Archive of Our Own ^beta

The bell rang half-heartedly, resenting Eden’s students more than they resented it. Naturally, Damian Desmond was in a bad mood. His hair wouldn’t co-operate, his pen nib was 0.3 millimetres too wide, and a headache bloomed behind his right eye, where academic ambition and Anya Forger typically collided. As always, he arrived to class early, and arranged his pens depending on ink viscosity. He made peace with the fact nobody else in this educational establishment would ever understand that joy.

Then, she walked in.

Anya Forger, hair slightly askew, tie crooked, expression suggesting she’d never encountered consequences in her life, waved cheerfully at him, like their last conversation hadn’t been the verbal equivalent of a border dispute. “Morning, Sy-on boy!”

“Don’t call me that,” he winced.

“It’s what you are.”

“I’m a Desmond.”

“That’s what a Sy-on boy would say.”

He felt his blood pressure evolve a mind of its own.

The teacher, who clearly enjoyed psychological torture, wrote Paired Project – The Causes of the Ostanian-Westalian War, and began reading his list. Damian hoped he’d get lucky and get assigned Ewen or Emile, or if he was truly desperate, Glooman. “Desmond, Forger.” Damian didn’t necessarily believe in God, but he believed He was a cruel man indeed.

They lasted twelve whole minutes (a personal record) before the shouting started. Anya’s opening contribution to the causes of war was apparently mean people, and therefore, “Wars start when people forget to share.”

“War starts,” he scoffed, “when nations fail to maintain fiscal equilibrium and diplomatic-”

“Right, so forgetting to share.”

“That’s not an academic position!”

It downgraded rapidly from there; she spilled pineapple juice on his notes, and he responded with his usual everyday cruelty that kept peons like her in her place. When the bell rang at the end of the day, he stomped all the way home to work out his lingering fury.

The next day, he waltzed into history class to the exact same bell, assuming he was experiencing déjà vu, or at least he did, until he saw the board. Paired Project – The Causes of the Ostanian-Westalian War. Forger waved, chipper as ever. “Morning, Sy-on boy!”

“What did you just say?”

“Uh… the usual. Are you… good?”

He wasn’t. He was partnered with Ostania's biggest academic liability, after all. 

The second time, they lasted for all of fourteen minutes, within which he attempted to be nicer, but it ended with the same pineapple juice across his expertly crafted notes. The third time, he didn’t deign speak to her at all, so obviously, she responded by doodling a stick figure of him on his notes labelled Dami-on-boy, Scowl Lord. The fourth time, he attempted a scientific method to break whatever the hell was happening here.

Step One – Arrive earlier to prepare the room.

Step Two – Replace the juice with water, because it wouldn’t leave residue.

Step Three – Victory?

Forger drank the water, commented that it tasted like sadness and still managed to spill it all the way across his notes. Briefly, he contemplated killing himself in front of her to reset the day faster.

The fifth time she sat at his desk, Damian finally cracked. “The day’s repeating!”

“…Repeating how?” Anya blinked, and wondered if he was finally having a psychotic breakdown. Maybe she should hit him over the head like Papa did with his patients, and he’d be normal again.

“Everything’s the same! The bell! The board! You!”

“Wow.”

“I’m serious!”

“I know. That’s why it’s funny.”

The sixth time, she believed him when Damian successfully recreated their entire conversation. Apropos of nothing, Anya suggested that perhaps they were supposed to be honest with one another to break the loop, and attempt to be friends. When he looked moderately disgusted at the idea, she volunteered first, and stated that she once ate chalk under the assumption it was a marshmallow. Damian had a pretty big secret, but fuck telling Forger that. She would never, under any circumstances, let him live it down. Instead, he confessed he once wanted to set Eden on fire by dousing his dorm curtains in rubbing alcohol and lighting a match.

They agreed never to tell anybody.

The seventh time, Forger made it her mission to enjoy purgatory by starting each morning loudly announcing, “Welcome back to Hell, population: Starlight Anya and Sy-on boy!” Worse than that, she invented new hairstyles, new doodles, and new ways to annoy the ever-living shit out of him. On the other hand, Damian spent the day documenting micro-patterns in a document entitled Temporal Incompetence, logging every sneeze, blink or sigh, handwriting growing more desperate as the day wore on.

It continued like that for days, hours, or eternities; he lost track.

At exactly 11:42, Ewen tripped over his undone shoelaces. Damian never bothered pointing out they were undone, as seeing Ewen faceplant the floor was the only thing he looked forward to.

Meanwhile, Anya changed up her greeting to shooting him finger-guns, yelling, “Loop check! Day number… something!” before handing him the world’s worst coffee from the vending machine. He actively dreaded her cheerfulness.

