Chapter Text
The winter comes and gets its hooks in the world, frost slipping into the cracks of the fading autumn with a relentless, plodding pace that Gil ignores until he can’t any longer, the campus blanketed and muted under several inches of snow.
Gil hates the winter. Always has. It’s vicious, winter, in the way that only unfeeling, unthinking things can be. The winter doesn’t give a shit about Gil, or the fact that he walks everywhere, or how wearing four layers of clothing makes him feel just that much more trapped. The winter just comes, and the winter just takes, and all Gil or anyone else can do is wait it out, and wish for it to be over.
Some are better at that than others. Agatha has certainly been enjoying herself; showing up at Gil and Tarvek’s apartment to eat their food and watch taped operas on their couch, somehow drawing Gil down to her side to listen to her and Tarvek bicker about stage direction or costuming or the technical magic that keeps it all suspended. Agatha has a gift for pulling genuine smiles and startled laughter out of Tarvek, something that leaves Gil irrationally jealous for reasons he can never identify. It makes him feel left out and sad, achingly aware of the canyon drawing wider despite Agatha’s thigh pressed into his own.
A few dates isn’t a commitment. Agatha doesn’t owe him anything, Gil knows that. Half the dates that he’s tried to take Agatha on, she’s managed to drag Tarvek along for. Gil would think that Agatha’s more interested in him as a friend, except she can’t stop blushing whenever Gil steps too close, or puts his foot in his mouth in such a way that it could count as innuendo. She looks at him and there’s heat in her eyes that makes Gil feel like he’s walked into a sauna, or the surface of the sun. Agatha cares about him, and Gil knows that, but sometimes she makes him feel lonely where he lives, a feeling he thought he’d left behind when he moved out of his parents’ home.
It'd be easy to chalk up what's wrong with Gil to seasonal affective disorder. It'd be nice to think that once he could see the sun again through a light less watery, he'd be able to breathe again. But he's been broken his whole life, he feels, like one leg is too short, turning awkwardly in place, unable to move forward.
Gil fidgets, and Agatha places a hand on his arm, warm and callused, fingers curling into his skin like she intends to keep him. “Are you alright?” She asks him. “You’ve been quiet lately.”
On her other side, Tarvek snorts. “What would he even have to say? Les Pêcheurs de Perles isn’t exactly his kind of entertainment. Not nearly enough two-bit mystery schlock.”
“I’m fine,” Gil tells Agatha, ignoring his roommate’s jab. It’s true; opera has never been to Gil’s taste. If it weren’t for Agatha’s invitation to join them, if he weren’t so desperate for a piece of her, Gil wouldn’t have sat down to begin with.
“Are you sure?” Agatha presses. Her fingers dig into Gil’s forearm, a gesture she might not even mean.
“I’m fine,” Gil lies. “I’m just tired,” he adds, and that’s less of a lie. “Hard to pay attention; I think the music’s putting me to sleep.”
“Do you need to sleep?” Tarvek asks him. “You haven’t gotten enough of it lately; I keep hearing you clattering around at all hours.” In the dark, his tiny glasses reflect the light from his laptop perched on a stack of books on their coffee table. The shadows of the room seem to twist strangely around his face, blurring his expression into something Gil could almost mistake for concern.
“I’m fine,” Gil says again. “Really. Finals are just getting to me, is all.”
Don’t worry about me, is what he should say. But in the dark, he can’t bring himself to be ignored. The two of them looking at once— their regard burns. But Gil would rather have that than nothing at all.
The next morning, Gil wakes up frustrated with himself for his own weakness, and how maudlin he couldn’t help getting. Little things annoy him as he gets ready to face the day. For example, the sheer volume of textbooks that’s crowded the living room’s coffee table. They eat on that; Tarvek can’t just keep throwing his shit on there. Except for the part where apparently, he’s going to keep doing it, which means that if Gil wants him to stop—
“Whatever plan you are thinking of enacting,” Tarvek’s voice emanates from his room, “is both foolish and unwise, as I happen to know where you sleep.”
