Hex set his heavy backpack down on the first table he came to, on the top floor of the huge library within Egalitan, and flopped in a chair, books in a pile. He let out a breath, and dragged his backpack closer, hoping to get started on some of the new material Professor Lichtenbourg had given out- the reason his bag was so undeniably burdensome. It was a far cry from the mere notebook he'd taken to class in the first few weeks, notes all he needed as his books lay intermingled with his others on alchemy and finer studies in chemistry.
It also didn't help that the first test of the quarter was coming up- closed-note and long-answer. And that was specifically why he'd chosen the quietest area of the library, where discussions of the very alchemy he practiced disintegrated into dust from lack of use, and lack of care.
He dug around a moment in his bag, producing his notes, hastily scribbled in the messy, semi-coded shorthand he'd adopted, flipped open his books, and began.
That was really as far as he got, however, before a second dig in his bag to produce his CD player had him glancing up and pausing to mull over the figure currently sitting three rows down, at another table, slumped over as though he was sleeping. Hex's eyebrow rose, and he almost went back to his notes before he realized- or at least thought he realized- who it was.
Sticking his pen behind his ear and leaving his notes on the table, he padded over the nice, plush carpet and canted his head at the man currently using the table as a pillow.
"Um," he started. "It's... Roy, isn't it?"
The figure in question jerked his head up with a start, red eyed and hair mussed, looking as if he were either going to cry, scream, pull his hair out, or just find a corner to rock back and forth in, though the possibility of all four options was not entirely out of the question. He blinked, staring at the chimera blearily before rubbing a hand roughly down his face with a groan.
"Yeah, yeah... that's me..." he mumbled, seeming barely coherent. "What's up?"
Hex looked rather taken aback at the sight of Roy, but he ventured a concerned look. "I- uh... are you alright?"
"Ye-...no," he said, starting to nod, but quickly changing his mind to turn it in to a shake. He sighed heavily, slumping on the open books scattered about on his table haphazardly. His dark gaze shifted over them, a frown tugging on his lips, "I'm starting to think this coming to college thing so late in life was a really bad idea, honestly."
"Er..." Hex didn't really have a response to that, wondering what could be so bad to make this man look, well... rather pathetic. Finally, he hooked the leg of a chair with his foot and perched on the edge, picking the pencil from behind his ear before it slid away. "Um... do you need help?" he offered, a bit sheepishly.
"I..." he began, stopping to sit back and press his hand to his eyes for a moment, debating whether it was even worth it. "I'm... kind of behind. I wound up going out of town with some friends over the weekend, and we didn't get back until Monday morning. Chem was my first class, and I slept through the portion where we were getting the notes needed for this test coming up. I'm going to bomb it. I'm just no good at finding the information out myself, and... I really don't know anyone in that class, so I had no one I could ask for notes from."
Another sigh left him, and he tilted his head over the back of his chair, gazing at the ceiling as if it might have some answers for him.
"Everyone here is so young compared to me. The only people I have as friends are the ones I had before I even came here. Everyone looks at me like I'm some old jerk who's gonna treat them like the rest of the staff do." He blinked once, then turned his head to give a sheepish grin to Hex. "...Sorry. I'm just bitching. I shouldn't be dumping all of this on you. I don't even know you."
Hex seemed to consider for a moment, and finally smiled amusedly. "Wull, you weren't a jerk when I talked to you last. You... said chemistry? Oh, with Ms. Elbridge? She gives easy tests! Um... wait, I think, er... hang on."
He put up a finger and scrambled from his chair, headed back to his claimed table. For how very disorganized it seemed, he didn't even need to shuffle, just pulled out a thick notebook and grinned sheepishly as he ambled back over to the edge of Roy's table. "I think I still have my notes."
Sitting up to watch him, Roy had to smirk lightly at that. For all his whining, there had to be still some luck left in him for that to happen. He'd only met Hex a couple of times since the night at the club he'd saved him from Jana, but in that time he'd already figured out that he was a really nice guy, and knew that even more so now that he was so willing to help a poor fool like himself out.
"You sure this okay?" he asked, looking at the notebook, "You're here to study too, right? I don't want to cut into your time."