However, before long, he began to depend on it to keep him sane.

The twelfth time, he tried meditation, having read a self-help book for when one felt like they were stuck in a rut. She joined in, loudly whispering, “Ommmm. Ommmmmm. Ommmmmigod, this is so boring.”

In the thirteenth class, the fought about whether eating the cafeteria pastries in every timeline technically counted as gluttony. “It resets!” Anya pouted, arms folded. “Therefore, so does my calorie counter.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not how metabolism works!”

“You don’t know! Time’s broken! Therefore, anything’s possible!” Damian never wanted to strangle somebody more in his life.

Next time, they tested the boundaries; Anya only agreed because she always wanted to break physics. They decided to skip class entirely and waltz off campus, unbothered, and crucially, home free. They reached the front gate before reality politely refused; the world blurred, then spat them back in their seats mid-class. Damian’s hand still held hers. They jerked back from each other as if they’d been electrocuted. “Did we just…?” she asked.

“Yes,” he hissed, mortified. “Never speak of it again in my presence.”

By loop sixteen, Damian experienced all five stages of grief twice, whilst Anya cycled through all seven stages of annoying. “Maybe this is cosmic punishment,” he suggested.

“For what?”

“For something I did wrong.”

“You mean you being you?”

“Exactly- hey, wait!”

“You’re finally self-aware!” Anya beamed. “Great character development, Sy-on boy!”

The twentieth time, he refused to move or speak, and sat silently at his desk all day, waiting out the time loop. Naturally, Forger tried cheering him up by narrating him like a wildlife documentary, considering she watched ones about penguins on a semi-regular basis.

“And here, we observe the rare Desmond boy in his natural habitat – the very back of class.”

“Shut up.”

“The Desmond only communicates in short bursts.”

“Shut up.”

“He may lash out when startled-” Damian threw the nearest object at her face. “Ow! What are your pens made of, marble?!”

The next time, she clearly regretted her actions and attempted uncharacteristic seriousness, and inquired what would happen, exactly, if they just stopped caring. For once, they finished their presentation, and she didn’t spill her stupid juice. That counted as progress, surely?! The bell rang. Reality blinked. Time reset. Screaming, he threw another pen at her face.

About one hundred years later, they stopped squabbling entirely, a phenomenon their classmates found eerie. Damian Desmond and Anya Forger sat side-by-side, tired, strange, and sixteen mental years older than their classmates. “Hey, do you ever think maybe we’re dead?”

“Unlikely. Death would be much more peaceful. And you certainly wouldn't be here.”

“Ooh, maybe we’re ghosts?”

“You’re definitely haunting me.” With a groan, Damian slammed his head on the desk. “God, you’re the reason this keeps happening!”

“Oh, of course,” she giggled behind her hand, a habit she picked up from Blackbell. “’Tis I, Evil Mastermind, Agent Starlight Anya Forger, ruining time for fun!”

“You’re really not taking this seriously as you should!”

“You take everything seriously! Even breathing sounds like a competition for you!”

“Yeah, because some of us don’t get to fail!” Damian blurted, then balled his hands into fists at the accidental honesty.

For a moment, Forger was blissfully silent, but then quietly murmured, “That sounds awful.”

Once again, they presented, calmly, evenly. Obviously, Anya’s part was still ludicrous as she posited that sharing meant world peace, but Damian magnanimously didn’t interrupt. He even smiled once, if one could believe that. At the end of class, the bell sounded different.

It was a real chime.

They froze, and craned their necks to each other.

“Did we-?”

“Shh!”

“Is it-?”

“Shh!”

Miraculously, the clock… ticked forwards.

“Oh my god,” Anya whispered reverently, “we did it.”

Still, Damian’s hackles were raised. “No juice, no yelling, and we kept stupidity to a minimum. Sure, that checks out.”

“The key to our adventure was teamwork.”

“Don’t use that disgusting term in my presence.”

“Aww, c’mon, Sy-on boy, say teamwork!”

“I would rather shit in my hands and clap.”

The next morning, the bell pealed cleanly, newly, marking a different day; to solidify this conclusion, there was a different topic on the board. When he walked in, Damian exhaled, relieved his life was finally back on track. Anya slid into her usual chair in front of him, humming absently. “Morning, Sy-on boy!”

Damian glared at her suspiciously. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say it.”

“Say what?!”

“That we fixed the loop!”

“We did fix the loop! We should be proud!”

“Don’t say it, you’ll jinx-”

The bell hiccupped.

“Uh-oh,” Anya whimpered.

All the blood rapidly left Damian’s face. “No.”

“Yep.”

“No.”

“…See you tomorrow, Sy-on boy?”