“Stop keeping your shit on the table,” Gil calls back, still frowning at the stacks. Tarvek’s got a copy of The Art of War, sitting next to what looks like a well-loved edition of The Prince. “You know that’s a satire, right?” Gil asks.
“What’s a satire?” Tarvek asks.
“The Prince,” Gil tells him.
Tarvek snorts. “No it’s not.”
“No,” Gil says, stretching the word out, “I’m pretty sure it is. My mother went off about it a while back. It’s one of her pet peeves, when people try to use it as an actual governmental how-to.”
There’s a pause from the other room, for a second. Gil accords himself the victory as he imagines Tarvek’s face. Likely it’s all twisted up, very satisfyingly affronted.
“Authorial intent is meaningless,” Tarvek eventually argues. “Even if Machiavelli didn’t intend it to be used as a manual doesn’t mean that it’s not actually usable in that capacity. Either way,” he adds, “it’s become the cornerstone of Western political thought, so it’d be just a great idea to totally discard it and find oneself surprised when one finds themselves with a knife in the kidneys or their budget destroyed.”
“Morbid,” Gil notes. “But that’s still not getting the books off the table. Because you know,” he continues, walking towards Tarvek’s room, “if you just leave me to move them myself, it’s not going to—”
Gil turns the corner, and sees Tarvek through the open door to his room. Instead of looking gratifyingly sour, Tarvek looks a little bit like he’s gone a couple of rotations on one of the spinning carnival machines Zeetha’s circus keeps, all green around the gills. He’s even paler than normal too, his eyes vaguely red and wet looking.
“What the hell happened to you?” Gil asks.
Tarvek looks up at him balefully from the bed, which, much like the coffee table, is also covered in books. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean by that,” he says.
“No, seriously,” Gil says, and Tarvek sniffs.
“I may,” he says, “have developed something of a cold—”
“Gross.”
Tarvek glares at him. “Aren’t you a biologist?”
Gil shrugs. “Yeah, but I’m not into virology. That’s someone else’s problem.”
“Look,” Tarvek says, “I’m going to the clinic tomorrow after class, so I’ll pick up some cold medicine and some cough drops.”
“You should sleep is what you should do,” Gil tells him, leaning on the doorway.
“Didn’t you just say you weren’t into medicine?” Tarvek remarks.
“Doesn’t mean the advice isn’t sound,” Gil says. “And anyway, I just said ‘virology,’ not ‘medicine’ in general. But you can suffer if you want to. I certainly won’t stop you.”
“Thanks for that,” Tarvek says acidly. “Now get the hell out so I can work.”
It’s not until he’s back in the kitchen that Gil realizes he got distracted; Tarvek’s books are still on the table. Gil thinks about for a second, and makes a decision; Tarvek’s books will fit nicely behind the water tank. If Gil keeps them insulated, they won’t get wet, and it’ll be a nice object lesson.
The next morning, Gil brushes the hair out of his eyes as he hits the showers at the gym and notices that Tarvek drew a dick on his forehead sometime last night. It’s petty, old-school, and surprisingly effective considering Gil has to go out in public today and teach class. He would almost be impressed if Tarvek hadn’t drawn a dick on Gil’s face.
When Gil gets back to the apartment, all the rubbing alcohol is missing from the first aid kit, too. Gil ends up being late to the mechanical engineering seminar he shares with Tarvek by nearly twenty minutes because he has to swing by the convenience store for some sunscreen. The professor gives a pointed glare at Gil as he walks in, but mercifully says nothing.
Gil throws his bag down next to Tarvek as he walks down the aisle of the lecture hall. “You’re an asshole,” Gil hisses at him.
“I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean,” Tarvek says, but his airy smirk dissolves very quickly into a thick-sounding cough.
