In which if you don't understand what I'm inferring, you're too young for Fanfiction, escape the clutches of the Internet while you still can. Or you're a boy, in which case, the story will not make sense.
Also, thank you so very much for the enthusiastic welcome to the HOA fandom, all of you, and I hope that we can continue to enjoy it for more seasons (pretty please with Sibuna on top, Nickelodeon?)
Happy Easter!
Eddie knew that there was a lot of advantages living in a house with five girls – someone was always able to provide relationship advice, they'd have an actual opinion on what he was wearing, girls were always more reliable at remembering the homework assignments – but there were a few days a month that living with five girls was horrible. Because they were together all the time, their bodies worked the same way.
(It was biology. His Dad had taught them that. It had been an admittedly awkward lesson.)
Because for those four or so days, living with five girls seemed to have no advantages.
The first thing was small, and Eddie would swear he only picked up on it because he took 'Eddie time' instead of going to class. Trudy would usually have all the groceries packed away straight after she returned from Tesco's, but once a month, there was a bag sitting on the table when they got in.
He didn't check it the first time, just figured that Trudy must have been taking her time, and much preferring to enter the kitchen anyways.
(Hoagies were much better to enjoy when there was nobody else around.)
But as he zoned out on the couch, he noticed Joy enter the house first, two or three minutes earlier than usual, grab the bag, then run upstairs. Which was entirely suspicious behaviour in his opinion. He had meant to question her on it, but then Fabian and KT came into the house, dragged him off the couch and into the cellar and he forgot all about it as they looked for new clues.
But the next time the bag was there, he couldn't help but take a look.
(Really, in the end he would have preferred not to.)
There were all sorts of boxes and packages with small flat parcels inside them and he knew straight away, but there were so many and surely this wasn't what that was like and it was certain that this wasn't meant for him to see.
(When it was KT that grabbed them and ran off he was sure that boys weren't supposed to know.)
The second thing he'd notice would be the irritation, from all of them. It was a complete personality switch from their norm, and it took all of the boys by surprise.
(Well, not Patricia, really, she was always fairly grouchy).
Willow was the easiest tell, and all the boys took notice. Usually a total flower child, her whole being radiating happiness all the time, a snarling Willow was always a shock when they came across her in the mornings. Saying so much as hello could get your head bitten off.
"Hey, Willow," Joy said politely as she walked in the dining room door, a little later than usual and not as bouncy as usual.
"What?" she growled back, and four different heads turned instantly, confusion apparent on their faces.
(Willow, until now, had been incapable of snark. They'd tried.)
"Are you okay, Willow?" Alfie asked cautiously as she sat next to him, reaching his arm around her shoulder, as he did every morning.
"Don't touch me," she snapped harshly, leaning out of his touch and straight for the toast, piling it on her plate, lading it with Nutella. The boys just looked at each other, then at their plates quickly, afraid that Willow would turn on them next.
xxx
KT wasn't too hard to pick either, not for those (Eddie, Alfie, Fabian) who knew her properly. It had shocked them a little the first time, but after that it was completely clear.
"KT, want to go check out the crypt, I'm sure there's something in there we'll be able to find out about your Great-Grandpa," Fabian began, walking up behind her in the halls, the others not far behind.
"I'm not really in the mood, guys," she said, lacking any of the exuberance that personified the American.
(On any other day it would have been clearly present, and maybe even annoying.)
"Are you alright?" Eddie clarified, grabbing her arm softly, figuring that as her best friend it was his duty to see what was wrong.
"Just leave off, alright?" She said, grabbing Patricia, who hadn't seemed that surprised, and stalking off into the girls' bathroom.
xxx
With the way that she'd been going since the whole Jerome thing, Mara was difficult to tell, but Eddie still picked up on it one afternoon in the common room. Alfie was running around to everyone for help with the assignments for different subjects, and they all knew that he was just putting on a show before he asked Mara at the end, who would sit down and go through everything with him until he got the good marks he'd always been capable of.
"No, Alfie!" she squawked as he entered the room, having bugged everybody else already.
(He wasn't going to bother Eddie, everybody knew that he was going to be the last to do the work.)
"But Mara, please…?" He knelt next to her, hands in a begging pose, and sad eyes that worked on everybody, but Mara didn't seem to be paying attention.
"I said no," she repeated, leaving and stomping up the stairs.
xxx
Joy was the hardest tell for Eddie, because he hadn't really spent much time around her.
(Even if she had died in the end [just for a little while], she had still hurt his paragon.)
He did know however, that she was capable of taking a joke. That after her time last year, she was capable of taking a criticism and not letting it get to her. Because Joy Mercer was nothing if not resilient.
"So, Joyless, I expect that you'll just end up writing a story about how much of a bastard I've been, and that I really should visit my released father more often, hey," Jerome teased playfully one lunchtime, and everyone just played it off as Jerome being a bit of a tool, as usual.
