Noctremās ex-headmaster was still looking delightedly smug when his phone vibrated. He finished off the last of his Irish coffee as he pulled the device from his pocket and toggled to his messages. Reading Leoās reply, he snorted and began composing as he walked toward the cafeteria.
Itās ābraggartā, you anachronistic ponce.
He slid his phone away, suspecting there would be no further texts from their illustrious headmaster that morning. He was frankly amazed that Leo had given him his phone number in the first place. It took all the fun out of getting his hands on it unconventionally and then prank-calling him, sadly.
He headed into the cafeteria fully intending to breeze in and out before there was a chance of his getting caught up in any trifling conversations. He grabbed a large blueberry muffin, an orange, and after surveying his options for a few more seconds, several pieces of bacon wrapped in some napkins. He wasnāt staying in the large eating area; that would have been like an invitation for people to intrude on his rare good mood and ruin it with their tedious comings and goings. Juggling the food items that heād selected so far a bit, he managed to twist the top of his travel mug off. He refilled it, leaving about two ounces unaccounted for, and didnāt bother adding cream or sugar.
The orange went into one of his pockets, along with the bacon. The muffin seemed like it might explode into crumbs with the slightest provocation, so he wasnāt taking any chances. He beat a hasty retreat, quick-stepping out of the caf and then turning to head toward the classroom he made use of for Power Control. He was still very sore that Leo hadnāt managed to provide him with his own office, and as such was completely boycotting the āteacherās workroomā, which might as well have had cubicles and Scott Adams cartoons to complete its utter lack of charm.
If he passed by any students on his escape, he had a perfectly crafted scowl at the ready for derailing any attempts at socialization. He needed solitude, so that he could think. The implications of the students being mixed were staggering. He had to wonder if Leo really had known about the list. If he had, why hadnāt he done anything to change it? It would have taken Cain all of ten seconds to correct the error. Did the immortal actually
want the kids mixed? He had to, at least subconsciously. Otherwise he would have been unable to rationalize leaving it as it was. He apparently had time to exchange snarky texts, so he obviously had time to hand-write out a bunch of pairs of brats.
He shifted his coffee into the crook of his arm and fumbled in his non-food-carrying pocket for his keys. He kept the classroom locked for a variety of reasons, not least of which was the bottle of Makerās Mark that he kept in his desk. He wouldnāt have put it past the little bastards to steal it, but really, half of them could have gotten into a locked room and a locked desk anyway. Oh well. As long as it was still there, he wouldnāt have to launch an inquisition.
He kept the lights off, preferring dimness, and used his hidden bottle of booze to top off his coffee before securing it in the drawer once more. He laid out his breakfast on the large desk, unwrapping the bacon and chewing on a piece as he pulled open yet another drawer. This one contained weeks and weeks worth of trash tabloid and celebrity magazines, and after rifling through them, he selected a copy of Life & Style.
Leaning back in his seat, he kicked his feet up on the desk. His pant legs rode up a little bit, exposing the clunky looking monitoring device that was affixed with some sort of space-age strapping to his left ankle. Eyeing the blinking green light on it crossly, he shifted so that his food was in reach and flipped open to a random page in the trashy magazine. Heād alternate between bits of this or that and sips of coffee, saving the messy orange for last, and read about Katy Perry and John Mayer. An announcement from Leo about an assembly intruded on his not-so-guilty pleasure, and he sighed, eyeing the clock on the wall.
Heās not new, just drop the āethreanā.Landonās explanation helped not at all. It really only made matters worse. The exact spelling of the name heād seen next to his had already slipped away from him, and he had to wonder, briefly, if Landon had gone nerd on him and started speaking in some kind of weird Middle Earth language.
Drop the ethrean, drop the ethrean. He repeated the phrase over and over in his mind.
The riddle went unsolved. Landon had taken it upon himself to fix up Colbyās lips, wiping at the corner of the speedsterās mouth with a saliva-wet thumb. Colby didnāt mind at all. Landonās saliva was very familiar to him, and he secretly enjoyed the way his ex-boyfriend/bestie was always looking out for him, motherly or otherwise. He wound up blinking when Landon just wandered off toward the list. Only then did it occur to him that he could have checked to see who was rooming with Lando, or Sky. Oh well, heād figure it out eventually. Landonās just abandoning him didnāt bother him; heād actually been doing that more and more lately, but nothing had changed when they did hang out, so he wasnāt worried. Whenever he asked Landon where heād gone off to, the response was always
running, whichā¦ whatever, really. Just because he didnāt have any secrets didnāt mean his friends werenāt entitled to them.