“I have to teach today,” Gil grumbles. “What do you think about that?”
Tarvek raises an eyebrow at Gil and projects a great air of judgement, all without looking away from the professor. “Honestly, Wulfenbach,” Tarvek says, “I think you should at least try to pay attention to the education we’re both paying to receive.”
On Wednesday, Gil tells the story to Agatha while waiting for his slot in Lab Six to open up. Theoretically, he could be doing anything else with his extra time between his classes and his lab slot, but Gil still prefers to be here with Agatha. Even when she laughs at him, undignified snort and all.
“I thought you’d be on my side,” Gil says.
“I’m still allowed to laugh,” Agatha says, unrepentant in the face of Gil’s betrayed expression. “It’s funny.”
“He drew a dick on my face!” Gil repeats.
Agatha rolls her eyes at him. “And Tarvek had to dismantle the water heater to get his textbooks back. Did you know that you both complain to me about each other? It’s kind of cute.”
“That we complain?” Gil asks.
“That you care,” Agatha corrects him. “Most people would move out. You two just escalate.”
“Is that really a sign that we care?” Gil muses.
Agatha shrugs. “It’s a sign of something. I don’t if that something is healthy, mind you, but it certainly is some sort of thing.”
“Eloquent,” Gil says dryly.
“Shut up,” Agatha retorts primly. “Honestly, you’re the same about each other. I bet you’d both get the same sort of vicious thrill out of tilting each other’s picture frames fifteen degrees to the left while the other was out at class.”
When Gil gets back to the apartment that night, Tarvek is nowhere in sight. Against all odds, a new forest of books has sprouted on the coffee table, as well as what looks like an overflowing binder filled with paperwork.
Gil sneaks into Tarvek’s room, and moves all the things on his desk one inch to the left, then, just to be contrary, he shoves all the furniture an inch to the right. Agatha was entirely right about the thrill. The fact that this feels illicit probably means Gil’s standards for a good time are slipping, but he’s not going to deny that there’s something viscerally satisfying about getting under Tarvek’s skin.
If he’s going to be honest with himself, Gil would also have to admit that Tarvek’s pranks also get under his skin, in a way that nothing else really does. Minor inconveniences Gil can shrug off, and his family— Gil’s family is under his skin like blood is, and it almost always hurts, catching in his bones and the way he breathes at night, making it harder for Gil to live. Tarvek replacing all of Gil’s protein powder with ground garlic doesn’t actually hurt him, it just leaves Gil kind of excited and determined to retaliate.
Which, as Agatha put it, certainly says something, even if Gil’s not in a hurry to look too closely at what that something is. It’s good, for now, that they even have this much. There was a time when all that lay between them was Tarvek’s hate, and worse than that, when they had nothing at all. They’re not exactly friends, but Tarvek’s become less and less distant since he helped Gil hide a body two months ago, more likely to say snide things and crack jokes and, occasionally, use Gil as a sounding board when he’s trying to work through an engineering problem and the stakes are low enough. It’s nice. Gil hadn’t expected any of this, but he wouldn’t trade it now that he has it.
A few hours later, Gil takes a break from grading lab reports before turns on the shower, and the water that rains down is black. Gil sputters and gets a mouth full of dye before he wises up and shuts it, turning the water off as quickly as he can manage.
When Gil comes out of the bathroom dressed only in the towel he’s probably ruining in order to grab his swiss army knife, the door to Tarvek’s room is open. Gil expects him to be smug, or, hopefully, to be squinting at his furniture in deep paranoia, but instead Gil just hears a hacking cough, sees Tarvek with his hands on his knees on the edge of his bed, back to the door, shoulders hunched with pain and tension.
Gil stands there in the hall, dripping gray water onto the floor, waffling between the desire to be clean, and the impulse to fix. Rationality asserts itself as Gil comes to grips with the fact that Tarvek almost certainly wouldn’t want any sort of help from GIl, and definitely wouldn’t want whatever help Gil could offer in a towel.
