FMA x SPN -- This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Title: This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist X Supernatural (+ a billion others)
Pairings: Roy/Ed, Dean/Cas, Sam/Al, Gabriel/the lulz
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 13,964
Warnings: language, much talk of sex, crack-cocaine in fic format, traumatic pop culture references, sorta-semi-kinda-not-really spoilers through SPN S5
Summary: The lives of several scholarship students at the multiverse-renowned Crossover University converge, resulting in mass chaos and a great deal of caffeine consumption.
Author's Note: ♥ to eltea for being kind enough to beta-read and HTML-alize for me after handing me this bunny and following its ungodly growth in disjointed updates for several weeks. XD
Items of interest are as follows: […they're hiding under here.]
1. THIS IS MADNESS. That's kind of the point. :D Please proceed accordingly. ♥
2. Café Olé is fictional. In-N-Out Burger is not. Unsurprisingly, my brain located Crossover University in Northern California, although I'm anticipating that everyone will picture their own alma mater, which I think is awesome. ^^
3. Welcome to THE CAMEO GAME! You play by identifying as many cameos as you can! Leave me a comment here (anon is fully-enabled, like Roy's caffeine addiction) mentioning that you're going to play, and then PM me here or message me on Tumblr to tell me which ones you've found. If you would be so kind, number them and quote or paraphrase each description so that I can keep track of your score. Note: I'm defining a cameo as a visit by or a specific mention of an individual. Since Lord of the Rings, for instance, is a part of the universe, someone talking about Bilbo as a character doesn't count. The same goes for Al's cat's name, etc. Note the Second: There are a grand total of 30 cameos from all kinds of media… plus one that's ~*~special~*~, and by "special" I mean kind of cheating. Just have fun! ♥
4. Happy FMA Don't-Forget Day/début of SPN season 8! \o/
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS
Al tucks the lockpicks back into his pocket and sorts through the files in the drawer, which is a bit of a challenge with gloves on. When he reaches the staff files, he nips the wrinkle of fabric at the end of one finger and draws off the glove on his right hand; with his thumb free, he starts entering the dates into his iPhone calendar. He’s not as fast-or, to be fair, as woefully, hilariously inaccurate-a texter as Brother, and he’ll probably be cutting it a little close to when the dean’s secretary comes in at eight, but the cold sweat will be worth it.
At 7:42, he slips back out the window, drops down into the bushes, clambers to his feet, puts the gloves in his backpack, picks the leaves out of his hair, and starts towards the café to go grab a cup of coffee before his 8AM physics class. It’s such a nice morning!
It’s really not Sam’s fault. It’s just that somebody left a slightly morbid world mythologies book on the reshelving cart by the legal journals, and he picked it up, and he sat down on the arm of one of the fauteuils to skim a little bit, and…
And holy shit, it’s 8:54, and he has Tort across campus at nine-
There isn’t time to check it out; he pelts out of the library and sends up a brief prayer of gratitude for his long legs. Maybe the stupid book’ll work its evil magic on someone else.
Eight minutes after ten, Roy is still sitting at his desk glaring at the line of careful penmanship reminding him that one Edward Elric was due at the hour. Admittedly, he shouldn’t have been surprised when all of his begging and campaigning for an office unshared with other TAs resulted in a claustrophobic closet of a room on the seventh floor, accessible by a single staircase which can only be found upon entering from one of the courtyard doors…
But it’s still Edward’s fault that he’s late; Roy warned him about the stairs. He should have allotted time to find the room-Roy’s life doesn’t revolve around undergrads. It revolves around… well, coffee, to sustain him through the reading and the lab hours and the other classes and the fellowship applications. He has a hundred-thousand more important things to do than loiter around here waiting for a stupid sophomore who can’t even be bothered to worry about his section grade.
Also, he’s hungry.
At fifteen minutes past, the little fucker finally wanders in, looks around, snorts, and drops down into the folding chair across from Roy. The bizarre black backpack covered in skull insignias crumples on the floor.
“Well,” Edward says. “Tell me about how I’m going to fail or whatever.”
“At this rate,” Roy says, “you are.”
“Spice it up,” Edward says. He puts his feet up on the edge of Roy’s desk-his tacky Hot Topic boots are covered in mud-and retrieves an apple from his sweatshirt pocket. He picks a few pieces of fluff off and then takes a bite. “G’ff me some met’fforf.”
“You are going to go down in flames like the Hindenburg, but with more fanfare and fewer mourners,” Roy says.
Edward grins. “Nice.” He takes another bite and then holds the apple out towards Roy. “H’ngw?”
“No,” Roy says, which is of course a lie, but he’ll gladly die of starvation before he shares fruit with an assholish, entitled undergrad. “You’re going to fail this class. Don’t you even care?”
“I won’t,” Edward says. “I worked in Prof Curtis’s lab all summer; we’re tight. She won’t let you fail me out.”
“She won’t have to,” Roy says. “She’s going to kill you when I tell her about this. Honestly, I don’t understand it-you show up to every section, and you seem to have a perfect-” Enviable, really; easy; natural. “-comprehension of the material, but you haven’t turned in a single homework assignment, an-”
Edward swallows another bite, blinking. “We were supposed to turn those in?”
It’s a good thing this room is windowless, or Roy would hurl himself out and gratefully fall to his death. “Where in the hell have you been? That’s the entire point of homework. That’s the purpose of i-”
“Maybe in high school,” Edward says. “But this is college. Isn’t the homework supposed to be just for me, to make sure I know what we’re doing and stuff? Like little progress checks. Nobody told me I had to turn it in; what do I care what you think of my equations?”
Roy stares and just keeps staring. “That’s… how… it works. That’s the system.”
“The system sucks,” Edward says. “Hang on, I might…” He sets the remains of the apple on the desk and goes excavating in the black backpack; chains jingle. “I have last week’s, and the one from two weeks ago.” He produces two crumpled sheets of graph paper like a show magician and looks terribly pleased with himself. “The rest are back at the apartment. I could bring ’em tomorrow. Or hey, have you had breakfast? You could come over.”
Roy stares a little more. Edward stares back.
Then he grins like a cat. “If you know what I mean,” he says.
If Roy doesn’t get free food out of this ordeal, several emails and a great deal of alphabetizing will have been wasted, so he stands. “Lead the way, then.”
Al holds out the plastic bag proudly despite the rather large Walgreens logo on the side.
“This is for you,” he says.
The janitor looks at him extremely dubiously, which is kind of sad, and takes the bag as though he expects it to be full of Bagheera’s litter, which is even sadder. He glances in, sees that it’s a wide assortment of candy bars instead, and sets an incredulous gaze on Al.
“Back up, bucko,” he says. “My parents told me not to take candy from strangers.”
“Alphonse Elric,” Al says. “You can call me Al, or ‘smarty-pants’, or ‘is that your natural hair color’. Now we’re not strangers.”
The janitor continues to eye him. “All right, riddle me this-how did you know it was my birthday?”
“Lucky guess,” Al says.
“The only kind of stalkers I’ll accept are nubile sorority girls who think they can work out their daddy issues by doing the dirty with an older man,” the janitor says.
“I’m waiting for marriage,” Al says. “Or for someone really, really hot.”
“Well,” the janitor says, “over-sharing is as good a way as any to make friends. Gabe.”
Al says “Nice to meet you” instead of I know.
“Dean,” Cas is saying as Sam lets himself in. “I don’t understand. There is no milkshake-or any other milk-based dessert product-anywhere on her person. How can it then be a sexual innuendo? And to what ‘yard’ is she referring?”
“The milkshake is figurative,” Dean says.
“But-”
“God damn it, Cas, I didn’t write the song!”
“No. I think they hired a five-year-old to do that. Although perhaps then it would be ‘My cool triceratops toy brings all the boys to my playhouse.’”
“Cas.”
“Actually, the logic would hold together much better if that were the case. Do most boys even like milkshakes? I like strawberry ones.”
“Cas.”
“In any case, I doubt her milkshake is better than mine. I have a number of testimonials to indicate that I make an excellent milkshake. Would you like a milkshake, Dean?”
“If it’ll get you away from YouTube, then yeah, I would.”
“Ah. Then my literal milkshake has brought one boy to my figurative yard?”
“Cas, stop. Just… stop.”
Sam knocks on Dean’s door and clears his throat loudly. “Would you make me a vanilla one, Cas?”
Dean snickers. “You are pretty vanilla, Sammy.”
“Shut up. Cas, don’t let him distract you from your homework, okay?”
“I won’t,” Cas says.
“Thanks, Mom,” Dean says.
“You’ll thank me when your boyfriend can get a job,” Sam says.
Dean makes a noise that might be a wheeze and might be a half-stifled scream; it’s hard to tell with the door in the way. “He’s not my-”
“But Dean,” Cas says. “You told me that-”
“I take it back!”
