Author's Note: This is co-written with a friend of mine: OathKeeper on ArchiveOfOurOwn.

Chapter 1

Abel

It all started on a Tuesday.

To be honest, the Tuesday wasn't even that special. It was the fall semester of my sophomore year, I had just aced my Astronomy quiz, studied for an astrophysics test, and was now eating lunch with my roommate, Ethos. As we ate, though, I checked my e-mail, and had a message from earlier that morning from the dean of my school to visit him after my classes were done. Just that. No other explanation.

"Weird." I muttered, clicking the reply button.

"What's weird?" asked Ethos as he nibbled on a french fry.

"Oh, the dean just wants me to come see him at four."

"Did you get in trouble again?" he mocked, forcing me to smile slightly.

"Very funny." I said, and quickly typed a reply to the dean: 'I will be there, but what is it we need to meet for?'

"Could it be about the party we had last weekend?" Ethos exclaimed worriedly.

"There's never been a problem before…" I responded, "Plus, the police didn't even show up that time. And it was over at Delta Chi, so why would he want to see me about it?"

"Oh, you're right…" he murmured, sipping his Pepsi thoughtfully.

Looking back down at my laptop screen, I noticed that the dean had already replied back to me: 'Thank you, sorry for the short notice. I will explain when we meet.'

I gave a heavy sigh, and closed the laptop.

Despite Ethos' paranoia, I wasn't worried at all about being asked to go and meet with the dean. I had been there multiple times, all for respectable reasons, and I was even on the dean's list of top students, so there was no doubt in my mind that this meeting was for some good news.

But, as I arrived outside his office door at precisely 4pm, just as he asked, and heard screams coming from within, I suddenly felt butterflies in my stomach. Was there something wrong with my transcript? Had I accidentally broken a rule? Did something happen between fraternities? My head suddenly felt light, so I sat down on the wooden bench right next to the door, waiting to be called in.

It wasn't even a minute later that the door swung open, and a guy, definitely a student, stormed out. I let out a soft yelp of surprise, and he looked down at me.

"What the hell did you do wrong, Princess?" he mocked. It took me a moment to realize that 'princess' was his way of addressing me.

"Uh… I'm not…"

"Cain, don't be rude," scolded the dean as he joined us out in the hallway, "after all, Abel here is the one who's going to be your peer mentor." Angrily, Cain did a double take at me, and glared back at the dean.

"I told you, Bering, I don't need any of this 'mentoring' bullshit!"

"Calm down, Cain," Mr. Bering commanded. Crossing his arms, Cain kept quiet. "Now, listen here. Your parents left me in charge of helping you here, and that's what I am trying to do."

"I don't need any goddamn mentoring though," Cain grumbled.

"Perhaps not in the subjects you like, no, but in others…"

"Math is fucking stupid and I don't even need it!"

"Yes, you do, Cain!" Bering scolded, "Every class you take here has a purpose. And you should do well in all your classes, even the ones you don't particularly like. In addition, you need to work on your study habits."

"I don't need to fucking study-"

"Then why did you get a C on your Engineering 101 exam when you very well know you could have gotten an A?"

"Wait, you're an Engineering major?" I asked. The two dark-haired men looked over at me, almost as if they had forgotten that I was there.

"Yeah, what of it?" barked Cain. The dean adjusted his tie.

"I'm sorry about that, Abel," he apologized, "I neglected to inform you about what I needed you for."

"Tutoring, right?" I replied, "At least, that's what I got out of your… conversation."

"Yes, you see, Cain here needs a tutor to help him, since he is failing half of his classes."

"Zatknis' ad!" Cain shouted in a different language. Mr. Bering furrowed his eyebrows.

"Language, Cain."

"Look, Princess," Cain growled, turning towards me. "I don't need any help from a nerd like you, okay? You're probably one of Bering's best or something, but believe me when I say that I'm not paying for any of your bullshit 'tutoring', okay?"

"Fine, I'll do it for free," I replied bluntly. Both Cain and the dean gave a look of surprise.

"Are you sure, Abel?" Mr. Bering asked, "I can certainly pay a small fee for you to help Cain, since you don't even have a job or anything right now…"

"It's fine, Dean Bering," I replied, "You and I both know that I get free tuition anyways since my father's a professor here, so tutoring for free is fine with me."

"Listen, you little shit…" Cain threatened, "I don't know who you think you are, but-"

"Cain," interrupted Mr. Bering, "don't be rude." After a moment, Cain finally backed off, an expression of anger still on his face, and stormed off down the hallway in defeat.

"I'll meet you in the library tomorrow at three!" I shouted towards him triumphantly.

I'm pretty sure he flipped me off.

"What did Sigmund Freud do?" I asked. Ethos, who was laying sprawled across a couch, let out a long groan and covered his face with a pillow.

"Was he the one who wrote 'The Interpretation of Dreams?'" his voice was muffled by the stuffed fabric.

"Yes!" I exclaimed. "What was it about?"

"Uhh…" he pondered, staring up at the ceiling, "...was it… psychodynamics?"

"Close," I replied, "psychoanalysis."