By the time Gil actually has his swiss army knife in his hands, Tarvek has stopped coughing, and has shut the door to his room, the sound of violins emanating through the barrier.
When Gil unscrews the showerhead, he finds a packet of calligraphy ink in the inside rim of the fixture. The little plastic bag has a few holes poked in it, and the label is still intelligible. Gil vaguely recognizes the name; it’s expensive, a French brand that Collette used for her fountain pens.
Later while sitting in the living room, Gil catches sight of Tarvek scrubbing the hallway floor between the bathroom and Gil’s room, working the ink out of the wood. His hair is up in a messy bun, and his ridiculous, tiny glasses are nearly falling off his face.
‘Serves him right,’ Gil thinks, and scowls at the books that are still on the table.
Ever since the thing with the deer happened, Agatha’s been more adamant about hanging out with Gil and Tarvek at the same time. Usually once a week, she nabs the both of them and drags them out to eat. Or, rather, because Gil’s display at the waffle house somehow convinced Agatha that he’s expert on local food, she makes Gil suggest somewhere in the area that the three of them can go to eat that isn’t that expensive. Considering how much Tarvek whines about any food he considers to be beneath his standards, this has proved something of a challenge, and more often than not, they keep ending up back at the waffle house.
Not that that’s necessarily a bad thing. Gil likes the waffle house. He told Agatha and Tarvek the first time he brought them there; the waffle house is an institution. Also, Gil went there a lot when he was a kid, and he has a sweet tooth the size of a mountain range, so sue him if he wants to unhealthily eat his own weight in chocolate chip waffles every other week or so.
This time, Tarvek doesn’t show up. Or, rather, he tapes a notice of his impending absence to his bedroom door instead of texting Gil like a normal person.
‘I’m going to be in the library today, preparing for the conference next week,’ the note reads in Tarvek’s uncannily uniform handwriting.
When Gil texts Agatha about it, she says she already knows; Tarvek texted her, apparently, and just chooses to go out of his way to make Gil’s life difficult.
“Did you know he had a conference?” Gil asks Agatha again over a stack of waffles that’s ten deep. It’s more of a challenge to dig through the waffle house’s Hungry Man Special with only two people as opposed to three, but Gil’s determined, and Agatha has a standing claim on any and all breakfast food leftovers.
“Yeah,” Agatha says, grabbing a waffle off the stack. “I’m more surprised you didn’t know. He’s been getting ready for this all month.”
“I didn’t have a clue,” Gil says.
“Huh,” Agatha says. “Maybe it’s the stress. He’s been going a little crazy on this one.”
“Mostly he’s just been leaving textbooks everywhere,” Gil complains. “And coughing a lot. Did he tell you he was sick?”
“He told me it was a cold.” Agatha frowns, looking up from her waffle with no small amount of concern. “You think it’s something else?”
“I think it’s not a cold,” Gil tells her. “He’s sick, definitely, but colds are mostly just, I dunno, gross? He’s been coughing a lot.”
“You said that already,” Agatha points out, gesturing with a fork. “Any other symptoms that are less vague?”
“It’s not like I’ve stuck a thermometer in his ear,” Gil says.
“You live with him, though. You’ve got to see him sometimes,” Agatha says, then pauses, the fork stilling. “Please tell me the two of you know how to communicate without pranking each other. As in, you can have conversations like human adults that don’t involve passive aggression and contain at least two non-sarcastic sentences?”
“We put up the deer antlers,” Gil says in their defense. “Left ‘em on the skull and put them on a table on a nice doily Tarvek pulled out of nowhere. Tarvek’s got a framed copy of the paper that ran the Satanism thing—”
“Okay,” Agatha interrupts him, “not that imagining you two interior decorating isn’t a cute mental image, but that’s still not proof of conversational skills.”