“But you paid for my delicious pizza-”
“Only because you had no cash!”
“And your rendition of ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ was highly suggesti-”
“You have to sing it that way!”
“And you’re holding my ha-”
“I am not!”
“Losers,” Sam says. “I’ll be in my room if you ever actually get around to milkshakes.”
“Figurative milkshakes,” Cas says, “or litera-”
“No,” Dean says.
Sam rolls his eyes and heads down the hall. He drops his backpack in the doorway and then drags it across the carpet towards his desk, because the thing is seriously like an anvil in an old cartoon. Apparently law books that bear an uncanny resemblance to bricks of lead are karma’s way of getting back at scummy lawyers.
Sam crosses back to the door and kicks it shut, and then he drops into his desk chair like a sack of worn-out, brain-dead potatoes.
…that probably describes pretty much all sacks of potatoes. Which probably demonstrates the point.
As always, he has a metric crap-ton (or an imperial crap-ton; this is why he didn’t go into math) of reading to do, so he opens his laptop, boots up iChat, changes his status to drowning in homework; please throw flotation devices, leaves the computer on the desk, and gets to work giving himself eyestrain.
When Al gets home, Bagheera is perched on the end of the couch that’s closer to the door, and her tail is swishing back and forth.
That’s not enough evidence for conviction by itself, so Al goes over to look at the dishes in the sink. There are two bowls and two spoons and two glasses which were not there this morning, but it’s possible that Ed just got hungry for instant ramen twice-it wouldn’t be the first time.
Al follows the trail of crumpled articles of Ed’s clothing towards the bathroom. He can hear the water running, but other than that the whole apartment is silent like a lecture hall after a particularly difficult example question.
All of the assorted items of clothing are indeed Ed’s, and he has a tendency to mistake the floor for a magic carpet-colored washing machine, but then…
Al picks up the keyring and jingles it. The keychain is a little tag, encased in plastic, which read LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG before someone with a Sharpie amended LIVE to READ and DIE to RUIN YOUR EYES.
“Brother,” Al says loudly, “you don’t have a car.” He examines the keys. “You definitely don’t have a Ford Mustang.”
The water shuts off, and Ed’s wet head pokes out through the bathroom door. His face has gone the approximate shade of a firetruck at sunset. “Uh. Hey, Al.” He glances back. “You drive a Mustang? Come on-conceited much?”
“Lay off,” a rather deep, very smooth voice says. “If there was a car called an Elric, you would drive one, and you know it.”
“How can you even afford a Mustang?” Ed asks. “You can’t afford food.”
“When I was ten, I bet my mother a car that I would amount to something someday. Acceptance to graduate school counted. And it’s a ’99; it’s not like she broke the bank.”
“Okay,” Ed says, “that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. Uh, Al, this is… Roy.”
Another wet head appears through the gap in the door. A wet hand joins it. “Ah… good afternoon.”
“Pleasure,” Al says. “Are you Roy-as-in-Roy-the-chem-TA?”
Roy-as-in-definitely-the-chem-TA flushes to match Ed. “I am.”
“I wondered,” Al says. “Well, don’t let Ed take any pictures; he wouldn’t be above blackmailing you to pass.”
“I would so!”
“Oh,” Al says. “Ed, for next time, would you mind introducing whoever it is to the cat? I think she gets scared of strangers. And it wouldn’t kill you to feed her once in a while.”
“It might,” Ed says. “Those cat food cans are a fucking menace.”
“Uh huh,” Al says. “In any case, nice to meet you, Roy. I’ll be in my room telling the cat that she’s loved if you need anything.”
Roy waves again, slightly helplessly. “Nice… to meet you…”
“I forgot where we were,” Ed says, turning towards him as Al starts back for the kitchen.
“I didn’t,” Roy says.
Al scoops up Bagheera, zips into his room, and closes the door securely.
The artist formerly known as a number of things, currently known as Gabe, is amusing himself by changing all of the engravings on the wall plaques he’s polishing. When someone glances at them, they will appear to read “I LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER”; examined straight-on, they’ll go back to their regular appearance. A guy can only whistle “Baby” and inhale PineSol fumes for so long before he’s gotta entertain himself.
It’s late enough that the poli-sci building is mostly empty, but when he’s only halfway down the hall-and considering making a few of the plaques say “LEGALIZE POLYGAMY SO I CAN MARRY ALL OF THE JONAS BROTHERS AT ONCE”-two students come down the stairs, talking loudly.
“You can’t just stand her up,” the gangly one in the bandanna says. Nice Queen’s English accent; pity about the ears.
Fratty McJockface shrugs. “I only agreed in the first place to be polite. She’s not my type.”
“She’s a model!” Gangly goggles a bit, adjusting the lacrosse bag slung over his shoulder. “That’s been your type since we were twelve!”
“I have a new type,” Fratty says.
“How can you possibly have a new type? Did you get hit in the head today whilst I was scoring all of our team’s points?”
“You only scored because I let you,” Fratty says as they move past Gabe. “Don’t get the wrong idea and start thinking you’re not utter and complete crap or something.”
Gabe considers turning the floor to butter only underneath those unreasonably expensive sneakers. Or he could make Fratty’s overpriced jeans split down the back. Or he could endow the lucky young man with the month-long Epic Bad Hair Day Trial Package.
But then Gabe remembers that he has a King Size Kit-Kat in his pocket, melting merrily as proof that un-sucky undergraduates actually do exist. Just this once, he decides to let Fratty slide figuratively, rather than literally and on his pampered ass.
His karmic reward comes in the form of Gangly doing a beautiful double-take when he glances at the plaques.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he says to Fratty. “I could’ve sworn on my life that said ‘I WOULD SELL MY LIVER ON THE BLACK MARKET FOR AN ORGY WITH ONE DIRECTION’.”
“There is nothing sadder,” Fratty says, “than an illiterate English major.”
But with the way Fratty’s looking at Gangly, it’s suddenly clear what he meant by a new type. And Gabe is secretly kind of glad he didn’t humiliate the dumb, arrogant lunk.
As tends to happen once Sam zeroes in on a block of text, he’s deeply engrossed in the process of sifting through the words for well over an hour. Only when there’s a knock on the door does he surface-although “surface” isn’t really the right way to put it; it feels more like falling.
“Yeah?” he calls.
“Sam,” Cas says. “I made you a milkshake. I could serve it in the yard if you prefe-”
“Son of a bitch, Cas; we talked about this.”
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m just trying to utilize my new, up-to-date vocabulary.”
“That shitty song came out in 2003.”
“…I fail to see your point.”
Sam gets up and hurries over to throw the door open, grab his milkshake, say his “Thank you”, and shut it again.
“That was nine years ago, Cas.”
“…I still fail to see your point.”
“Do you know how freakin’ much pop culture has changed in a freakin’ decade?”
“…is this a very roundabout way of telling me that I should not wear your AC/DC T-shirt in public?”
“No! That’s totally different.”
“Why?”
“It just is! There’s outdated and lame, and then there’s retro, which is awesome.”
“Define ‘retro’. I was only aware of ‘retro’ as a prefix indicating a reversal of effects from a specified point in ti-”
Sam plugs his headphones into his computer and pumps the volume. On the upside, Cas’s milkshake is kind of amazing. Definitely worth a visit to a figurative yard.
His iChat icon is bouncing like Dean upon reaping the fruits of the day-after-Easter candy sales. Damn, he didn’t even notice.
He pulls up the window. His ‘Hobbit’-trailer-scouring-forum ally turned insomnia buddy has written, Hi, there!
Sam sucks down a little more milkshake, presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth at the ensuing brainfreeze, and types, Hey! Sorry, was slaving away, getting headache from legalese, etc etc and didn’t see your message…
Momentarily, a bubble pops up with the reply: No worries! ^__^ How are things?
Sam tries not to grin at his computer screen. What kind of nerd… anyway.
Better now that I have an *EPIC MILKSHAKE* courtesy of my brother’s of-course-he’s-not-a-boyfriend-shut-up-Sammy.
Hee… I know about those. Well, actually, I don’t. I know about okay-so-maybe-he’s-my-TA-but-have-you-noticed-how-good-he-looks-wet, though. That was my afternoon. xD
Sam stares for a second, and then he approximates his own expression as best he can: O_____o
lol Al writes. Nothing my brother could do would be as bad as the time I walked into the first-floor bathroom in Stark Hall after class, and there were these two guys getting it on up against the wall. For a minute I was just like “Well, that’s unsanitary”, and then I realized that the black-haired guy with the glasses had been my lab partner in the seventh grade. And THEN the blond guy said “Good afternoon, stranger! My, you’ve got a lovely complexion, and such nice hair! Any chance we can convince you to join in?”, and I… totally ran for it. xD
Once Sam is done choking on milkshake, he puts his hands to the keys. Holy CRAP! He pauses, and then he types a little more. You have a Stark at your school, too? :) That Stark guy and his wallet mustve gotten around, haha.