Until Joy stood up, slapped him across the face, and walked off, tears streaming down her face.
xxx
Patricia, for Eddie, was the absolute easiest to tell. It was definitely because he knew her so well, better than anyone else in the house. And he knew that Patricia Williamson didn't do hugs.
(Well, except for on special occasions.)
But on the night of Willow's outburst and Mara's episode, she walked up to Eddie, still lounging on the couch, and snuggled. He looked at her briefly, before wrapping his arm around her.
"You okay, Yacker?" he checked, playfully, putting his other hand on her forehead. "You're not dying, trying to seduce me into doing your homework, or about to convince me that this would be a much better enterprise in the bedroom?" he teased, waggling his eyebrows.
"Shush, slimeball," she smiled briefly, just digging her head into his chest.
Safe to say, Eddie didn't move.
The third thing was perhaps the most frustrating for all the boys. Honestly, stepping between boys and their stomachs was asking for trouble.
Trudy, knowing exactly what a house full of teenagers was like, always kept an adequate supply of snacks in the pantry. (She had them semi-hidden, but let's not pretend that nobody knew where they were.) There was always a reasonable amount of chocolate, sweets, and crisps (two words that had once been foreign to Eddie).
But for those few days, Eddie and the other boys were short on snack varieties. There was absolutely nothing in the pantry. Fruit, nuts and not the slightest hint of processed sugar. Even the ice-cream tub had been emptied, washed and sitting in the recycling bin.
It was driving Eddie insane, having had his midnight snack options reduced to practically nothing. It particularly frustrated him in the afternoon, when he went upstairs to bother Patricia, and found her sitting on the floor in the triple, all the girls sitting round, painting their toenails, reading magazines and having a gossip.
As they ate their way through a pile of sweets in a bowl in the centre.
"Wh – Where did you get that from?" he protested, an indignant look on his face.
"Out, Weasel," Patricia smiled, in her scary do-as-I-say way.
(He'd ignored it once, and learned his lesson.)
Eddie went downstairs, finding Alfie in the pantry, ratting round Trudy's not-so-secret snack spot.
"Hey man, have you seen where the sweets went?" Alfie asked, "I hadn't realised that Trudy was aware we all knew where she hid them."
Eddie just pointed upstairs.
"Is there something up with the girls at the moment?" Alfie checked as Jerome walked through the door.
"Oh Alfie, my friend," Jerome began, wrapping his arm around the other boy's shoulder, "what you don't know about girls could fill a book, but…"
Eddie walked out the door, but still heard Alfie's horrified screech in his room as he slid his headphones on.
Fourth was particular to one girl, but it was just as important to Eddie. Patricia wouldn't let him touch her.
Sure, she'd walk up and give him a cuddle, which was weird enough in itself, but anytime that he tried to do the same (or a kiss, which was much more their style anyway), his girlfriend turned on him.
Like when he pulled her books out of her arms, wrapped an arm around her and pulled her in for a kiss, and instead got a punch in the stomach, dangerously close to his man-parts.
"Hey, Yacker, what's that for? Do you never want kids?" She shot him a glare, standard Patricia, but kept walking further away from him. He jogged a bit to catch up to her. "Patricia?"
"While being pregnant would be preferable, I'm not having children any time soon, and you won't get to practice making them any time soon either," she whispered quietly, harsh tone still evident.
"As you wish," he said, stepping away from her, his I'm- backing-off face showing as they entered French.
Fifth was frustrating for all the boys. It was called a 'common room' after all. But the girls ignored that for the week, shooing the boys out of the way as they took up the space in front of the television (with one of those bowls of the disappeared sweets).
The girls also took to watching romantic comedies. For hours on end, for the better part of a week. It frustrated him to no end.
(Because really, it was the same plot in each one of the ten or so that they watched.)
Even Patricia the anti-girl was watching, and Mara the dedicated student. All five of them took four hours out of their night, for terrible, originality lacking films. It was mind baffling.
As was the fact that all of them would sit there, either saying how hot the guy was or crying over the dramatic breakup.
(Although not Patricia, but once again, always the exception to the rule.)
Not even Victor, yelling at them to quiet down or do their school work would stop them from watching the films, as they paused it, waited for him to leave, and then just started watching again.
About five days later though, everything was back to normal. There were no bags left on the table, the girls were back to their normal selves, there were snacks in the pantry, Patricia would kiss him again and their television returned to the regularly scheduled programming of sitcoms, football games and documentaries. It was like nothing had ever happened.
Until it happened again, and again… and another five times before the end of the term. Like clockwork, once a month, for about five days.
(Honestly, the fact that girls' bodies recognised other girls in the same house and synced to each other was creepy and he'd never understand it.)
I'm tired and this is unedited, so please forgive any grammatical errors.
Reviews are the eggs that you find in an Easter egg hunt, so I would like a lot of them please? Also, I wrote this mostly as a thank you for welcoming me to the Fandom, and I assure you I will never again get this many words out in one day (or week, or month most likely). I also have a long weekend at the moment and a million lots more time than usual.