“We had to talk about that,” Gil points out. “I mean, we both got copies of the paper independently—”
Agatha rolls her eyes at him, and cuts another piece out of her waffle. “You’re both children,” she declares. “You should ask him to take you to the conference.”
“What?” Gil balks. “Why?”
“Because you’re his friend and you want to celebrate his achievements,” Agatha says, before quickly continuing, “and if you try to tell me right now that you come to these breakfasts because you ‘tolerate’ him and want to spend time with me, I’m going to walk out right now and take all the waffles, because that’d be a damn lie and we both know it.”
Instead of trying to refute the claim, Gil grabs himself a second waffle, and reaches for the butter. “What’s the conference even about?” He asks.
“It’s a thing for the poli sci department,” Agatha informs him. “Lots of gladhanding with established politicians in the area who want to look good and find interns.”
“And he’s, what?” Gil asks. “He’s looking for a job? I don’t see why that’d take our support.”
“Gil,” Agatha says slowly, as if he’s an idiot, “Tarvek’s the one who organized it. He drove into the city himself to solicit visitors.”
“Seriously?” Gil blinks.
“Seriously,” Agatha confirms. “He’s been excited about it for half the semester since he managed to talk Senator Luzhanka into swinging by.”
“He got a Senator to show up?” Gil asks her.
Agatha shrugs, but she smiles, too, the expression warm and causing an interesting flipping sensation somewhere in Gil’s ribcage. “Tarvek said he went to school with the Senator’s daughter. That got him in the door, and from there, he did the rest.”
“He convinced a senator to leave the capital for a collegiate job fair,” Gil says numbly. “In one meeting.”
“And six deputies,” Agatha confirms, her smile growing. “And a few mayors from the outlying towns, plus more local governmental offices and departments.”
“The department’s going to owe him so much for this,” Gil continues, still feeling a bit detached. “Luzhanka’s daughter didn’t even like Tarvek. We used to terrorize her. And he did this all on his own time?”
“All he got from the school was a place to host and some lei for food,” Agatha says. “So, yeah. You should go. Show your support.”
“Are you going?” Gil asks.
“He’s been talking about this for months,” Agatha says. “And he’s my friend. Of course I’m going.”
Gil honestly has no idea what to say. All he can imagine is how much it must’ve galled Tarvek to go and suck up to a man who had every reason to hate him, and how good it must’ve felt to win his support anyway.
“You should ask him about it,” Agatha reiterates, breaking into Gil’s train of thought. “Show your support. Also,” she adds, staring at the stack of remaining waffles with some concern, “we may not have thought this food order through.”
“Don’t be a coward,” Gil tells her. “We’re college students; if we can handle our deadlines, we can handle the Hungry Man Special.”
They aren’t able to finish the Hungry Man Special. Gil ends up going home with three waffles, and eats them cold for dinner that night over grading while Tarvek watches in undisguised horror from the couch.
“Right next to your paperwork,” Tarvek remarks faintly, wide-eyed and staring.
“I have no fear,” Gil agrees, drenching the chocolate chip waffles in syrup. “What’s up with the thing about a conference?”
“What?” Tarvek startles, voice thick as he looks up at Gil. “Who told you about that?”
“Agatha,” Gil tells him.
“Traitor,” Tarvek hisses, eyes narrowing. It’d almost be intimidating if Tarvek weren’t so congested. Instead he sounds like a muppet, a fact on which Gil manfully doesn’t comment.
“Was this supposed to be a secret?” Gil asks him. “I mean, you posted it on your door. You can’t really get mad at her for telling me about it.”
“Did she tell you to come?” Tarvek demands.
“There something wrong with me turning up to show my support?” Gil retorts.
Tarvek blinks. “Are you actually going to be supportive?”
“Well,” Gil hedges, waving a forkful of cold, syrupy waffles around in a noncommittal gesture, “I had intended to do a little bit of heckling. This is a golden opportunity, after all. Did you blackmail the Senator to get him to show up?”