Maybe? Al writes. Is it too weird to ask what school you go to?
Sam doesn’t hesitate-even if Al is a fifty-year-old creeper dude with role-playing skills honed by decades of dark-basement D&D, the school’s big enough that he’ll never track down one kid named Sam. Crossover. You?
Oh, my, Al writes. What a small world. xD
Whoaaaaaaaaa, Sam types. You gotta be kidding me. For real?
100% for real, legitimate, and genuine. ^____^;
That’s crazy, Sam says. I always figured we were just like in the same time zone or something. Do you wanna grab coffee and talk shit sometime?
That depends, Al writes. Do I have to grab the coffee with my bare hands? xD
Smartass :P, Sam says.
Thank you! ♥
Do you know Café Olé? Sam types. They’re kind of weird and quirky and a little bit hipster but mostly cool.
Al’s response isn’t long in coming: I’ve walked past, but I’ve never been in - I’ve got class until two tomorrow; would you like to shoot for 2:30? :3
I’ll be there, Sam writes.
“We discussed this,” Hughes says. “And what did we decide?”
“‘Undergrads are off-limits,’” Roy recites dully. “But-”
“‘No ifs, ands, or buts,’” Hughes finishes primly, wagging his finger. “‘Definitely no young butts.’”
“I made an exception,” Roy says.
“‘No exceptions, ever!’”
“He came on to me,” Roy says.
“I can’t believe you’re three years into a Ph.D and still don’t understand the word ‘no’,” Hughes says. “You’re going to end up like the guy in the philosophy department who got arrested for stalking that freshman doing photography-you remember how we discussed him as a negative example?”
“I’m not stalking Edward,” Roy says. “It’s closer to the other way around, if anything; he’s… aggressive.”
Hughes sighs feelingly. “You’re already whipped, aren’t you?”
“What? No!”
“Like cream,” Hughes says. “I’m going to start calling you RoydyWip.”
“You are dead to me,” Roy says.
“Excuse me,” a woman a bit older than them says, edging up to the counter. “Is my half-caf skinny white mocha almost finished?”
“My dear woman,” Hughes says, ramping the charm up to eleven without batting an eyelash, “much as I strive for the life-giving grace of your approval, even with my most valiant efforts, I cannot rush art.”
The woman shoots Roy a skeptical look; heaven forbid he should have the audacity to drink plain black coffee and loiter by the counter catching up with his oldest, most multitask-capable friend.
“Have you told your sister?” Hughes asks.
“It happened yesterday,” Roy says. “And I intend to procrastinate on that as long as possible; she’s going to disown me.”
“She can’t disown you,” Hughes says. “She never really owned you in the first place if you were adopted.”
“Okay,” Roy says. “She’s going to run me through with a chef’s cleaver and then shoot me in the kneecaps several times while I bleed out all over the pavement.”
“That sounds more like Riza,” Hughes says.
“I didn’t mean to,” Roy says. “It’s just that there was free food at stake, and then he kept doing this-thing-with his tongue, and then he said, ‘Oh, will you look at the time, I’d better take a shower,’ and started taking his clothes off in the middle of the living room, and then he said ‘Will you help me wash my hair?’, and…” Roy sets the coffee down in order to scrub his face with both hands. “And I’m going to hell. Or getting kicked out of the program, which is worse.”
“Cheer up,” Hughes says. “I just made the perfect half-caf skinny white mocha for the perfect customer.”
The woman blushes, and not because Hughes just subtly called her out for eavesdropping on them so obviously.
“Would you like a medal?” Roy asks as Hughes pushes the cup across the counter and winks.
“Yes,” Hughes says. “And a certificate, and a trophy, and a music box with a dancing barista instead of a ballerina.”
Roy starts to turn to refill his mug and then swivels back at twice the speed, trying to shield his face. “Hide me! That’s his brother!”
Hughes laughs delightedly. “Too late! He saw you. He’s coming over. Aww, he’s cute. Maybe he’ll tell you not to phunk with anybody’s heart.”
“Fuck you for getting that song stuck in my head on top of everything e-good afternoon, Alphonse.”
“That’s an adorable name,” Hughes says. “Do people call you Phonsie?”
“Not usually,” Alphonse says mildly, gaze dipping to Hughes’s nametag. “Do people call you Maesie?”
Hughes cackles. “Oh, I like this one.”
“Good afternoon, Roy,” Alphonse says. “I’m meeting a friend. I’m not sure if he’s here yet.”
“What does he look like?” Hughes asks, scanning the scattered tables.
“Tired, I imagine,” Al says. “Beyond that, I’m not sure.”
Roy looks around. In a college-town coffee shop, ‘tired’ doesn’t narrow it down much.
“Why don’t you order something complicated and expensive,” Hughes says, “and then count out a big tip, and by the time you’re done, maybe he’ll have arrived?”
Alphonse shifts the messenger bag hanging against his hip and tugs an iPhone out of his pocket. He thumbs in a couple things and frowns. “I suppose he could just be running late.”
The bell on the door jingles merrily, and an undergraduate the size of a full-grown elk steps in. By the way he glances around, Roy would bet… well, at least one of the two dollars in his wallet that this is the guy.
“Sam?” Alphonse asks when the young man’s sightline reaches them.
“Hey!” the guy says. “Um… hey.”
“It’s nice to meet you in person,” Alphonse says. He blinks upward. “You’re significantly taller than I expected. I like your hair.”
“Uh, thanks,” Sam says. “I… like yours… too… I guess.”
Alphonse looks at Hughes, who is staring at them in absolute rapture. “Are you planning to watch all of this?”
“Yes,” Hughes says.
“Order something,” Roy says. “Sometimes his mouth doesn’t move quite as much when his hands are busy.”
“Ah,” Alphonse says. He moves over to the register, folds his hands, and sets them on the counter, blinking expectantly until Hughes sidles over and grins. “May I please have a cup of darjeeling tea?”
“You certainly may,” Hughes says, tapping the buttons with characteristic flair. “Are you guys paying together?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, rummaging in the pocket of his endless jeans. “I’ll get it, Al. Um-can I-call you Al?”
“You can call me ‘cupcake’ if you like,” Alphonse says mildly. “I think our relationship is ready for that. Did you want anything? Drinking alone is a sign of addiction.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, retrieving a wallet from the void. “Can I get a decaf chai latte?”
Hughes shoots Roy a warning look, but it’s too late.
“Decaf?” Roy asks.
He’s about to launch into the tirade complete with limb-flailing and howling to the heavens, because decaf is an insult to his very existence as a being whose blood is over eighty percent pure caffeine. Ordering decaf is racist.
But then he notices that Alphonse is watching him, face blank and composed but eyes laser-focused. Roy would bet the remaining ounce of non-caffeinated blood in his body that he is currently being assessed for suitability as Edward’s “sort-of-kind-of-boyfriend-thing” (Ed’s terminology, and phrased as a question; Roy would have said “fuckbuddy seeking upgrade”).
Roy swallows hard. “The… chai is quite good.”
Sam stares at him. “Okay. Cool. Thanks, dude.” He turns to Hughes. “How much do I owe you?”
Roy wishes he could offer to pay as a gesture of gentlemanliness, but this month’s budget has space for a tank of gas and… that’s about it. Given the choice between sucking up to his quasi-boyfriend’s brother and having a mode of transportation, pragmatism obliges him to pick the latter.
Hughes is already giving change anyway, and Sam drops it all into the tip jar.
“I hope you don’t think that’s going to get me to leave you alone,” Hughes says.
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Sam says. “I know that for a fact because I have a vague memory of dragging myself through last year’s finals.”
Hughes grins and slings a teabag into a cup, looking to Al. “Hot water’s in the canister behind your brother’s stalker.”
“Hughes!” Roy says.
Alphonse approaches calmly and pats Roy’s arm as he scuttles out of the way. “You’re very cute when you blush. Just in case you weren’t aware, however, Brother is a third-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu and frequently carries a knife.” He fills his cup and then adds three sugars and a swirl of half-and-half. “Sam, tell me about your brother.”
“He’s a third-degree black belt in bar-fighting,” Sam says. “He named his switchblade ‘Snookums’. He and your brother might get along.”
Alphonse smiles as he stirs. “Or they might murder each other. I imagine I’ll see you later, Roy.”
“I hope so,” Roy says, not entirely sure whether he means that sincerely or not. “Ah… enjoy…”
When Dean opens the door, Cas has his computer’s power cord wrapped around him like some kind of weird tech-support-themed bondage porn.
…not that Dean would know anything about that.
“Dean!” Cas says, eyes so bright they’re almost hard to look at.
“You really don’t have to say my name every single time you talk to me,” Dean says. “Once every three sentences would be way more than enough.”