Speaking of Sky, there he was. He was looking forā¦ oh, him! Their eyes would wind up meeting, and there was another blast of displaced air as he sped on over to the shorter boy, wearing a big dopey grin as he came to a halt. He held his hands out, a silent offer to help the pyrokinetic sex-pot with his luggage. About, oh, a second or so later he just dove into conversation.
āDid you see who youāre staying with yet? Iām so totally bummed itās not me, but like, at least weāre in the same place now, haha. I think my roommate is like, an elf or something. Drakka-whatever. Seriously, itās likeā¦ something out of the Lord of the Rings, haha.ā It should be noted that Colby didnāt really have an āinside voiceā, and that Drake might very well have heard
Redlineās assessment of his name if he happened to be passing by or within, say, twenty feet? Sky would, of course, have difficulty getting even a syllable in until Colby was finished.
āHopefully neither of us get stuck with prudes. Drake-whatever- OH! DRAKE! Wait. Heās from Noctrem. Why am I roomed with someone from Noctrem? Ugh, his sister is such a bitch-skank. Well, heās hot at least.ā He started looking around for the shadow-manipulator.
āI bet-āSky would never find out what Colby would have bet. The announcement came over the loudspeaker. Mr. Marinosā voice never failed to captivate Colby, and he fell silent (which almost never happened) to listen to the message. News of a mandatory assembly completely disrupted his frenetic train of thought. His idol and crush sounded pissed. Maybe the roommate thing was some kind of mistake, and theyād straighten it out at the assembly? That gave him a little hope for scoring a more preferred roomie, but when his mind went back to the living arrangements, he renewed his verbal assault on Sky.
āWe should get you settled in and stuff, haha. Maybe thereāll be time to head back to my room.ā His eyebrows waggled; Sky probably already knew what heading to Colbyās room meant, but the eyebrow waggling would erase any doubts. His gaze panned over the students who were buzzing around the roommate list and he spotted Landon again, standing all by himself, like he was waiting for a bus or something.
āDude!ā he called, but then stopped. What if Sky and Landon were roommates? He was somewhat aware of some hints of jealousy, mostly from Sky, regarding the two of them. For some reason, he got a really weird, bad feeling in his chest when he considered the two of them sharing living arrangements. They were both so different, but he cared about each of them way more than he was capable of expressing with his limited vocabulary and discomfort when it came to emotions.
It would all work out, he decided. It always did. They were both just friends anyway. Nothing to worry about, right? Besides, Sky had no right to be jealous. He was having sex with like, one out of every five girls in the school, it seemed like. Colbyās nose scrunched up as he thought of that. Heād grossed himself out. Shaking his head, he realized heād kind of just been standing there not saying anything and blinked, trying to catch up with whatever Sky had started saying to him.
He heard quick-moving footsteps behind him and tensed; it was only Zac, false alarm. He arched a skeptical eyebrow at the other boy when he laughed and made light of the enormous duffel bag. It really was heavy. The strap of it was cutting very painfully into his shoulder, and he had brief thoughts of tossing it to him. The duffel, nearly as tall as he was and packed with everything that Theo owned, probably would have slammed Zac into the wall. That urge passed pretty quickly; instead he just shrugged, and nodded once they reached their room.
Of course, upon entering, he realized that it was actually Zacās room. He was just a going to be taking up the extra bed. His eyes fell on the stand of drums and some arcane muscle in his left cheek, an inch or so below his eye, began to twitch. Perhaps Zac was not the best roommate after all. There were very few things that Theo could tolerate less than amateur musicians, and his understanding of that particular subculture was that drummers were the worst of the lot. His lips pressed together into an extremely thin smile as his eyes neatly quartered off the room, inspecting every inch of it. The muscle-spasm stopped a few seconds after it started, when the announcement about the assembly came on and he dutifully listened to it. He respected Marinos, the teacher, not the girl, and was curious enough about what the convocation would entail that his facial tic died away. When it was over and Zac said his piece, Theo said a single word:
āThanksā.Heād let Zac decide what precisely he was thanking him for. It could ostensibly be showing him to the room (which he could have found on his own). Or it could have been accepting him into the room (which he actually had no choice about). It could even have been for clearance to do what he wanted (Zac would not have liked what he wanted to do very much at all). Theo wasnāt really thanking him for anything. He was possessed of no gratitude whatsoever, at least in his current situation, but it seemed like the socially appropriate thing to say. He liked Zac well enough, but that had been when theyād only shared a few classes. Being thrust into living together would no doubt change things, but it would be better if they could get along. It wouldnāt be easy, but Theo actually did want them to have an amicable relationship, if only because anything else would probably have involved even more effort on his part.