Tarvek scowls at him. “That’s why I didn’t tell you about it,” he says, voice rasping in his dry throat. “You’re a jackass.”
“Look,” Gil says. “I really am impressed. I’m also not entirely convinced you didn’t use secret mob connections to strong arm a few of those deputies—”
“You know I’m running the event, I could just tell them to keep you barred from the doors,” Tarvek interjects. “Because that’d certainly make my night—”
“—It’d be fun!” Gil enthuses. “You, at the podium talking out of your ass about the rights of the landowner and farm subsidies; me, standing in the back waving a sign that says ‘illuminati confirmed’—”
“I’m going to give security your description,” Tarvek decides. “You get more than two feet into the lobby, and someone’s going to tackle you.”
“See, now, how those with power oppress those who seek the truth,” Gil says. He nods sagely, and ducks the stack of post-it notes Tarvek flings at his head. “Agatha says we don’t talk enough,” he adds.
Tarvek rolls his eyes. “I can’t begin to imagine why,” he says, then: “and give me back my post-its.”
“Fuck you,” Gil says cheerfully. “Come get them yourself.”
Tarvek doesn’t, and Gil has to tell himself he’s not a little disappointed.
Friday, Gil is in the middle of his hour at Lab Six when his phone lights up with a call from his sister. Normally, he’d ignore it, but all he’s doing right now is watching the centrifuge spin, and talking to Zeetha will be more interesting than watching the snow fall while he waits for the samples to separate.
Gil shoves his goggles up onto his forehead and rubs his fingers into the creases it left on his face before answering. “Hello?”
“So word on the block is that you’ve met my favorite person,” Zeetha says instead of trying to greet him like a normal person.
“Lars?” Gil hazards. “Because i’ve known Lars for a while now, I don’t think he’d count as someone I’d recently met. I also didn’t know he was your favorite. Is that new?”
“What?” Zeetha asks. “No, not Lars.”
“I thought you liked Lars,” Gil says.
“I do!” Zeetha says. “He’s a nice guy. Kind of anxious, but nice. But he’s not my favorite, keep up.”
Gil thinks for a minute. “Zeetha,” Gil says slowly, “the last time you were introducing me to someone new that you liked, it was that defense contractor guy, and Bang still complains about him—”
Zeetha makes an aggravated noise on the other end of the line. “No!” She says. “I meant your new friend Agatha. She spent a summer with the circus, like a year ago.”
Gil blinks. “What? And you never told me about this?”
Zeetha snorts at him. “Like I tell you about every new hire we get here.”
“You do, actually,” Gil points out. “When you remember to. I feel like half these calls are actually about circus gossip. What are you, twelve?”
“Okay, true,” Zeetha says. “Which would make it a case of shame on you that you didn’t put two and two together any faster. But you didn’t tell me about her, either! You don’t tell me shit about anything, and then I have to get all my local gossip from Bang. You made friends, Gil! And you didn’t tell me!”
“Just because you tell me everything about the comings and goings of your social circle doesn’t mean I have to tell you all about mine,” Gil points out.
“Rude,” Zeetha says. “You don’t tell me about your life because you’re emotionally stunted, and your social circle is basically just Bang and your roommate. Meanwhile, I am a paragon of emotional maturity.”
“So, what?” Gil drawls. “You’re calling to let me know that Bang told you I’m friends with Agatha? You knew her for a summer, and now she’s your best friend?”
“You’ve known her for like three months and you already want to propose,” Zeetha fires back.
Gil chokes. “I do not!” He says, before grimacing, because—
“Do so!” Zeetha replies with obvious glee. “Now who’s twelve?”
“Was there a point to this?” Gil asks.
“Eh,” Zeetha hedges. Gil can nearly see her see-sawing her hand from across the continent. “I guess this is me doing the big sister thing—”
“You don’t count as a big sister if you’re only five minutes older than me—” Gil interjects.