“Oh,” Cas says. “Well-Dean! I found a new song I like! It has a lovely accompanying piece of musical videography, too; I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
Dean sighs inwardly and clears space on the kitchen table for the laptop Cas is clutching to his chest. “Okay, show me.”
Momentarily, Dean’s worst fears are realized.
“Son of a bitch, Cas,” he says. “Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take to get that shit out of my head again?”
Cas’s gaze is glued to the screen. “I want to learn the dance. Can you teach me the dance, Dean?”
“I will stab myself in the throat before I teach you the Soulja Boy dance, Cas.”
“That would be extremely painful,” Cas says without blinking. “I suppose perhaps I can learn it on my own.”
“Don’t you dare,” Dean says.
“Would you dump me, Dean?”
“I can’t dump you. We’re not-together.”
Cas stares at him instead of at the computer, and the intensity of his attention is startling. “That’s illogical, Dean.”
…that was not one of the eight thousand arguments Dean was anticipating. “Wait, what?”
“It’s illogical,” Cas says. “Why would you tolerate my numerous eccentricities if you were not expecting to tap my fine milkshake?”
Oh, Jesus fuck.
“You know what?” Dean asks. “Fine. Fuckin’ fine, Cas. If it’s logical for us to be a thing, then we’re a thing, and that’s freakin’ that. Are you happy now?”
Cas blinks. Nothing else about his face changes. “I am delighted, Dean.”
Sweet pecan pie à la mode. Everybody should mark this on their goddamn calendars as the day Dean Winchester lost his mind and fucking smiled about it.
Crap. Al is about eight times more golden-retriever-puppy-adorable than Sam ever imagined. Considering the extensive use of ^_____^ emoticons, he’d been prepared for someone cute, but-but this is something else entirely.
Al stirs his tea, sips demurely, and looks around.
“What do you think?” Sam asks.
Al’s survey of the shop settles on the window table where two girls are sitting. The cherry-haired girl’s wearing a short skirt with one red-and-yellow-striped thigh-high sock and one shorter black one; the girl whose pink sundress perfectly matches her hair is nodding wide-eyed as the redhead rants animatedly.
“I see what you meant about the hipsters,” Al says. He looks at the shelf with all the creepy kachinas and then at the sandpainting of Coyote. “I really like the Southwestern theme, though.”
“I heard they have a secret menu thing where they’ll put chili powder in any drink if you ask for it Santa Fe style,” Sam says.
Al smiles. Oh, God, this is unfair. “More like Satan style.”
Sam tries not to let his face fall, but-
“Still with the hallucinations?” Al asks. “Did you get to sleep last night?”
“Eventually,” Sam says. He elects not to mention that a lot of it was the irrational but unshakable anxiety that Al would turn out to be a serial killer who reveled in the thrill of an extremely leisurely chase via IM.
Al smiles ruefully. “Have you gotten a chance to try the blackout thing yet?”
“Not really,” Sam says. “I don’t think I was thorough enough. I tried the other kind of blackout.”
Al looks alarmed. “Don’t… make a habit of resorting to NyQuil. Just trust me.”
I’ve trusted you since you posted that amazing psychological analysis of Bilbo in the books and pointed out manifestations of larger emotional contexts in the trailer. “It sucked anyway. I passed out, yeah-and then I stayed passed out until fifteen minutes before class, at which point I ran there in my pajamas.”
Al winces sympathetically. “Yeah, I… woke up at noon and then spent the remainder of the day staggering around like a drunk. My brother thought it was hilarious; he kept telling me to stop hitting the bottle on a weeknight. Anyway, you do have to get pretty serious about it-the hardest part for me was covering up the numbers on my alarm clock, because I kept panicking about the time, but when I got used to it… it actually really helped not to be able to see time passing as I was trying to get to sleep.”
All right, Sam is dumb. Sam is as dumb as a particularly unintelligent rock. But he can’t stop being Dean-during-a-carb-coma dumb, so he might as well run with it.
“This is kind of a lot to ask,” he says, “but do you think maybe you’d be willing to stop by my place sometime and help me pimp it insomniac-style?”
The way Al’s face lights up when he smiles makes Sam’s stomach twist into Gordian knots.
When Sam gets back, Dean’s door is closed, and everything is unsettlingly quiet. He creeps into his room, shuts the door, and enacts his last resort.
“Uncle Bobby,” he says when the phone line catches, “I need help.”
“Sam, I’ve told you a hundred times-the only thing I know about the law is that it’s legal for me to pull a shotgun on trespassers.”
“It’s something else,” Sam says.
“Okay, fine, hit me with it.”
“I…” God, this is impossible. “Um…”
“If the problem is you’ve got a frog in your throat, get off the damn phone and get to the damn hospital.”
Sam forces it out on an exhale. “I think I’m in love with a guy I met online.”
The silence is heavy.
“So,” Bobby says. “You know how you and your idjit brother have elected me from a pool of qualified candidates to be your counselor and adviser and yadda yadda whatnot?”
“Yeah,” Sam says slowly.
“Well, I am tendering my goddamn resignation.”
“But Bobby-”
“Make sure he’s not some kinda freak and then plant one on him or something! Why the hell should I know how to handle all that crap?”
Sam kind of wishes he could see his own face, because it’s probably pretty funny. “Um-well-promise me you won’t tell Dean.”
Bobby snorts.
Then he hangs up.
Son of a bitch.
Al likes his history professor a lot-he’d have to, to cram another class into his schedule; this one he doesn’t regret. The professor is rather precipitously going gray, but he’s still got a spring in his step, and his face is aging gracefully. Sometimes he looks so exhausted that Al absorbs it and has to run for another cup of coffee after class, but usually his blue eyes are bright and engaging. Al prefers to sit in the front row of the fairly modest lecture hall to get the full effect of his charisma.
Today, he’s sitting right next to the reader with the short pink hair and the dozen earrings, who has an amazing knack for mixing bright colors and goth motifs without looking like a colorblind maniac. Ed should probably take lessons from her.
Since it’s a bit difficult not to pay attention to someone so… dramatic, Al’s observed over the last few weeks that Pretty Pink-Haired Reader Girl (PPHRG for… sort-of-short) is usually calm and cheerful. Today, though, she looks more than a little agitated-she’s tapping her pen against the shapeless scribbles at the top of her notepad, and she’s glaring daggers at the so-far unoccupied lecture stage.
“I’m sorry,” Al says, “but is there something wrong?”
“Bastard thinks he can play the ‘university regulations’ card on me,” she mutters, shooting Al a conspiratorial glance. “Let’s see how that works out for him when I show up in a trenchcoat and my knickers.”
Al feels his face getting very warm. “Oh. Well. Good luck with that.”
“Appreciate it,” PPHRG says, much more brightly.
Al thinks that maybe-maybe-that’s the end of the insanity for this school-day, but when he gets to his chem lab, his partner is gazing moodily at their supervisor.
“Today’s my favorite!” the redhead who corrals them declares. “Today we set shit on fire!”
“We’re all going to die,” Al’s lab partner says. “We’re all going to be erased from the planet in a torrent of flame, and I haven’t even fucked him.”
“You could try asking him out,” Al says.
“No point. We’re all going to die.”
Al repositions his chair closer to the fire extinguisher. “In the unlikely event that we don’t die, then,” he says, “you have to ask him out in celebration.”
“Fine,” Majoring-in-Gloom-and-Doom says morosely. “I’ll take him to the archaeology museum, and we can look at dinosaur bones and mummies, and then he’ll know what a nerd I am and start screening my calls.”
“You were a lot more fun before you fell in love,” Al says. “You either need to take a Xanax or get laid, and I’m voting for the latter. Come on, he’s cool, but not in a too-cool-for-nerdy-guys way. I mean, he’s getting a Ph.D in chemistry; how cool can he be?”
“Fucking arctic. Fucking absolute zero. Fucking negative a million Kelvin.”
The (but really, not that cool) man in question saunters over and slaps his hands down on their table, grinning, green eyes alight. “What’s wrong with you guys? Less chitchat, more pyromania!”
“He wants to go out with you,” Al says, gesturing across the table. “How’s five-thirty tomorrow night, meeting in front of Henry Jones Hall? Wear a tight shirt and let your hair down. You might have to pay for the pizza; he’s here on a scholarship.” He looks away from their supervisor’s saucer-sized eyes to assess where Gloomy-Doomy’s cheeks fall on a scale from apple to stop sign. “Do I get extra credit for the fact that my partner’s face is on fire?”
Their supervisor swallows hard. “Uh. Yeah. You do. Actually, you both get A-pluses for today.”
Is everybody Al knows hot for teacher?
Well. Obviously Al’s hot for… extremely tall pre-law student with mop hair and doe eyes. But he seems to be the exception.
