you'll always be my friend. you know too much.
Author: Nathalia
Rating: PG
Challenge:
Quince #04 - this can only mean one thing
Tropical Punch #24 - head in the sand
Extras / Toppings: malt (easter eggs: Kaity: "You'll always be my friend. You know too much."), peaches (You have exactly the right amount of discipline and sense of duty to accomplish quite a bit today, Virgo. Your thinking should be clear. Your sense of time and restriction works in your favor to help you figure out any puzzles that present themselves. You have a strong will that helps you complete just about every task you undertake.), pineapple (Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog)
Word Count: 2,147
Story: Misfits
Summary: Dennis finds out more about Stella than he ever expected to.
Notes: amnesty week: catch a falling star. kinda.
“You’d better just come in,” Stella suggested when they were standing in front of her apartment that, like Dennis and Joseph’s was just off-campus and a favored option for the students who could afford it since it meant having a room for themselves instead of having to share and far more liberties. “I’m not really sure where I put it and it could take a while for me to find it.”
“I lend you a book I got from the library and you lose it?” Dennis teased as Stella opened the door and held it open for him to step through.
They took the stairs. “Third floor,” Stella said unprompted. “And I didn’t lose it, it’s probably under my bed or something. You can dig through my stuff while I look for it, I’ll even make you coffee.”
“That sounds tempting,” Dennis laughed. “That is, if you actually have clean mugs.”
He enjoyed spending time with Joseph’s new girlfriend -- he honestly wasn’t sure if they were officially dating yet --, probably had spent more time with her than Joseph who always seemed so busy and absorbed in classes and didn’t really ever meet new people if it wasn’t through Dennis. Besides, Joseph was incredibly shy around her and Dennis had to do a lot of talking anyway.
She was easy-going and fun, smart, and she was local which meant that she knew a lot more about Boston than him and with their fake IDs, they would take trips to her favorite bars and clubs. Joseph didn’t seem to mind when he didn’t tag along which was partially related to the fact that Dennis had promised his best friend that, no matter what, he would never ever make a pass on Stella.
“Here we are,” Stella said, making a flourishing gesture as she led Dennis into the apartment.
Barely in the door, they were standing in the living room / kitchen area that had three doors leading away from it -- two to the bedrooms of Stella and her roommate Galilee she didn’t always speak highly off, one to the bathroom. All in all, it was neat but a lot less spacious than Dennis and Joseph’s apartment. It looked more sterile, less comfortable, like a place two strangers who didn’t really know each other yet would cohabitate in which was pretty much the case.
“No balcony?” Dennis asked, looking around and Stella pouted.
“No need to tell me that my place isn’t as awesome and cozy as yours, I can tell myself. Why do you think I always come hang out at your place instead of inviting you here?”
“Good point.”
She set her messenger bag down in the middle of the room and motioned for Dennis to sit down. He set his bag down next to hers but followed her behind the kitchen counter where she started to prepare coffee. Meanwhile, he opened the fridge to take a look.
One thing he discovered right away was that girls weren’t all that different from guys. The fridge wasn’t in any sort of reasonable order, things had been thrown in eclectically and a very tall bottle of vodka with “Stella” written on it stuck out between mostly empty tupperwares. Dennis had the impression that the content of one of them had started to mold but decided not to point it out. It probably wasn’t the most polite thing to do with a person he didn’t know that well yet.
He closed the fridge again but not before taking out the milk. He unscrewed the top and took a whiff just to make sure that it was still good.
Stella, leaning against the counter the coffee machine was on, laughed. “You are such a cliché student.”
“You have a huge vodka bottle in the fridge and accuse me of being stereotypical? I’m just being cautious.” He tried to sound offended but couldn’t hide the laughter that was bubbling up in him.
“I’m glad you put so much trust in my domestic skills,” Stella teased, taking the jug of milk from him and Dennis had the impression that if it hadn’t been for their exchange, she would have smelled it too, just to make sure. “Since when do you drink milk anyway? You like your coffee black.”
“And you like yours with milk and sugar. I was just trying to be gentlemanly and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t drink bad milk.”