"Oh, er, well... my Ed 221 class isn't having the test for two days. And I kinda... wull, I study every couple days, anyway..." the chimera shrugged, flipping a few pages of his notebook and glancing over them before he finally settled on one, where he'd marked in bright highlighter.
"Er," he offered helpfully, looking at the pages of scribbled notes.
"Thanks," Roy smiled, taking the notebook. "You're really saving me here. I'll have to find a way to repay you."
Glancing at the page that Hex had opened up to, he went to read, only to realize that what was on the page was in shorthand. He had some experience with it, but he was not only rusty, it seemed that what was written there was done in an even messier form than he was used to.
"Um..." he mumbled, head tilting slightly, "...do... you write all your notes in shorthand?"
"Um," Hex repeated, looking slightly sheepish. "I, uh, yeah. Kinda. I guess I got into the habit- er. My sister always stole my notes and stuff because I'd get ahead of her in our research. She cracked my code, though," he added, a bit sulkily. "I had to code it and use shorthand so she wouldn't get at my stuff."
Research? he mentally echoed, but brushed the thought aside. He remembered the comment back at the club about them being home schooled, so he figured it had something to do with that. He nodded in understanding, but made a face.
"...I can't read it," he said, handing it back and closing his books. "But that's okay. I mean, you tried to help me. That's what counts, right? Thanks anyway."
Hex felt an idle sense of pride in his code- even if part of the problem was his own messy handwriting. But he still felt rather bad at having the means to help, even if they were a bit skewed. "Oh, no, here, um. It's okay. I can recopy the important parts," he offered, ripping out a few pages from the back of the notes and glancing over his messy handwriting again.
"..you're going to an awful lot of trouble for some guy you met in a club less than a month ago," Roy stated. A tad blunt, he knew, but he wasn't used to some one going so far out of their way for him.
An unlikely response came just then, at least for the chimera. Silence. His eyes scanned intently over his notes, lips moving silently as his brow wrinkled in thought. Several times, he had to pause, tapping his pencil on the new sheet of notes- still rather sloppy, but in longer hand- before he continued, only to stop again when he reached an offshoot of notes, and an idle comparison to the alchemy he'd studied ever since he was much younger. Occasionally, he smiled, amused at the side notes, but he didn't write them down, focusing only, as he'd said, on the most important parts. And sometimes, he'd even have to shift his hand to a new page, scribbling briefly and trying his method out with the knowledge he'd gained to prove it true.
Once or twice, he even slipped back into his standard code, though the shorthand remained unused, and had to scribble out a portion of writing before redoing it.
Having not received an answer, but seeing him work so intently, Roy had nothing to do for the time being but pick up one of the books for the class and read over some of the things he already knew would be on the test from previous classes. Every so often his eyes would travel over the top of the book, watching curiously, but looking back when he felt his gaze might have been lingering a bit too long.
It took less than the span of the original lecture to recopy the entirety of the notes- far less, in fact, until the fresh sheets were set in a pile consisting of only two pages and Hex fiddled idly with his pen. "I think that's everything. That was all from the one day, anyway," he offered.
Lowering the book and closing it, he took the notes and scanned them quickly, a grin spreading as he got to the end of the page.
"Wow... that's impressive! Thank you. You really are a life saver, Hex."
A faint blush spread across his nose, and he smiled and shrugged, obviously embarrassed. "Ah, it's not a big deal."
"No, seriously," Roy insisted, waving the notes a little, "If I failed this class... I don't know what I would have done. My major depends on it."
Hex chuckled softly. "Yeah, um... I had to borrow my sister's notes a few times. Not because I fell asleep in class," he offered hurriedly, and looked even more sheepish. "Sometimes, I can't even read my own writing. Or I go off on a tangent." His hand trailed idly, indicating his off-to-the-side notes, where he'd doodled equations and little pictures.
"I do that in English," Roy admitted, giving his own chuckle, "I can't help it. I've just never been much for the class, but I have to get my required credits."
He took another look at the rewritten notes, but his eyes traveled to some familiar shapes 'doodled' in the note book. His head did a very slight cant, and he pointed, asking politely, "Uh, can I see that again?"
"Huh? Oh, this? Er... it's really nothing," Hex replied quickly, but let Roy take a look anyway. "Just... something random I made up."
