing was so scared it didn’t react- and dumps it out the third story window.
It probably survived. Probably.
The change in Chloe is immediately apparent. Her entire person relaxes like a sigh, legs uncurling from her chest and gently touching down on the ground. Her face has shifted from one of desperation, to relief, and then starts to turn toward embarrassment as she notices Red’s attention is back on her.
The princess clears her throat.
Then she reaches down to start cleaning the papers and pencils.
Red drifts closer, setting the pencil holder onto the desk. She folds her arms, looking down at the girl who immediately deposits one into it. Then another. She has to bend down to collect several that have rolled onto the floor.
Each one she picks up, she turns between her fingers.
Slowly, almost unconsciously, she starts sorting them back into the holder.
“You do that a lot,” Red observes.
“What?”
“Clean when you’re nervous.”
“I’m not nervous,” Chloe scoffs nervously.
“Liar.”
“I clean because things should be clean,” She retorts, looking up with narrow eyes. “You are always making messes.”
“Sure,” Red agrees. “And spiders don’t render you stupid.”
Chloe gasps, whipping her head up with wide offended eyes.
Red grins.
Chloe scoffs and looks away with flushed cheeks. After a moment, the tension eases again. She puts a few more pencils away. Rearranges them. Rearranges them again.
“I don’t like feeling out of control,” she admits quietly.
Red’s smile fades.
“Yeah,” she agrees.
Chloe’s eyes flick up. “You get it?”
“Yeah,” she says again. Then, urged on by that same strange feeling that seemed fine with humiliating herself if it’d make the other girl smile, rolls her eyes and reminds her, “Those cat instincts were rough. I felt totally undignified. I mean, chasing dust motes? I’m just glad I didn’t have to actually use that litter box.”
Chloe stares at her.
Her eyes slowly widening, and color crawling up her neck in some kind of exaggerated dawning of horror.
“What?”
“You were a cat!” she yelps.
Red’s brows furrow.
“Yes, we established this already.”
“I walked around the room naked in front of you.”
“Ah,” Red grins, feeling a bit of warmth seep into the tips of her ears, which she valiantly ignores. “Yes, you did.”
“You stared at me!” she continues, face now Wonderland red.
“I was looking for flaws!” Red counters. Chloe stares at her in disbelief. “There were none, by the way.” She punctuates the compliment with a cheeky thumbs-up. “Very hot.”
“Red!” Chloe’s pitch somehow gets even higher. If she were still a cat, it would be painful.
“What?”
“You stared at me.”
“I was conducting research.”
“On my body?”
“Among other things.”
Chloe makes a strangled noise and covers her face. “You are the most irritating individual I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”
“Come on,” Red wheedles. “Don’t be upset.”
“I cannot possibly be more upset than I am right now,” she snaps.
Red’s eyebrows shoot up. Because, oh, she shouldn’t have said that. Of course Red is going to take it as a challenge.
She reaches out.
With a single finger, she tips over the pencil holder.
Clack.
Every carefully sorted pencil and pen spills across Chloe’s desk.
Chloe’s hands slowly drop from her face. She looks at the resurrected mess. Then at Red.
Red smiles innocently.
A laugh starts to bubble out of Chloe, before she clamps a hand over her mouth. She looks offended by her own reaction. “No.”
Red’s shoulders ease. The sharpness of her smile softens. “There she is.”
Chloe’s expression falters, flicking her eyes up in silent question.
“That laugh,” she explains. She leans back against the wall, watching her. “The real one. It’s much nicer than the one you do out there,” she tilts her head toward the door.
For a moment, Chloe doesn’t say anything. Then she looks away, cheeks still pink.
“You’re unbelievable,” she mutters.
Red preens at the compliment. “Thank you.”
“I regret taking care of you,” she continues.
“No, you don’t,” Red asserts.
Chloe sighs, long suffering. “No,” she admits quietly. “I don’t.”
Red looks at her, a wiggling, warm, stupid feeling in her chest. Because Chloe is smiling. Not the perfect princess smile. Not the bright, practiced thing she puts on when she’s exhausted but someone knocks on the door.
Just Chloe.
Red thinks she likes just Chloe.
Chloe sighs as she starts collecting pencils. She catches Red watching and glares. “Don’t.”
“I didn’t do anything,” Red says, lifting her hands in surrender.
Chloe narrows her eyes further. Red smiles.
She waits exactly three seconds.
Then reaches out.
Clack.
The holder falls over.