“You are my hero, Dennis Lawson,” Stella proclaimed dramatically. “Now get me two mugs out of that cupboard there and you’ll make my day.”
***
The coffee machine seemed to take forever and Stella admitted that she always had to get coffee on campus before class because she always got up too late in the morning to still be able to wait for the coffee to be done.
“We should drink in my room,” Stella decided as she handed Dennis his cup of steaming black coffee. “I’m really not in the mood for Galilee to show up and bitch about me coming home late last night and waking her. She always gets incredibly pissed about that.”
“Maybe I should check on her and apologize and explain that you only stay out this long because I keep bugging you to stay just for two more drinks every time you say we should go home,” Dennis grinned.
“Then she’ll think I’m an alcoholic because it’s not just one drink, but always two.”
She led him into her room and set her coffee down on what Dennis supposed was the nightstand. It could have been anything, really, since it was covered by stacks of books, sweatshirts and right on top of the pile, a black g-string that Dennis would have loved to make a remark about. Instead, he just looked at it until Stella noticed, blushed and stuffed it under her pillow.
“You’re an asshole, Lawson. Consider your hero status withdrawn.”
“You said I could snoop around as much as I wanted to until you found the Mankiew book. Looking around now, I see that that could take a little longer.”
Stella West had not spent the first few months out of her parents’ house making sure her room was in perfect order. Clothes were strewn all over the floor along with books and all of her other positions. Dennis was sure she hadn’t been able to sit at her desk for at least several weeks now but from what she had told him, she rarely studied sitting down anyway. This also explained why her books and papers focused mostly around the area of the bed.
Still, it could have been a lot worse. This way, the room still looked like a place a human being could live in. Vanessa’s and Dennis’ rooms had been a lot worse with quite a frequency when Dennis had been growing up.
“You might want to clean this up before you bring Joseph here if you want him to have good impression of you.”
He set his cup down on a sideboard and decided to start poking at the stuff she had on her desk. He wouldn’t let the opportunity of digging through someone else’s possessions slip by like this and this was especially interesting. He was curious what he might find out about Joseph’s semi-girlfriend.
“So, I look here in the general area of the bed where I last saw the book and you on the desk I never ever used for anything but storage?” Stella asked, kneeling down next to the bed to start looking under it where Dennis guessed she was suspecting to find it. Why she would put a thousand-plus page tome on economics under her bed but then again, he wasn’t really interested in finding it right now.
“I’d put the Mankiew book somewhere I never look at. After about a hundred pages, you just get sick of everything being explained using ice cream cones. And since that’s your desk, that’s a good place as any to start.”
Among the piles of books, he found an oversized Red Sox shirt that he held up with a questioning look. It would have fit him rather well. “Ex-boyfriend’s?”
Stella shook her head. “Hell no, that’s my sleeping shirt. Give that to me.” She held up her hands and Dennis tossed it to her. She replicated the movement and threw it on the bed where he guessed it would keep the string he had seen before company.
Now that the sleeping shirt was gone, a big cardboard binder fell into Dennis’ view. He would have discarded it right away if it weren’t for the very familiar-looking logo that had been stamped on the back of the binder. It was only two by two inches, a stylized symbol of a three-headed dog, simple, black on white.
A few months ago, Dennis wouldn’t have paid any further attention to it but things had changed by then. He had learned to associate something with that symbol, he had read up on the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who in Greek mythology guarded the gates of the underworld and prevented the dead spirits from escaping.
This was the picture of the Watchdog as Dennis had started to call it in his mind. And he knew exactly what it meant or he thought he had until this very moment because he had only ever seen it on official documentation, things that had been kept secret and were filed away. If this was what he thought it was, then it shouldn’t just be carelessly lying on a college girl’s desk along with other personal items.
He took the binder and opened it and there, on the first page, the logo was again, but bigger this time and even though Dennis needed no confirmation, this was proof that he hadn’t been wrong.
“Why are you so quiet?” Stella asked, pulling her head out from under her bed. Dennis didn’t even look up. “What did you find there?”