He slid the notebook in to his line of vision, eyes narrowing briefly and lips moving much as Hex's had been earlier, a finger tracing along them.
"...that's not random," he stated in a low voice, dropping to the whisper that they should have been speaking in all along.
"What do you mean?" Hex asked lowly, an edge of nervousness to his voice. "It's... just shapes," he added, rather weakly. "I draw them, sometimes. Boredom."
"No," Roy said, though he was grinning. Grinning almost maniacally, like he'd just found the Lost City of Atlantis, and it was all his for the taking. A soft, hushed laugh escaped him, and he leaned back in his seat, folding his hands on his chest, one finger pointing at Hex, a knowing light in his eyes. "You're an alchemist."
Hex stared at him. It seemed several seconds had passed, as his mouth had gone dry, before he could speak. But what came out wasn't really what he'd first thought. Alchemy, accepted though it was, had come under occult standing, those said to practice it falling under something to rival that of devil-worshipers, nearly. Hex himself had even heard rumors of those who practiced alchemy having given up their souls, or some such thing. It was why he was careful, and for a moment, had feared Roy knowing. But after those few seconds, his eyebrows nearly shot to his hairline. No one else could have figured that something like that could be more than an idle fiddling of lines. No one but he who considered himself-
"An alchemist," Hex breathed. "You're an alchemist!"
"Yeah," he drawled slowly, shaking his head in the same easy manner, "and I can't believe I didn't see it sooner. I mean, honestly I was trying not to make any assumptions based on looks alone... but geez!" he said in a hushed, excited whisper, sitting back up again and leaning on the table, nearly acting like a little kid who'd just found the Christmas presents early. "You're a true alchemist! I didn't think I was going to meet anyone else who was!"
"I'd heard of alchemists, recently, but none that lived in the city," Hex returned, a bit of Roy's excitement rubbing off on him. He grinned. "I thought alchemy had all been shunted off to the archives to gather dust, since chemistry and science had taken the forefront. Wow. My dad and Ana, and now you."
"Your sister, too?" he asked, blinking in disbelief. His head was spinning, and he almost wanted to pinch himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming. All of those years studying with a book under his blanket and a flashlight, lying to his dad that he had nothing to do with 'such nonsense', only to finally find a place where he wasn't the only one interested in the art of alchemy.
And he was grinning again, like the expression just wouldn't go away if he tried. More than that, he was really, really happy, probably the happiest he'd been in ages.
"Yeah!" Hex chirped, a bit overloud for the quiet library, before his voice dropped again. "My dad got us into it, but we learned a lot more than he could ever teach us. I got really good at earth-based transmutations, and Ana's awesome with plants, but I think we got as much as we could out of the books we managed to grab from the library. What do you specialize in?"
"Heh. Fire," Roy answered simply, scratching at the back of his head as the grin turned kiddish again. "I'm not a pyromaniac or anything, I just happen to know how to work with that best. In fact my major is in engineering with a focus on pyrotechnics, though I'm not allowed to use alchemy for it, obviously."
"Wow! What's your array look like?" Hex asked, scooting his chair around the edge of the table to get closer. "Did you use one you found, or did you alter it? Or did you develop one yourself? What do you use as the catalyst? What gases do you manipulate to keep the flame burning? Or, uh, do you do that? What's the basis of your research?"
It was a bit hard to keep up with him, once he started rambling, but a few nods later Roy was able to answer, digging in his pockets just before Hex finished.
He held out a silver Zippo lighter then, showing an engraved red array on the front of it, shining in the low light of the library, "I made my own array, using symbols for fire, air, and water, and the flint of the lighter is the catalyst. Here, you can tell there's no fuel in it," he added, handing the object to Hex for him to check over. "The array manipulates the oxygen in the air to keep the fire going, and I can use carbon dioxide to make it go out again. It's actually pretty simple, but it took me forever to figure out what I could put the array on to have it handy all the time. An old friend suggested the Zippo about two, three years ago."
It was a very impressive array, Hex had to admit. Flashy looking, and probably quite powerful, even though his own knowledge of fire alchemy was little to none. "That's so cool!" He turned the lighter over in his hands, but didn't risk flicking the flint like he wanted to. He didn't want to risk starting a fire with as little control as he knew he would have.