[PART II]
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist X Supernatural (+ a billion others)
Pairings: Roy/Ed, Dean/Cas, Sam/Al, Gabriel/the lulz
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 13,964
Warnings: language, much talk of sex, crack-cocaine in fic format, traumatic pop culture references, sorta-semi-kinda-not-really spoilers through SPN S5
Summary: The lives of several scholarship students at the multiverse-renowned Crossover University converge, resulting in mass chaos and a great deal of caffeine consumption.
Author's Note: ♥ to eltea for being kind enough to beta-read and HTML-alize for me after handing me this bunny and following its ungodly growth in disjointed updates for several weeks. XD
Items of interest are as follows: […they're hiding under here.]
1. THIS IS MADNESS. That's kind of the point. :D Please proceed accordingly. ♥
2. Café Olé is fictional. In-N-Out Burger is not. Unsurprisingly, my brain located Crossover University in Northern California, although I'm anticipating that everyone will picture their own alma mater, which I think is awesome. ^^
3. Welcome to THE CAMEO GAME! You play by identifying as many cameos as you can! Leave me a comment here (anon is fully-enabled, like Roy's caffeine addiction) mentioning that you're going to play, and then PM me here or message me on Tumblr to tell me which ones you've found. If you would be so kind, number them and quote or paraphrase each description so that I can keep track of your score. Note: I'm defining a cameo as a visit by or a specific mention of an individual. Since Lord of the Rings, for instance, is a part of the universe, someone talking about Bilbo as a character doesn't count. The same goes for Al's cat's name, etc. Note the Second: There are a grand total of 30 cameos from all kinds of media… plus one that's ~*~special~*~, and by "special" I mean kind of cheating. Just have fun! ♥
4. Happy FMA Don't-Forget Day/début of SPN season 8! \o/
THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS
Al tucks the lockpicks back into his pocket and sorts through the files in the drawer, which is a bit of a challenge with gloves on. When he reaches the staff files, he nips the wrinkle of fabric at the end of one finger and draws off the glove on his right hand; with his thumb free, he starts entering the dates into his iPhone calendar. He’s not as fast-or, to be fair, as woefully, hilariously inaccurate-a texter as Brother, and he’ll probably be cutting it a little close to when the dean’s secretary comes in at eight, but the cold sweat will be worth it.
At 7:42, he slips back out the window, drops down into the bushes, clambers to his feet, puts the gloves in his backpack, picks the leaves out of his hair, and starts towards the café to go grab a cup of coffee before his 8AM physics class. It’s such a nice morning!
It’s really not Sam’s fault. It’s just that somebody left a slightly morbid world mythologies book on the reshelving cart by the legal journals, and he picked it up, and he sat down on the arm of one of the fauteuils to skim a little bit, and…
And holy shit, it’s 8:54, and he has Tort across campus at nine-
There isn’t time to check it out; he pelts out of the library and sends up a brief prayer of gratitude for his long legs. Maybe the stupid book’ll work its evil magic on someone else.
Eight minutes after ten, Roy is still sitting at his desk glaring at the line of careful penmanship reminding him that one Edward Elric was due at the hour. Admittedly, he shouldn’t have been surprised when all of his begging and campaigning for an office unshared with other TAs resulted in a claustrophobic closet of a room on the seventh floor, accessible by a single staircase which can only be found upon entering from one of the courtyard doors…
But it’s still Edward’s fault that he’s late; Roy warned him about the stairs. He should have allotted time to find the room-Roy’s life doesn’t revolve around undergrads. It revolves around… well, coffee, to sustain him through the reading and the lab hours and the other classes and the fellowship applications. He has a hundred-thousand more important things to do than loiter around here waiting for a stupid sophomore who can’t even be bothered to worry about his section grade.
Also, he’s hungry.
At fifteen minutes past, the little fucker finally wanders in, looks around, snorts, and drops down into the folding chair across from Roy. The bizarre black backpack covered in skull insignias crumples on the floor.
“Well,” Edward says. “Tell me about how I’m going to fail or whatever.”
“At this rate,” Roy says, “you are.”
“Spice it up,” Edward says. He puts his feet up on the edge of Roy’s desk-his tacky Hot Topic boots are covered in mud-and retrieves an apple from his sweatshirt pocket. He picks a few pieces of fluff off and then takes a bite. “G’ff me some met’fforf.”
“You are going to go down in flames like the Hindenburg, but with more fanfare and fewer mourners,” Roy says.
Edward grins. “Nice.” He takes another bite and then holds the apple out towards Roy. “H’ngw?”
“No,” Roy says, which is of course a lie, but he’ll gladly die of starvation before he shares fruit with an assholish, entitled undergrad. “You’re going to fail this class. Don’t you even care?”
“I won’t,” Edward says. “I worked in Prof Curtis’s lab all summer; we’re tight. She won’t let you fail me out.”
“She won’t have to,” Roy says. “She’s going to kill you when I tell her about this. Honestly, I don’t understand it-you show up to every section, and you seem to have a perfect-” Enviable, really; easy; natural. “-comprehension of the material, but you haven’t turned in a single homework assignment, an-”
Edward swallows another bite, blinking. “We were supposed to turn those in?”
It’s a good thing this room is windowless, or Roy would hurl himself out and gratefully fall to his death. “Where in the hell have you been? That’s the entire point of homework. That’s the purpose of i-”
“Maybe in high school,” Edward says. “But this is college. Isn’t the homework supposed to be just for me, to make sure I know what we’re doing and stuff? Like little progress checks. Nobody told me I had to turn it in; what do I care what you think of my equations?”
Roy stares and just keeps staring. “That’s… how… it works. That’s the system.”
“The system sucks,” Edward says. “Hang on, I might…” He sets the remains of the apple on the desk and goes excavating in the black backpack; chains jingle. “I have last week’s, and the one from two weeks ago.” He produces two crumpled sheets of graph paper like a show magician and looks terribly pleased with himself. “The rest are back at the apartment. I could bring ’em tomorrow. Or hey, have you had breakfast? You could come over.”
Roy stares a little more. Edward stares back.
Then he grins like a cat. “If you know what I mean,” he says.
If Roy doesn’t get free food out of this ordeal, several emails and a great deal of alphabetizing will have been wasted, so he stands. “Lead the way, then.”
Al holds out the plastic bag proudly despite the rather large Walgreens logo on the side.
“This is for you,” he says.
The janitor looks at him extremely dubiously, which is kind of sad, and takes the bag as though he expects it to be full of Bagheera’s litter, which is even sadder. He glances in, sees that it’s a wide assortment of candy bars instead, and sets an incredulous gaze on Al.
“Back up, bucko,” he says. “My parents told me not to take candy from strangers.”
“Alphonse Elric,” Al says. “You can call me Al, or ‘smarty-pants’, or ‘is that your natural hair color’. Now we’re not strangers.”
The janitor continues to eye him. “All right, riddle me this-how did you know it was my birthday?”
“Lucky guess,” Al says.
“The only kind of stalkers I’ll accept are nubile sorority girls who think they can work out their daddy issues by doing the dirty with an older man,” the janitor says.
“I’m waiting for marriage,” Al says. “Or for someone really, really hot.”
“Well,” the janitor says, “over-sharing is as good a way as any to make friends. Gabe.”
Al says “Nice to meet you” instead of I know.
“Dean,” Cas is saying as Sam lets himself in. “I don’t understand. There is no milkshake-or any other milk-based dessert product-anywhere on her person. How can it then be a sexual innuendo? And to what ‘yard’ is she referring?”
“The milkshake is figurative,” Dean says.
“But-”
“God damn it, Cas, I didn’t write the song!”
“No. I think they hired a five-year-old to do that. Although perhaps then it would be ‘My cool triceratops toy brings all the boys to my playhouse.’”
“Cas.”
“Actually, the logic would hold together much better if that were the case. Do most boys even like milkshakes? I like strawberry ones.”
“Cas.”
“In any case, I doubt her milkshake is better than mine. I have a number of testimonials to indicate that I make an excellent milkshake. Would you like a milkshake, Dean?”
“If it’ll get you away from YouTube, then yeah, I would.”
“Ah. Then my literal milkshake has brought one boy to my figurative yard?”
“Cas, stop. Just… stop.”
Sam knocks on Dean’s door and clears his throat loudly. “Would you make me a vanilla one, Cas?”
Dean snickers. “You are pretty vanilla, Sammy.”
“Shut up. Cas, don’t let him distract you from your homework, okay?”
“I won’t,” Cas says.
“Thanks, Mom,” Dean says.
“You’ll thank me when your boyfriend can get a job,” Sam says.
Dean makes a noise that might be a wheeze and might be a half-stifled scream; it’s hard to tell with the door in the way. “He’s not my-”
“But Dean,” Cas says. “You told me that-”
“I take it back!”
“But you paid for my delicious pizza-”
“Only because you had no cash!”
“And your rendition of ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ was highly suggesti-”
“You have to sing it that way!”