āSee you later,ā he added as an afterthought when Zac took off to eat. He would, after all. It was inevitable. Heād see this boy every single day for the rest of his time at Arcana. He definitely needed to work a little harder at not disliking him as much as the drums made him want to.
He heaved his duffel onto the newer looking of the two beds, which he presumed was his. Heād contemplated heaving it into the drum kit instead, butā¦ that would have been very noisy and troublesome, however satisfying. Rubbing at his shoulder, he moved to close and lock the door, and then settled his backpack down on the desk that was opposite his bed. He returned to the duffel bag and fought to unzip it. Heād brought all his cunning and organizational skills to bear on fitting every single article of clothing, book, and other miscellaneous item that he owned into the thing, and it was just a solid, tubular mass after being hung off his shoulder for the walk. He tugged and jerked until heād finally managed to get the duffel open. He proceeded to somewhat solemnly pull out the neatly folded shirts, pants, and shorts, spreading them out in tidy piles on the mattress in order to decide how best to store them. Some wound up in drawers, others on hangers. It didnāt take very long, mostly because heād managed to maintain some semblance of order with his insanely methodical packing process.
Socks and boxers wound up in his top drawer, the former balled into pairs and the latter neatly folded in half. Unlike many teenage boys, Theo did not own a single pair of comically printed underwear. His were all solid colors and extremely unflattering. He only had two extra pairs of shoes, some rundown sneakers and a pair of nice shoes that Scott had bought him for his last birthday that heād never actually had occasion to wear. Those went on the floor of the closet.
Next came electronics. He settled his laptop on the desk and plugged in his power strip, then went about connecting a few wires. Beside that was the most expensive thing heād ever actually bought himself: a 22 inch flat screen monitor, which he used for watching movies. He connected the single cable that would allow the video feed to transmit to the larger, high definition screen, and then set up the pair of decent-but-unremarkable speakers heād obtained for the same purpose. Last of all were his clunky, noise-cancelling headphones. He was going to really value that descriptor by the end of the week, he realized.
He booted up the computer, his fingers flashing over the keys with terrifying speed to check his email and start up a few torrents.
Hatchet 2, The Cabin in the Woods[i], and [i]Martha Marcy May Marlene. He liked having options, and by the end of the day, he suspected heād very much need to unwind with some horror. His thoughts strayed briefly to Jade, to Drake, to Jaysin. Maybe if he was feeling sociable heād see if one or more of them wanted to join him. Or maybe he could bond with Zac over a scary movie. They could argue about the schlockiness of
Hatchet 2 easily enough, or the meta-horror-comedy elements of
The Cabin in the Woods. Maybe that would be the key to their successful cohabitation: arguing. He did enjoy taking Zac on in Philosophy.
Once his downloads were underway he finished up. There were his school books and supplies, which found their ways to shelves or drawers respectively.
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, the book he was slowly working his way through when he didnāt just feel like dreaming, ended up on his night stand, along with his very basic alarm clock and the charger for his phone. He plugged both in, checked his phone in order to set the blinking red
12:00 12:00 12:00 of the alarm clock to the current time. After that, there was nothing more to do than roll up the empty duffel bag and stow it in the closet.
He didnāt have any
truly personal effects. Some of the content of his laptopās hardrive might qualify, but that was as close as he came. No posters, no knick-knacks or tchotchkes, no photographs framed or otherwise. If it werenāt for his desk and school books, Zac might have wandered in later and thought Theo had decided to move into a broom closet instead. There was absolutely nothing he owned that would give any insight into who he was save for the single pair of shoes that heād probably never wear. Even then, the meaning behind them would probably be lost on anyone who thought to question their existence. Everything else was utilitarian in nature, things that he used every day.
Unpacking hadnāt taken him very long at all. He hazarded a glance toward the locked door of the room. Did he want to go get breakfast too? Trying to recall the last time heād eaten proved as useless as ever. His naps and dreaming made time blur together, and so he resorted to patting his flat stomach to see how angry it seemed with him. Mildly, it turned out. He forged a quick plan: light breakfast, running, a quick shower, and then the assembly. He pulled open the drawer heād assigned his athletic wear too and briskly changed into a pair of meshy black shorts and a white tanktop, which he pulled his t-shirt back over. He trod to the closet, switching out his school sneakers for his running sneakers, and stooped to lace them up tight. He gave one last look around the room, then headed out.
Sighing, he unlocked the door and made his way into the hall, then toward the cafeteria.