There was a gasp and suddenly, Stella was at his side, grabbing the binder, closing it and pressing it to her body. “This is personal. None of your business,” she hissed.
Dennis just looked at her, trying to find the right words to say, or, actually, just any words to say but they were failing him. This girl there right in front of him whom he had been spending so much time with, who he had randomly chatted up at a party, whom Joseph was madly in love with, wasn’t just some regular pretty and smart blonde. She had a secret and he had found out about it.
Stella West was with Cerberus, just like him. He had never expected to meet anyone who was with Cerberus. It had already been amazing to know Joseph, his best friend, whom he could openly talk about this stuff, but another person? He had never imagined it would happen, not until much later, until he was officially introduced to some of the other new recruits. For the first two years of college, they were supposed to keep it a secret. It was like a first admission test. Whoever had his secret found out, was unfit for the job.
At least that was how Dennis assumed it worked.
“What did you see?” Stella asked. Her voice was barely a whisper and she was trembling, scared. It was so obvious that Dennis felt bad for her but he was still too surprised by the current developments to say anything. He could just stare at her.
“I think we should go for a drink. Not coffee. A beer or something. Probably more than one. Once you’ve hidden that binder somewhere less obvious than your desk where anyone can spot it,” he finally managed and he was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. His heart was beating faster than it should and somehow he had the impression that if not for what was just happening, he might have been the first to be found out about. “And then we’re going over to my place, making sure mine is hidden well enough for nobody to find it. And I’ll buy you a drink. I really need one and you look like you need it far more than me.”
“Hide yours?” Stella repeated slowly. “What are you talking about?”
“Let’s hide yours and then we’ll go over to my place and I’ll show you. I happen to have one of those myself. It’s still in one of those three cardboard boxes I haven’t unpacked since I moved in.”
The chip finally seemed to drop.
“Oh my God,” Stella screamed, dropping the binder and jumping Dennis and embracing him. “I was so fucking worried for a second there. Well, actually, a lot more than a second.”
Rating: PG
Challenge:
Quince #04 - this can only mean one thing
Tropical Punch #24 - head in the sand
Extras / Toppings: malt (easter eggs: Kaity: "You'll always be my friend. You know too much."), peaches (You have exactly the right amount of discipline and sense of duty to accomplish quite a bit today, Virgo. Your thinking should be clear. Your sense of time and restriction works in your favor to help you figure out any puzzles that present themselves. You have a strong will that helps you complete just about every task you undertake.), pineapple (Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog)
Word Count: 2,147
Story: Misfits
Summary: Dennis finds out more about Stella than he ever expected to.
Notes: amnesty week: catch a falling star. kinda.
“You’d better just come in,” Stella suggested when they were standing in front of her apartment that, like Dennis and Joseph’s was just off-campus and a favored option for the students who could afford it since it meant having a room for themselves instead of having to share and far more liberties. “I’m not really sure where I put it and it could take a while for me to find it.”
“I lend you a book I got from the library and you lose it?” Dennis teased as Stella opened the door and held it open for him to step through.
They took the stairs. “Third floor,” Stella said unprompted. “And I didn’t lose it, it’s probably under my bed or something. You can dig through my stuff while I look for it, I’ll even make you coffee.”
“That sounds tempting,” Dennis laughed. “That is, if you actually have clean mugs.”
He enjoyed spending time with Joseph’s new girlfriend -- he honestly wasn’t sure if they were officially dating yet --, probably had spent more time with her than Joseph who always seemed so busy and absorbed in classes and didn’t really ever meet new people if it wasn’t through Dennis. Besides, Joseph was incredibly shy around her and Dennis had to do a lot of talking anyway.
She was easy-going and fun, smart, and she was local which meant that she knew a lot more about Boston than him and with their fake IDs, they would take trips to her favorite bars and clubs. Joseph didn’t seem to mind when he didn’t tag along which was partially related to the fact that Dennis had promised his best friend that, no matter what, he would never ever make a pass on Stella.