“And you’re holding my ha-”
“I am not!”
“Losers,” Sam says. “I’ll be in my room if you ever actually get around to milkshakes.”
“Figurative milkshakes,” Cas says, “or litera-”
“No,” Dean says.
Sam rolls his eyes and heads down the hall. He drops his backpack in the doorway and then drags it across the carpet towards his desk, because the thing is seriously like an anvil in an old cartoon. Apparently law books that bear an uncanny resemblance to bricks of lead are karma’s way of getting back at scummy lawyers.
Sam crosses back to the door and kicks it shut, and then he drops into his desk chair like a sack of worn-out, brain-dead potatoes.
…that probably describes pretty much all sacks of potatoes. Which probably demonstrates the point.
As always, he has a metric crap-ton (or an imperial crap-ton; this is why he didn’t go into math) of reading to do, so he opens his laptop, boots up iChat, changes his status to drowning in homework; please throw flotation devices, leaves the computer on the desk, and gets to work giving himself eyestrain.
When Al gets home, Bagheera is perched on the end of the couch that’s closer to the door, and her tail is swishing back and forth.
That’s not enough evidence for conviction by itself, so Al goes over to look at the dishes in the sink. There are two bowls and two spoons and two glasses which were not there this morning, but it’s possible that Ed just got hungry for instant ramen twice-it wouldn’t be the first time.
Al follows the trail of crumpled articles of Ed’s clothing towards the bathroom. He can hear the water running, but other than that the whole apartment is silent like a lecture hall after a particularly difficult example question.
All of the assorted items of clothing are indeed Ed’s, and he has a tendency to mistake the floor for a magic carpet-colored washing machine, but then…
Al picks up the keyring and jingles it. The keychain is a little tag, encased in plastic, which read LIVE FAST, DIE YOUNG before someone with a Sharpie amended LIVE to READ and DIE to RUIN YOUR EYES.
“Brother,” Al says loudly, “you don’t have a car.” He examines the keys. “You definitely don’t have a Ford Mustang.”
The water shuts off, and Ed’s wet head pokes out through the bathroom door. His face has gone the approximate shade of a firetruck at sunset. “Uh. Hey, Al.” He glances back. “You drive a Mustang? Come on-conceited much?”
“Lay off,” a rather deep, very smooth voice says. “If there was a car called an Elric, you would drive one, and you know it.”
“How can you even afford a Mustang?” Ed asks. “You can’t afford food.”
“When I was ten, I bet my mother a car that I would amount to something someday. Acceptance to graduate school counted. And it’s a ’99; it’s not like she broke the bank.”
“Okay,” Ed says, “that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. Uh, Al, this is… Roy.”
Another wet head appears through the gap in the door. A wet hand joins it. “Ah… good afternoon.”
“Pleasure,” Al says. “Are you Roy-as-in-Roy-the-chem-TA?”
Roy-as-in-definitely-the-chem-TA flushes to match Ed. “I am.”
“I wondered,” Al says. “Well, don’t let Ed take any pictures; he wouldn’t be above blackmailing you to pass.”
“I would so!”
“Oh,” Al says. “Ed, for next time, would you mind introducing whoever it is to the cat? I think she gets scared of strangers. And it wouldn’t kill you to feed her once in a while.”
“It might,” Ed says. “Those cat food cans are a fucking menace.”
“Uh huh,” Al says. “In any case, nice to meet you, Roy. I’ll be in my room telling the cat that she’s loved if you need anything.”
Roy waves again, slightly helplessly. “Nice… to meet you…”
“I forgot where we were,” Ed says, turning towards him as Al starts back for the kitchen.
“I didn’t,” Roy says.
Al scoops up Bagheera, zips into his room, and closes the door securely.
The artist formerly known as a number of things, currently known as Gabe, is amusing himself by changing all of the engravings on the wall plaques he’s polishing. When someone glances at them, they will appear to read “I LOVE JUSTIN BIEBER”; examined straight-on, they’ll go back to their regular appearance. A guy can only whistle “Baby” and inhale PineSol fumes for so long before he’s gotta entertain himself.
It’s late enough that the poli-sci building is mostly empty, but when he’s only halfway down the hall-and considering making a few of the plaques say “LEGALIZE POLYGAMY SO I CAN MARRY ALL OF THE JONAS BROTHERS AT ONCE”-two students come down the stairs, talking loudly.
“You can’t just stand her up,” the gangly one in the bandanna says. Nice Queen’s English accent; pity about the ears.
Fratty McJockface shrugs. “I only agreed in the first place to be polite. She’s not my type.”
“She’s a model!” Gangly goggles a bit, adjusting the lacrosse bag slung over his shoulder. “That’s been your type since we were twelve!”
“I have a new type,” Fratty says.
“How can you possibly have a new type? Did you get hit in the head today whilst I was scoring all of our team’s points?”
“You only scored because I let you,” Fratty says as they move past Gabe. “Don’t get the wrong idea and start thinking you’re not utter and complete crap or something.”
Gabe considers turning the floor to butter only underneath those unreasonably expensive sneakers. Or he could make Fratty’s overpriced jeans split down the back. Or he could endow the lucky young man with the month-long Epic Bad Hair Day Trial Package.
But then Gabe remembers that he has a King Size Kit-Kat in his pocket, melting merrily as proof that un-sucky undergraduates actually do exist. Just this once, he decides to let Fratty slide figuratively, rather than literally and on his pampered ass.
His karmic reward comes in the form of Gangly doing a beautiful double-take when he glances at the plaques.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he says to Fratty. “I could’ve sworn on my life that said ‘I WOULD SELL MY LIVER ON THE BLACK MARKET FOR AN ORGY WITH ONE DIRECTION’.”
“There is nothing sadder,” Fratty says, “than an illiterate English major.”
But with the way Fratty’s looking at Gangly, it’s suddenly clear what he meant by a new type. And Gabe is secretly kind of glad he didn’t humiliate the dumb, arrogant lunk.
As tends to happen once Sam zeroes in on a block of text, he’s deeply engrossed in the process of sifting through the words for well over an hour. Only when there’s a knock on the door does he surface-although “surface” isn’t really the right way to put it; it feels more like falling.
“Yeah?” he calls.
“Sam,” Cas says. “I made you a milkshake. I could serve it in the yard if you prefe-”
“Son of a bitch, Cas; we talked about this.”
“I’m sorry, Dean. I’m just trying to utilize my new, up-to-date vocabulary.”
“That shitty song came out in 2003.”
“…I fail to see your point.”
Sam gets up and hurries over to throw the door open, grab his milkshake, say his “Thank you”, and shut it again.
“That was nine years ago, Cas.”
“…I still fail to see your point.”
“Do you know how freakin’ much pop culture has changed in a freakin’ decade?”
“…is this a very roundabout way of telling me that I should not wear your AC/DC T-shirt in public?”
“No! That’s totally different.”
“Why?”
“It just is! There’s outdated and lame, and then there’s retro, which is awesome.”
“Define ‘retro’. I was only aware of ‘retro’ as a prefix indicating a reversal of effects from a specified point in ti-”
Sam plugs his headphones into his computer and pumps the volume. On the upside, Cas’s milkshake is kind of amazing. Definitely worth a visit to a figurative yard.
His iChat icon is bouncing like Dean upon reaping the fruits of the day-after-Easter candy sales. Damn, he didn’t even notice.
He pulls up the window. His ‘Hobbit’-trailer-scouring-forum ally turned insomnia buddy has written, Hi, there!
Sam sucks down a little more milkshake, presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth at the ensuing brainfreeze, and types, Hey! Sorry, was slaving away, getting headache from legalese, etc etc and didn’t see your message…
Momentarily, a bubble pops up with the reply: No worries! ^__^ How are things?
Sam tries not to grin at his computer screen. What kind of nerd… anyway.
Better now that I have an *EPIC MILKSHAKE* courtesy of my brother’s of-course-he’s-not-a-boyfriend-shut-up-Sammy.
Hee… I know about those. Well, actually, I don’t. I know about okay-so-maybe-he’s-my-TA-but-have-you-noticed-how-good-he-looks-wet, though. That was my afternoon. xD
Sam stares for a second, and then he approximates his own expression as best he can: O_____o
lol Al writes. Nothing my brother could do would be as bad as the time I walked into the first-floor bathroom in Stark Hall after class, and there were these two guys getting it on up against the wall. For a minute I was just like “Well, that’s unsanitary”, and then I realized that the black-haired guy with the glasses had been my lab partner in the seventh grade. And THEN the blond guy said “Good afternoon, stranger! My, you’ve got a lovely complexion, and such nice hair! Any chance we can convince you to join in?”, and I… totally ran for it. xD
Once Sam is done choking on milkshake, he puts his hands to the keys. Holy CRAP! He pauses, and then he types a little more. You have a Stark at your school, too? :) That Stark guy and his wallet mustve gotten around, haha.