“—this is me doing the big sister thing,” Zeetha stresses, “where I make sure that the girl you like is a nice girl? I mean, I was going to let mom do it, but I’m pretty sure you haven’t even admitted that you like Agatha to yourself, and there’s no way in hell you’re telling our parents anything when you’re living that close to them—”
Gil hangs up on his sister, face burning. Because there’s no one there to see him, he puts his head in his hands, and groans lowly. When he opens his eyes, the cat hanging off the branch in the poster over the centrifuge is staring at him with its big, limpid eyes. Gil’s phone, meanwhile, is vibrating on the table with the force of all his sister’s indignance.
‘Rude!!’ The first text says, when Gil finally checks it. ‘She’s nice,’ says the second. ‘I really like her and I #approve ur relationship.’ Then: ‘but I also care about her u kno? I want her 2 be happy. I think u could make each other happy, if u work on not being so emotionally constipated.’
The fourth text says: ‘u kno I get read notifications, right,’ and Gil decides that it would be better to turn the phone off entirely.
Over the centrifuge, the cat in the poster says: Hang In There!
There are a couple of garages on campus. Considering how highly Pan-Europa boasts of its scientific and engineering programs, it makes sense to have so many machine workshops littering the college grounds.
Despite his mechanical engineering degree, all the time that Gil has spent in the machine shops since he started at Pan-Europa has been at Agatha’s request. Gil’s graduate studies are largely concerned with theoretical work when it comes to the mechanical, right now. To some extent, Gil understands this; it’s not like graduate students get a lot of sleep, or eat all that well, so there’s a non-zero chance that if left to their own devices to do unsupervised work, one of them might catch fire, or worse, destroy something valuable. Graduate students are also likely to grab some other graduate student as their mandated spotter for heavy machinery work, which wouldn’t solve the problem, either.
Not spending much time the machine shops without Agatha still doesn’t prevent Gil from leaving his wallet in one of them about halfway through October. He gets all the way back to the apartment he shares with Tarvek before Gil realizes that he must have left his keys in his wallet that morning when he spotted for Agatha in between his classes. Patting himself down for his wallet, Gil further realizes that it’s not on the inside pocket of his coat like he thought, which means he left it in the fucking machine shop, like an idiot.
For a moment, Gil seriously considers breaking into his own home, just so that he doesn’t have to walk back through the rain to get to the machine shops on the other side of campus. The weather hasn’t let up at all, lately. When it’s not been snowing, it’s been raining, and Gil is tired of being wet and cold. All he wants, is to get back to the tiny 4 room apartment he shares with Tarvek and crash hard, and not on the couch to irritate his roommate either; Gil wants to sack out for real, on his own bed, where he won’t be disturbed. Winter means finals means bone-deep exhaustion. Gil feels like he hasn’t slept in a few years, but that’s probably just his body exaggerating.
The garage portion of the shop is hotter than hell and currently in use when Gil gets there. Sure enough, some boxy looking monstrosity of an SUV is up on jacks, and some poor schmuck is on a roller underneath it, dicking around with whatever the issue might be.
“The guys at the repair place said I broke the axle,” someone complains from around the back side of the car. “I bet you ten lei that’s not what’s wrong; all I did was a little offroading.”
Whatever the response is, it’s muffled under the body of the vehicle, and Gil can’t make out much more than the tone of voice; something something derisive sneer, something something expensive hacks.
“I know you could do it better,” the first voice says, frustrated. “Why the fuck else would I subject myself to your company? I’m here for the free labor.”
Gil heads through the garage fairly quickly, headed for the laboratory setup that’s in another room down he hall in the building proper. Rounding the back of the car, he spots a short woman with bushy red hair playing with her phone, something with exploding fruit? Gil didn’t even know that anyone still played that game. She doesn’t really look up when Gil passes, just flicks her eyes in his direction before looking back at her phone to score a seven fruit combo.