“Here we are,” Stella said, making a flourishing gesture as she led Dennis into the apartment.
Barely in the door, they were standing in the living room / kitchen area that had three doors leading away from it -- two to the bedrooms of Stella and her roommate Galilee she didn’t always speak highly off, one to the bathroom. All in all, it was neat but a lot less spacious than Dennis and Joseph’s apartment. It looked more sterile, less comfortable, like a place two strangers who didn’t really know each other yet would cohabitate in which was pretty much the case.
“No balcony?” Dennis asked, looking around and Stella pouted.
“No need to tell me that my place isn’t as awesome and cozy as yours, I can tell myself. Why do you think I always come hang out at your place instead of inviting you here?”
“Good point.”
She set her messenger bag down in the middle of the room and motioned for Dennis to sit down. He set his bag down next to hers but followed her behind the kitchen counter where she started to prepare coffee. Meanwhile, he opened the fridge to take a look.
One thing he discovered right away was that girls weren’t all that different from guys. The fridge wasn’t in any sort of reasonable order, things had been thrown in eclectically and a very tall bottle of vodka with “Stella” written on it stuck out between mostly empty tupperwares. Dennis had the impression that the content of one of them had started to mold but decided not to point it out. It probably wasn’t the most polite thing to do with a person he didn’t know that well yet.
He closed the fridge again but not before taking out the milk. He unscrewed the top and took a whiff just to make sure that it was still good.
Stella, leaning against the counter the coffee machine was on, laughed. “You are such a cliché student.”
“You have a huge vodka bottle in the fridge and accuse me of being stereotypical? I’m just being cautious.” He tried to sound offended but couldn’t hide the laughter that was bubbling up in him.
“I’m glad you put so much trust in my domestic skills,” Stella teased, taking the jug of milk from him and Dennis had the impression that if it hadn’t been for their exchange, she would have smelled it too, just to make sure. “Since when do you drink milk anyway? You like your coffee black.”
“And you like yours with milk and sugar. I was just trying to be gentlemanly and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t drink bad milk.”
“You are my hero, Dennis Lawson,” Stella proclaimed dramatically. “Now get me two mugs out of that cupboard there and you’ll make my day.”
***
The coffee machine seemed to take forever and Stella admitted that she always had to get coffee on campus before class because she always got up too late in the morning to still be able to wait for the coffee to be done.
“We should drink in my room,” Stella decided as she handed Dennis his cup of steaming black coffee. “I’m really not in the mood for Galilee to show up and bitch about me coming home late last night and waking her. She always gets incredibly pissed about that.”
“Maybe I should check on her and apologize and explain that you only stay out this long because I keep bugging you to stay just for two more drinks every time you say we should go home,” Dennis grinned.
“Then she’ll think I’m an alcoholic because it’s not just one drink, but always two.”
She led him into her room and set her coffee down on what Dennis supposed was the nightstand. It could have been anything, really, since it was covered by stacks of books, sweatshirts and right on top of the pile, a black g-string that Dennis would have loved to make a remark about. Instead, he just looked at it until Stella noticed, blushed and stuffed it under her pillow.
“You’re an asshole, Lawson. Consider your hero status withdrawn.”
“You said I could snoop around as much as I wanted to until you found the Mankiew book. Looking around now, I see that that could take a little longer.”
Stella West had not spent the first few months out of her parents’ house making sure her room was in perfect order. Clothes were strewn all over the floor along with books and all of her other positions. Dennis was sure she hadn’t been able to sit at her desk for at least several weeks now but from what she had told him, she rarely studied sitting down anyway. This also explained why her books and papers focused mostly around the area of the bed.
Still, it could have been a lot worse. This way, the room still looked like a place a human being could live in. Vanessa’s and Dennis’ rooms had been a lot worse with quite a frequency when Dennis had been growing up.
“You might want to clean this up before you bring Joseph here if you want him to have good impression of you.”
He set his cup down on a sideboard and decided to start poking at the stuff she had on her desk. He wouldn’t let the opportunity of digging through someone else’s possessions slip by like this and this was especially interesting. He was curious what he might find out about Joseph’s semi-girlfriend.