Maybe? Al writes. Is it too weird to ask what school you go to?
Sam doesn’t hesitate-even if Al is a fifty-year-old creeper dude with role-playing skills honed by decades of dark-basement D&D, the school’s big enough that he’ll never track down one kid named Sam. Crossover. You?
Oh, my, Al writes. What a small world. xD
Whoaaaaaaaaa, Sam types. You gotta be kidding me. For real?
100% for real, legitimate, and genuine. ^____^;
That’s crazy, Sam says. I always figured we were just like in the same time zone or something. Do you wanna grab coffee and talk shit sometime?
That depends, Al writes. Do I have to grab the coffee with my bare hands? xD
Smartass :P, Sam says.
Thank you! ♥
Do you know Café Olé? Sam types. They’re kind of weird and quirky and a little bit hipster but mostly cool.
Al’s response isn’t long in coming: I’ve walked past, but I’ve never been in - I’ve got class until two tomorrow; would you like to shoot for 2:30? :3
I’ll be there, Sam writes.
“We discussed this,” Hughes says. “And what did we decide?”
“‘Undergrads are off-limits,’” Roy recites dully. “But-”
“‘No ifs, ands, or buts,’” Hughes finishes primly, wagging his finger. “‘Definitely no young butts.’”
“I made an exception,” Roy says.
“‘No exceptions, ever!’”
“He came on to me,” Roy says.
“I can’t believe you’re three years into a Ph.D and still don’t understand the word ‘no’,” Hughes says. “You’re going to end up like the guy in the philosophy department who got arrested for stalking that freshman doing photography-you remember how we discussed him as a negative example?”
“I’m not stalking Edward,” Roy says. “It’s closer to the other way around, if anything; he’s… aggressive.”
Hughes sighs feelingly. “You’re already whipped, aren’t you?”
“What? No!”
“Like cream,” Hughes says. “I’m going to start calling you RoydyWip.”
“You are dead to me,” Roy says.
“Excuse me,” a woman a bit older than them says, edging up to the counter. “Is my half-caf skinny white mocha almost finished?”
“My dear woman,” Hughes says, ramping the charm up to eleven without batting an eyelash, “much as I strive for the life-giving grace of your approval, even with my most valiant efforts, I cannot rush art.”
The woman shoots Roy a skeptical look; heaven forbid he should have the audacity to drink plain black coffee and loiter by the counter catching up with his oldest, most multitask-capable friend.
“Have you told your sister?” Hughes asks.
“It happened yesterday,” Roy says. “And I intend to procrastinate on that as long as possible; she’s going to disown me.”
“She can’t disown you,” Hughes says. “She never really owned you in the first place if you were adopted.”
“Okay,” Roy says. “She’s going to run me through with a chef’s cleaver and then shoot me in the kneecaps several times while I bleed out all over the pavement.”
“That sounds more like Riza,” Hughes says.
“I didn’t mean to,” Roy says. “It’s just that there was free food at stake, and then he kept doing this-thing-with his tongue, and then he said, ‘Oh, will you look at the time, I’d better take a shower,’ and started taking his clothes off in the middle of the living room, and then he said ‘Will you help me wash my hair?’, and…” Roy sets the coffee down in order to scrub his face with both hands. “And I’m going to hell. Or getting kicked out of the program, which is worse.”
“Cheer up,” Hughes says. “I just made the perfect half-caf skinny white mocha for the perfect customer.”
The woman blushes, and not because Hughes just subtly called her out for eavesdropping on them so obviously.
“Would you like a medal?” Roy asks as Hughes pushes the cup across the counter and winks.
“Yes,” Hughes says. “And a certificate, and a trophy, and a music box with a dancing barista instead of a ballerina.”
Roy starts to turn to refill his mug and then swivels back at twice the speed, trying to shield his face. “Hide me! That’s his brother!”
Hughes laughs delightedly. “Too late! He saw you. He’s coming over. Aww, he’s cute. Maybe he’ll tell you not to phunk with anybody’s heart.”
“Fuck you for getting that song stuck in my head on top of everything e-good afternoon, Alphonse.”
“That’s an adorable name,” Hughes says. “Do people call you Phonsie?”
“Not usually,” Alphonse says mildly, gaze dipping to Hughes’s nametag. “Do people call you Maesie?”
Hughes cackles. “Oh, I like this one.”
“Good afternoon, Roy,” Alphonse says. “I’m meeting a friend. I’m not sure if he’s here yet.”
“What does he look like?” Hughes asks, scanning the scattered tables.
“Tired, I imagine,” Al says. “Beyond that, I’m not sure.”
Roy looks around. In a college-town coffee shop, ‘tired’ doesn’t narrow it down much.
“Why don’t you order something complicated and expensive,” Hughes says, “and then count out a big tip, and by the time you’re done, maybe he’ll have arrived?”
Alphonse shifts the messenger bag hanging against his hip and tugs an iPhone out of his pocket. He thumbs in a couple things and frowns. “I suppose he could just be running late.”
The bell on the door jingles merrily, and an undergraduate the size of a full-grown elk steps in. By the way he glances around, Roy would bet… well, at least one of the two dollars in his wallet that this is the guy.
“Sam?” Alphonse asks when the young man’s sightline reaches them.
“Hey!” the guy says. “Um… hey.”
“It’s nice to meet you in person,” Alphonse says. He blinks upward. “You’re significantly taller than I expected. I like your hair.”
“Uh, thanks,” Sam says. “I… like yours… too… I guess.”
Alphonse looks at Hughes, who is staring at them in absolute rapture. “Are you planning to watch all of this?”
“Yes,” Hughes says.
“Order something,” Roy says. “Sometimes his mouth doesn’t move quite as much when his hands are busy.”
“Ah,” Alphonse says. He moves over to the register, folds his hands, and sets them on the counter, blinking expectantly until Hughes sidles over and grins. “May I please have a cup of darjeeling tea?”
“You certainly may,” Hughes says, tapping the buttons with characteristic flair. “Are you guys paying together?”
“Yeah,” Sam says, rummaging in the pocket of his endless jeans. “I’ll get it, Al. Um-can I-call you Al?”
“You can call me ‘cupcake’ if you like,” Alphonse says mildly. “I think our relationship is ready for that. Did you want anything? Drinking alone is a sign of addiction.”
“Yeah,” Sam says, retrieving a wallet from the void. “Can I get a decaf chai latte?”
Hughes shoots Roy a warning look, but it’s too late.
“Decaf?” Roy asks.
He’s about to launch into the tirade complete with limb-flailing and howling to the heavens, because decaf is an insult to his very existence as a being whose blood is over eighty percent pure caffeine. Ordering decaf is racist.
But then he notices that Alphonse is watching him, face blank and composed but eyes laser-focused. Roy would bet the remaining ounce of non-caffeinated blood in his body that he is currently being assessed for suitability as Edward’s “sort-of-kind-of-boyfriend-thing” (Ed’s terminology, and phrased as a question; Roy would have said “fuckbuddy seeking upgrade”).
Roy swallows hard. “The… chai is quite good.”
Sam stares at him. “Okay. Cool. Thanks, dude.” He turns to Hughes. “How much do I owe you?”
Roy wishes he could offer to pay as a gesture of gentlemanliness, but this month’s budget has space for a tank of gas and… that’s about it. Given the choice between sucking up to his quasi-boyfriend’s brother and having a mode of transportation, pragmatism obliges him to pick the latter.
Hughes is already giving change anyway, and Sam drops it all into the tip jar.
“I hope you don’t think that’s going to get me to leave you alone,” Hughes says.
“I wasn’t born yesterday,” Sam says. “I know that for a fact because I have a vague memory of dragging myself through last year’s finals.”
Hughes grins and slings a teabag into a cup, looking to Al. “Hot water’s in the canister behind your brother’s stalker.”
“Hughes!” Roy says.
Alphonse approaches calmly and pats Roy’s arm as he scuttles out of the way. “You’re very cute when you blush. Just in case you weren’t aware, however, Brother is a third-degree black belt in jiu-jitsu and frequently carries a knife.” He fills his cup and then adds three sugars and a swirl of half-and-half. “Sam, tell me about your brother.”
“He’s a third-degree black belt in bar-fighting,” Sam says. “He named his switchblade ‘Snookums’. He and your brother might get along.”
Alphonse smiles as he stirs. “Or they might murder each other. I imagine I’ll see you later, Roy.”
“I hope so,” Roy says, not entirely sure whether he means that sincerely or not. “Ah… enjoy…”
When Dean opens the door, Cas has his computer’s power cord wrapped around him like some kind of weird tech-support-themed bondage porn.
…not that Dean would know anything about that.
“Dean!” Cas says, eyes so bright they’re almost hard to look at.
“You really don’t have to say my name every single time you talk to me,” Dean says. “Once every three sentences would be way more than enough.”
