Timeline note: Set in between Oozma Kappa's field trip and the start of the "rest of the Scare Games" montage.
Special thanks: To Cytisinth for helping me figure out how my story fits into canon.
Terri woke to a rude, very painful hit to the temple.
"Will you stay awake already? You're making me drowsy!"
He rubbed his abused head a little, glaring at his brother against the light of the bright reading lamp. "Ow, Terry, what the heck! Stop damaging us! And bear with it, it's not like you'll actually fall asleep!"
"One," his brother grumbled at him, "it's very bad for my concentration. Two, it's really no fair for you to doze off when I'm still struggling with this."
"You're the English major!" Terri protested. "I don't have anything to do with that stuff!" He thought he had made it a point to sleep through most of those classes.
"Thanks for the support," Terry muttered dryly and tossed him a textbook. "Here, you can quiz me on historical periods. Sorry, Squishy," he called over his shoulder. "Can you keep up with us for, say, another half hour?"
"Keep up with you, you mean," Terri sulked. It was not his fault they had been forced to pick different majors. Things would have been a lot easier if they both had to learn the same stuff.
When there was no response from the direction of the bunk-bed, they simultaneously turned their heads to have a look – which, naturally, resulted in them bumping horns in the middle. Ouch. You would think that after two decades, they would have learned to go the other way.
There was not much to see anyway. Neither the light nor the noise seemed to bother Squishy who was sleeping soundly in the lower bunk, snoring softly and clutching his security blanket tight to himself for warmth.
Terri smiled at him, then tried his best to suppress a grin when he noticed his brother smiling as well. Softy.
They turned around again, both minding the horns, and went back to the task at hand. Against his own better judgment, Terri picked up the offered book and idly flipped through the pages. "Really, I don't get you. If you'd just gotten started on this a little earlier, you'd ace tomorrow's test. It's not like you to let it come to this."
Terry rolled his eye at him without looking up from another book. "Yeah, well, between your dance lessons and Mike's crazy training sessions, I really couldn't find the energy."
True, that. The scare training was immensely demanding. "You gotta admit it's pretty effective, though," he mused out loud.
"Yeah, but it does make holding a book a little awkward," Terry quipped.
Terri chuckled at a vivid mental image of his brother accidentally throwing the book at Art's face and all their friends going down like dominoes. "Right, gotcha. Any specific period you need a refresher on?"
Terry shrugged. "How about Elizabethan?"
Terri blinked at him. "I thought you had trouble with Postmodernism?"
"Nope, finished that up last night." Terry sighed. "Were you sleeping again?"
"You should have noticed!" Terri snapped. "And it was night! Of course I was sleeping!"
"You mean like I was?" Terry deadpanned.
…well, not exactly. "Whatever, this is your fault!"
"No, it's not!" Terry protested crossly. "And it's not like you're making it any easier!"
"It's not my job to make it easy!"
"Neither is it your job to make it hard!"
"Why are you two fighting again?"
They both whipped their heads around at the unexpected sound, which meant, of course…
"Ouch!"
Squishy chuckled at them from right behind their chair. "Get that under control, guys."
Damn him and his sneaking up on people. Never failed to surprise them. How he had managed to even drag his blanket with him completely soundlessly would probably have impressed every single attendee of Stealth 101.
"Sorry, Squish," Terry mumbled, rubbing his cheek where his brother's horn had stabbed him. He turned their body around to him all the way, leaving Terri no choice but to join in on the movement. "We didn't mean to wake you. We'll try and keep it down."
Squishy blinked all his eyes at him. "But then you'll still be fighting."
"We'll be fine," Terri assured him, still clutching the top of his own head. "We're just having a slight disagreement about who picked what major."
Squishy frowned. "Well, you're both doing two, right?"
"No way!" Terri exclaimed. Why did everyone think that? "This stuff is worse than can construction, he can do that on his own!"
Squishy seemed to ponder that for a moment. "But he learns your dance moves, doesn't he?" he finally pointed out.
Terri blinked. "Well, yeah, but only because he doesn't want me to injure him."
He could feel his brother preparing to protest, but they were interrupted by a loud sneeze reaching them from the adjacent room, followed by a moment of silence and, sure enough, a pair of very angry voices.
All three of them broke into matching grins.
"I say Mike should claim the top bunk already before he chokes on Sul's fur!" Terri chuckled.
"Can't reach it," Terry quipped.
Squishy burst into a fit of giggles at that remark. "Maybe we should consider changing the sleeping arrangements?" he finally suggested.
"Nope," Terry retorted smugly. "We're not going easy on them."
"Yeah," Terri agreed. "They're family now, might as well learn to get along."
He felt both their cheeks heating when Squishy gave them a look.
"Yeah, yeah, we get your point, go back to sleep," Terry grumbled.
"Night, guys," Squishy smiled at them. "Terry, stop worrying, you'll do fine tomorrow."
Terry sighed. "Wish I had your confidence," he muttered darkly.
"And who knows," Squishy continued brightly. "If Mike's plan works out, maybe the test won't even matter anymore!"
Somewhat solemnly, they watched him wrap his blanket around his shoulders and skip back to bed in high spirits. Terri just hoped Squishy had not gotten his hopes up too much on that one.
They turned around to the desk again, and with another sigh, Terry picked up a pencil and started taking notes on something in his book. He did not seem to notice when his brother shot him a look.
Squishy had a point, right? Terry did learn the dance moves. Sure, that was self-preservation, but Terri had to admit that it was also extremely helpful. There probably was no way he could have gotten any part of the choreographies right if the other half of his body had not cooperated. It was not really fair of him to not return the favor, was it? Especially because there was no way Terry could sleep through his classes.
Slowly, he picked up the book again. "So… about that quiz?"
Terry turned his head to look at him, surprised. "I thought you'd fallen asleep again."
"You'd have felt that," Terri reminded him while searching the table of contents for the Elizabethan era.
"…right," Terry agreed, then smiled a little. "Well, bring it."
Having found the chapter, Terri opened the book to the right page. And hesitated.
His twin frowned at him. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
"Hey, Terry?"
"What?"
Terri fixed his gaze on a very interesting-looking dent in the desk. "What would you do if I tried not to sleep through your classes anymore?"
He felt Terry study him for a moment. "Concentrate," he finally offered.
Terri snorted in laughter. When he looked up at his twin's face, he was kind of relieved to find the familiar lopsided grin there. "I mean seriously!"
The sparkle never left Terry's eye. "Seriously? Well, I'd try to do the same for you."
Terri scowled at him for a moment, then proceeded to hit him with the textbook. A decision he regretted immediately, as searing pain blinded his vision for a moment, but it had still felt good.
To people who think I should have "monsterised" the periods: I did that, actually, then realised it sounded just plain silly, either like overdoing monster stuff just for the heck of it or trying to avoid a subject I was unfamiliar with (which I am, but that's beside the point). But as they're throwing around human country names and stereotypes in the first movie and Mike has even proven familiar with Greek mythology, I don't see any reason why Terry shouldn't be learning about human literary periods. By the way, I didn't make up his major, I got it from the official MU website.