“So, I look here in the general area of the bed where I last saw the book and you on the desk I never ever used for anything but storage?” Stella asked, kneeling down next to the bed to start looking under it where Dennis guessed she was suspecting to find it. Why she would put a thousand-plus page tome on economics under her bed but then again, he wasn’t really interested in finding it right now.
“I’d put the Mankiew book somewhere I never look at. After about a hundred pages, you just get sick of everything being explained using ice cream cones. And since that’s your desk, that’s a good place as any to start.”
Among the piles of books, he found an oversized Red Sox shirt that he held up with a questioning look. It would have fit him rather well. “Ex-boyfriend’s?”
Stella shook her head. “Hell no, that’s my sleeping shirt. Give that to me.” She held up her hands and Dennis tossed it to her. She replicated the movement and threw it on the bed where he guessed it would keep the string he had seen before company.
Now that the sleeping shirt was gone, a big cardboard binder fell into Dennis’ view. He would have discarded it right away if it weren’t for the very familiar-looking logo that had been stamped on the back of the binder. It was only two by two inches, a stylized symbol of a three-headed dog, simple, black on white.
A few months ago, Dennis wouldn’t have paid any further attention to it but things had changed by then. He had learned to associate something with that symbol, he had read up on the three-headed dog, Cerberus, who in Greek mythology guarded the gates of the underworld and prevented the dead spirits from escaping.
This was the picture of the Watchdog as Dennis had started to call it in his mind. And he knew exactly what it meant or he thought he had until this very moment because he had only ever seen it on official documentation, things that had been kept secret and were filed away. If this was what he thought it was, then it shouldn’t just be carelessly lying on a college girl’s desk along with other personal items.
He took the binder and opened it and there, on the first page, the logo was again, but bigger this time and even though Dennis needed no confirmation, this was proof that he hadn’t been wrong.
“Why are you so quiet?” Stella asked, pulling her head out from under her bed. Dennis didn’t even look up. “What did you find there?”
There was a gasp and suddenly, Stella was at his side, grabbing the binder, closing it and pressing it to her body. “This is personal. None of your business,” she hissed.
Dennis just looked at her, trying to find the right words to say, or, actually, just any words to say but they were failing him. This girl there right in front of him whom he had been spending so much time with, who he had randomly chatted up at a party, whom Joseph was madly in love with, wasn’t just some regular pretty and smart blonde. She had a secret and he had found out about it.
Stella West was with Cerberus, just like him. He had never expected to meet anyone who was with Cerberus. It had already been amazing to know Joseph, his best friend, whom he could openly talk about this stuff, but another person? He had never imagined it would happen, not until much later, until he was officially introduced to some of the other new recruits. For the first two years of college, they were supposed to keep it a secret. It was like a first admission test. Whoever had his secret found out, was unfit for the job.
At least that was how Dennis assumed it worked.
“What did you see?” Stella asked. Her voice was barely a whisper and she was trembling, scared. It was so obvious that Dennis felt bad for her but he was still too surprised by the current developments to say anything. He could just stare at her.
“I think we should go for a drink. Not coffee. A beer or something. Probably more than one. Once you’ve hidden that binder somewhere less obvious than your desk where anyone can spot it,” he finally managed and he was surprised at how calm his voice sounded. His heart was beating faster than it should and somehow he had the impression that if not for what was just happening, he might have been the first to be found out about. “And then we’re going over to my place, making sure mine is hidden well enough for nobody to find it. And I’ll buy you a drink. I really need one and you look like you need it far more than me.”
“Hide yours?” Stella repeated slowly. “What are you talking about?”
“Let’s hide yours and then we’ll go over to my place and I’ll show you. I happen to have one of those myself. It’s still in one of those three cardboard boxes I haven’t unpacked since I moved in.”
The chip finally seemed to drop.
“Oh my God,” Stella screamed, dropping the binder and jumping Dennis and embracing him. “I was so fucking worried for a second there. Well, actually, a lot more than a second.”