“Oh,” Cas says. “Well-Dean! I found a new song I like! It has a lovely accompanying piece of musical videography, too; I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”
Dean sighs inwardly and clears space on the kitchen table for the laptop Cas is clutching to his chest. “Okay, show me.”
Momentarily, Dean’s worst fears are realized.
“Son of a bitch, Cas,” he says. “Do you have any idea how long it’s going to take to get that shit out of my head again?”
Cas’s gaze is glued to the screen. “I want to learn the dance. Can you teach me the dance, Dean?”
“I will stab myself in the throat before I teach you the Soulja Boy dance, Cas.”
“That would be extremely painful,” Cas says without blinking. “I suppose perhaps I can learn it on my own.”
“Don’t you dare,” Dean says.
“Would you dump me, Dean?”
“I can’t dump you. We’re not-together.”
Cas stares at him instead of at the computer, and the intensity of his attention is startling. “That’s illogical, Dean.”
…that was not one of the eight thousand arguments Dean was anticipating. “Wait, what?”
“It’s illogical,” Cas says. “Why would you tolerate my numerous eccentricities if you were not expecting to tap my fine milkshake?”
Oh, Jesus fuck.
“You know what?” Dean asks. “Fine. Fuckin’ fine, Cas. If it’s logical for us to be a thing, then we’re a thing, and that’s freakin’ that. Are you happy now?”
Cas blinks. Nothing else about his face changes. “I am delighted, Dean.”
Sweet pecan pie à la mode. Everybody should mark this on their goddamn calendars as the day Dean Winchester lost his mind and fucking smiled about it.
Crap. Al is about eight times more golden-retriever-puppy-adorable than Sam ever imagined. Considering the extensive use of ^_____^ emoticons, he’d been prepared for someone cute, but-but this is something else entirely.
Al stirs his tea, sips demurely, and looks around.
“What do you think?” Sam asks.
Al’s survey of the shop settles on the window table where two girls are sitting. The cherry-haired girl’s wearing a short skirt with one red-and-yellow-striped thigh-high sock and one shorter black one; the girl whose pink sundress perfectly matches her hair is nodding wide-eyed as the redhead rants animatedly.
“I see what you meant about the hipsters,” Al says. He looks at the shelf with all the creepy kachinas and then at the sandpainting of Coyote. “I really like the Southwestern theme, though.”
“I heard they have a secret menu thing where they’ll put chili powder in any drink if you ask for it Santa Fe style,” Sam says.
Al smiles. Oh, God, this is unfair. “More like Satan style.”
Sam tries not to let his face fall, but-
“Still with the hallucinations?” Al asks. “Did you get to sleep last night?”
“Eventually,” Sam says. He elects not to mention that a lot of it was the irrational but unshakable anxiety that Al would turn out to be a serial killer who reveled in the thrill of an extremely leisurely chase via IM.
Al smiles ruefully. “Have you gotten a chance to try the blackout thing yet?”
“Not really,” Sam says. “I don’t think I was thorough enough. I tried the other kind of blackout.”
Al looks alarmed. “Don’t… make a habit of resorting to NyQuil. Just trust me.”
I’ve trusted you since you posted that amazing psychological analysis of Bilbo in the books and pointed out manifestations of larger emotional contexts in the trailer. “It sucked anyway. I passed out, yeah-and then I stayed passed out until fifteen minutes before class, at which point I ran there in my pajamas.”
Al winces sympathetically. “Yeah, I… woke up at noon and then spent the remainder of the day staggering around like a drunk. My brother thought it was hilarious; he kept telling me to stop hitting the bottle on a weeknight. Anyway, you do have to get pretty serious about it-the hardest part for me was covering up the numbers on my alarm clock, because I kept panicking about the time, but when I got used to it… it actually really helped not to be able to see time passing as I was trying to get to sleep.”
All right, Sam is dumb. Sam is as dumb as a particularly unintelligent rock. But he can’t stop being Dean-during-a-carb-coma dumb, so he might as well run with it.
“This is kind of a lot to ask,” he says, “but do you think maybe you’d be willing to stop by my place sometime and help me pimp it insomniac-style?”
The way Al’s face lights up when he smiles makes Sam’s stomach twist into Gordian knots.
When Sam gets back, Dean’s door is closed, and everything is unsettlingly quiet. He creeps into his room, shuts the door, and enacts his last resort.
“Uncle Bobby,” he says when the phone line catches, “I need help.”
“Sam, I’ve told you a hundred times-the only thing I know about the law is that it’s legal for me to pull a shotgun on trespassers.”
“It’s something else,” Sam says.
“Okay, fine, hit me with it.”
“I…” God, this is impossible. “Um…”
“If the problem is you’ve got a frog in your throat, get off the damn phone and get to the damn hospital.”
Sam forces it out on an exhale. “I think I’m in love with a guy I met online.”
The silence is heavy.
“So,” Bobby says. “You know how you and your idjit brother have elected me from a pool of qualified candidates to be your counselor and adviser and yadda yadda whatnot?”
“Yeah,” Sam says slowly.
“Well, I am tendering my goddamn resignation.”
“But Bobby-”
“Make sure he’s not some kinda freak and then plant one on him or something! Why the hell should I know how to handle all that crap?”
Sam kind of wishes he could see his own face, because it’s probably pretty funny. “Um-well-promise me you won’t tell Dean.”
Bobby snorts.
Then he hangs up.
Son of a bitch.
Al likes his history professor a lot-he’d have to, to cram another class into his schedule; this one he doesn’t regret. The professor is rather precipitously going gray, but he’s still got a spring in his step, and his face is aging gracefully. Sometimes he looks so exhausted that Al absorbs it and has to run for another cup of coffee after class, but usually his blue eyes are bright and engaging. Al prefers to sit in the front row of the fairly modest lecture hall to get the full effect of his charisma.
Today, he’s sitting right next to the reader with the short pink hair and the dozen earrings, who has an amazing knack for mixing bright colors and goth motifs without looking like a colorblind maniac. Ed should probably take lessons from her.
Since it’s a bit difficult not to pay attention to someone so… dramatic, Al’s observed over the last few weeks that Pretty Pink-Haired Reader Girl (PPHRG for… sort-of-short) is usually calm and cheerful. Today, though, she looks more than a little agitated-she’s tapping her pen against the shapeless scribbles at the top of her notepad, and she’s glaring daggers at the so-far unoccupied lecture stage.
“I’m sorry,” Al says, “but is there something wrong?”
“Bastard thinks he can play the ‘university regulations’ card on me,” she mutters, shooting Al a conspiratorial glance. “Let’s see how that works out for him when I show up in a trenchcoat and my knickers.”
Al feels his face getting very warm. “Oh. Well. Good luck with that.”
“Appreciate it,” PPHRG says, much more brightly.
Al thinks that maybe-maybe-that’s the end of the insanity for this school-day, but when he gets to his chem lab, his partner is gazing moodily at their supervisor.
“Today’s my favorite!” the redhead who corrals them declares. “Today we set shit on fire!”
“We’re all going to die,” Al’s lab partner says. “We’re all going to be erased from the planet in a torrent of flame, and I haven’t even fucked him.”
“You could try asking him out,” Al says.
“No point. We’re all going to die.”
Al repositions his chair closer to the fire extinguisher. “In the unlikely event that we don’t die, then,” he says, “you have to ask him out in celebration.”
“Fine,” Majoring-in-Gloom-and-Doom says morosely. “I’ll take him to the archaeology museum, and we can look at dinosaur bones and mummies, and then he’ll know what a nerd I am and start screening my calls.”
“You were a lot more fun before you fell in love,” Al says. “You either need to take a Xanax or get laid, and I’m voting for the latter. Come on, he’s cool, but not in a too-cool-for-nerdy-guys way. I mean, he’s getting a Ph.D in chemistry; how cool can he be?”
“Fucking arctic. Fucking absolute zero. Fucking negative a million Kelvin.”
The (but really, not that cool) man in question saunters over and slaps his hands down on their table, grinning, green eyes alight. “What’s wrong with you guys? Less chitchat, more pyromania!”
“He wants to go out with you,” Al says, gesturing across the table. “How’s five-thirty tomorrow night, meeting in front of Henry Jones Hall? Wear a tight shirt and let your hair down. You might have to pay for the pizza; he’s here on a scholarship.” He looks away from their supervisor’s saucer-sized eyes to assess where Gloomy-Doomy’s cheeks fall on a scale from apple to stop sign. “Do I get extra credit for the fact that my partner’s face is on fire?”
Their supervisor swallows hard. “Uh. Yeah. You do. Actually, you both get A-pluses for today.”
Is everybody Al knows hot for teacher?
Well. Obviously Al’s hot for… extremely tall pre-law student with mop hair and doe eyes. But he seems to be the exception.
[PART II]