There’s more muttering from under the car. As Gil heads down the hall towards the lab itself, he hears the redheaded girl start shouting. “You hate me? How dare you! Feel my hate! Feel it!” All this is punctuated by some very suspicious clanging, and really, Gil just came here to get his wallet. He doesn’t need this shit today.
But he still turns around and goes back into the garage, because tired or not, he won’t let one disgruntled undergraduate beat another one to death.
Gil isn’t prepared for what he walks into. What he thought he was going to find was finals-induced rage. What he actually gets is Tarvek hauling himself up off the rollerbord, slapping at the hollow pipe that the short girl is trying to beat him with.
More importantly, what Gil gets is Tarvek in short shorts and a tank top with a Nietzsche quote, a possibility for which Gil had never thought to prepare himself.
Tarvek is covered in black stains, probably oil, which Gil faintly recognizes he’s only noticing so he can avoid paying any undue attention to how surprisingly muscular Tarvek is. As long as Gil’s known him he’s always been covered up, not to mention how pudgy he was a kid. For some reason, Gil had just assumed that even as an adult Tarvek continued to be of a similar build. Obviously that’s not the case given that he’s able to twist the pipe out of the girl’s grip one-handed, practically lifting her off the ground to make her let go.
“Quit it!” He tells her, shaking her a little by the arm. “Stop acting like a fucking child for half a minute, I’m doing you a favor working under market value on your compensation mobile considering you really did break the axle— how did you even get this here—”
Gil must’ve made a noise. He must’ve twitched, or done something, because suddenly Tarvek is staring at him, hazel eyes going shock-wide behind his glasses. “What,” he says, almost a question, clearly trying and failing to be flat, surprise and incredulity warring in just one word.
“Keys,” Gil says intelligently. “I— keys.”
The girl Tarvek was lifting bodily takes her opportunity, and wriggles out of his grasp. Her other hand draws back into a quick strike that catches Tarvek in the gut, causing him to double over and hiss, a noise that soon turns into a hacking cough and a wheezing breath, his cold’s inertia catching up with him.
“Hey, your lardliness!” She says. “Eyes on the prize. You’re not getting paid for this whole thing, not outside the cost of whatever parts you need. Some random hot guy showing up isn’t going to get you out of the fact that you still owe me like nine whole favors.”
Taking her cue, Gil makes his escape, more or less bolting from the garage. The shock of cold air once he exits the building is stunning, and nearly brings Gil to his knees, wind licking at his face. His eyes sting, and Gil tells himself that it’s the weather, and not the mess of shame fear guilt shock heat that’s swirling inside him, or the way Tarvek had looked at him, the way he’d been afraid.
Gil trudges home in a daze. The snow soaks into his pants and the resulting wetness seeps into his boots. By the time Gil makes it back to his apartment, he’s shivering and the sun has set, streetlights struggling to life in the cold. For a second, when the doorknob refuses to fully turn in his hand, Gil can only stare at it, uncomprehending.
“I locked myself out, and my roommate is busy tonight,” Gil tells his mother when he calls her seconds later. His voice sounds far away, and dull to his own ears. “Can I come home for the night?”
“Oh, honey,” his mother sighs. “I’d say yes, but you know how your father is. I don’t know if you really want that fight tonight. You know how he gets when he’s made his mind up.”
“Yeah,” Gil rasps, pushing his phone into his jaw, staring up at the streetlight overhead, eyes burning in the light. “I know, mom. I know what he’s like.”
“I’m so sorry, Gil,” his mother says, words crackling down the line. “I’m sorry.”
“I know, mom,” Gil says again. “I know.”
When Bang comes to get him half an hour later, if she mocks him, Gil doesn’t hear it. He stopped shivering some time before she showed up, and the snow piles down on the floor of her car, falling off him in thick flakes as Bang gives his shoulder a one-handed shake. “It’s gonna be okay, kid,” she says, and Gil closes his eyes, wanting to believe in the lie.