Another stupid-goofy grin, and Roy took the lighter back, the familiar weight in his hand a strange comfort, like a reminder that what was happening was real, and that he'd not only made a friend, but a huge connection that he was sure he was never going to get.
"So you said you're in to earth alchemy? Anything specific?"
"Defense, mostly," Hex admitted. "My sister and I turned our backyard into a... battlefield on more than one occasion. Her alchemy is still more defensive than mine, but she's also close range. Mine's long-range. We... well, after-" he trailed off, then started again. "Our styles are so different that between both of us, we can do a little bit of everything."
Listening, he nodded slowly, saying nothing at first as he seemed to mull something over in his mind.
"...would you mind me asking..." he said softly, hesitantly, "Would you mind me asking about how that happened?"
Though he made no gesture to Hex himself, it was obvious what he was inquiring about, and it was just as apparent that he was concerned he might be out of line for doing so. Still, they'd opened up that far to one another, he could only hope that another little push in to a personal subject wouldn't send the chimera running from him in anger.
Anger was hardly the word for it. If anything, it was simply sadness that shifted Hex's features, and caused him to glance away before he finally shook his head.
"It... it was actually... my fault," he admitted. "I don't know what went wrong, but it- it did. My sister- she watched me do it. She was the one that saved me."
He could find nothing to say after that, his mouth hanging open slightly in surprise. He could have guessed a million times as to what had happened to make him that way, and he wouldn't even have gotten close. The more he learned, the more surprised he found himself about the two of them. Ana seemed perfectly normal for someone who had seen such a thing, and Roy had heard enough horror stories of the aftermath of accidental human transmutation to wager some idea what it might have been like for her; Hex, for all his extra attachments, was just as much a young adult as anyone else in the university.
'I'm sorry' almost made it past his lips, but he clammed up before the words could fall. Even if he rightfully had something to say that to, he was sure Hex was probably far beyond tired of hearing it.
Still, the silence was unnerving, and he was fumbling mentally for words to say to fill the gap. A save came out of left field, though, when the mousy assistant librarian tapped a pencil on the staircase leading up to that area.
"We're closing," she said to the two of them. "Are you the only ones up here?"
"Y-yeah, I think so," Roy stammered, just a hint of red appearing on the bridge of his nose, though for what reason he couldn't figure out.
"It's that late?" Hex squeaked, obviously just as embarrassed for staying so long. "Ah, and I forgot to study," he groaned, slumping against the edge of the table. "I'll have to do it tomorrow."
The librarian cleared her throat, and Hex jumped, standing. "Uh, oh, sorry," he offered hurriedly, rushing to grab his bag and leftover books. "Guess we should go."
Numbly, Roy nodded. The spinning in his head was still there, those last bits of what had been an uneventful night still so unexpected. He gathered his books up quietly, taking care to put the hand written notes in the top most text that he needed. It was going to be a late night, going over them, and that was only if he could concentrate and get his mind off of their conversation. He wondered how the hell he could be so elated yet... nervous at the same time, and nervous over what he couldn't even answer.
They left the library together, waving good night to the assistant as they exited out in to the dim night.
"Thanks, again." He finally spoke, finding his voice somewhere amongst his thoughts. "I might be able to figure out this college thing after all."
"It's not so bad," Hex replied, and smiled, showing that his canines were only slightly longer than his other teeth. "Once you get used to it."
A few steps had him slowing, and stopping, his way diverted to a different section of the Quad. "Hey, listen. We should trade notes sometime," he offered, and grinned, just slightly. "That is... if you write yours in code."
The grin was returned, and he gave a one-armed shrug, the other arm occupied with books.
"Kinda had to," he said, though gave nothing further of an explanation. "If I pass this test, I think I'd like to try that."
Hex just smiled, backing up a bit, to the light at the front of Flannery Hall. "So," he said, a few paces away, and quiet, though there was no one out so late. "Mister Alchemist... what should I call you?"
Roy blinked, scratching just beneath his ear, a little confused at first about the question. Then he grinned, the same one he had earlier, the one that made him look so much like a happy little boy.
"Flame," he said, chuckling softly. "And what about you? Surely you've got a name, too."
Hex paused, his smile fading only slightly, to become something akin to a wistful thought. "Dragon. That's me."