"Oh yeah!" he exclaimed, perking up off the couch. "It was the first book published in the 20th century, right?"

"Right! Now what is psychoanalysis?" I asked, putting the flash cards down to look at him.

"It's the study of dreams and the subconscious mind."

"Correct!" I said triumphantly. "And that was the last one." With a big grin, Ethos stretched on the couch and yawned.

"Finally!" he replied, "I thought we'd never get through all of those flashcards."

"Well, considering you made 97 of them…" I muttered, earning a chuckle from Ethos.

"And thank you for helping me with every single one of them."

"It's no big deal," I responded.

And really, it wasn't a big deal. Ethos and I always studied together. Almost every night, we would get together in the lounge of our chapter house, help each other with whatever homework needed getting done, and afterwards we would reward ourselves with video games and, sometimes, pizza.

"Which reminds me," he said, putting all his study materials back into his backpack, "what did the dean want to meet with you for?" I could almost feel a headache coming on at the memory of it.

"Ugh, well, it's uhh…" I stuttered, "...it was very…interesting."

"How so?" he asked, leaning in closer to hear.

Reluctantly, and with a tone of disgust, I told him about Cain, about his nasty attitude, and about how Dean Bering was putting me up to the task to try and tutor someone who obviously didn't want to even be tutored in the first place. I imagined it would probably be like trying to give a kid nasty medicine; Cain would probably do everything in his power to make sure I didn't help him.

"I mean, what if he even starts to resort to violence or something?" I wondered, my headache intensifying. Ethos giggled a little.

"I don't think anybody could ever hurt you, Abel."

"Well, when it comes to this guy, I'm just not so sure…" I muttered.

And it was true, I had no clue what was in store for me.

The next morning, it was surprisingly tougher than usual to get out of bed. I woke up groggily, my dreams being interrupted not only by my blaring alarm clock, but also by the sound of Ethos' incredible snoring coming from the top bunk. The 7am light was peeking in through the blinds of our window, and I was pretty sure I could hear the frat across the street blaring some god-awful bagpipe music, as was per their normal Wednesday-morning routine. And, to top it all off, the first thing that came to my mind was the reminder that I would have to deal with Cain and his attitude again today.

I wished to all the gods in the universe that I could just crawl into a hole somewhere and die.

Mustering up all the strength I could, I slid out of bed, ate some cereal, got dressed, and left so I could be on time to my eight-o'clock class.

Throughout the rest of the day, though, as the time drew closer and closer to 3pm, I could feel my anxiety growing. There was no way at all of knowing how Cain would treat the situation. If anything, I assumed he would probably just not show up. It seemed like the most likely scenario, considering I had no way of contacting him if he decided not to meet with me. And in the end, it was the hope of him not coming that gave me enough courage to go to the library and wait.

Sure enough, when I got to the main study area, filled with tables and students typing madly away at their computers and others pouring over their notes, Cain was nowhere to be found. I had, however, arrived a few minutes early, so I picked my favorite table, set my things down, and opened my laptop to pass the time.

As I continued to type away at my computer, though, the minutes only kept passing; 3:05, 3:10, 3:15, 3:20. By then, I knew that my prediction had come true. I gave a heavy sigh, filled with a mixture of relief and disappointment, and began packing up my things.

However, just as I was about to close my computer, someone sat down across from me at the table. Looking up, I knew immediately it was Cain. He rested his combat boots up on the tabletop, and gave a mischievous smirk.

"You're late," I said, glaring at him slightly. He snorted and put his hands behind his head and balancing his chair on the back two legs.

"You're lucky I came at all, Princess," he said with a slight snarl. I stared at him.

"Don't call me 'Princess.'" He put his chair back on all fours and removed his feet from the table. Leaning close to me, he smirked, making eye contact. I could smell whatever cologne he might have been wearing (Or not wearing. He might have just smelled that way all the time.), along with a faint scent of cigarettes.

"I will call you whatever I want to... Goldilocks," he retorted. We stared at each other before I shook my head slightly and mumbled obscenities under my breath. He sat back in his chair, slumping down and stretching his legs out under the table. I felt one of his boots graze the side of my calf and sat up straighter, tucking my feet under my chair. Shutting my computer, I looked at the expanse of table in front of him, furrowing my eyebrows.

"Where're your class materials?" I asked, noticing that he hadn't brought anything but himself to the table, and barely that.

"Didn't think they'd be important," he said with a shrug.

I lifted a hand to my temple and massaged it slightly, closing my eyes. It had been no more that five minutes since he had sat down at the table and I was already feeling a migraine coming on. This was not going to be fun. Letting out a long sigh, I pushed myself away from the table and stood up.

"Don't even think about going anywhere," I said, pointing at him. He raised his hands up in surrender and made an innocent face. Well, as close to innocent as he could get.

"Wouldn't dream of it, Sweetcheeks," he said, grinning. I sighed again and strode over to the computer lab in the corner of the library.

Logging into my e-mail account, I clicked open a message from Dean Bering, thankful that he had sent me a couple of Cain's assignment. Opening the documents, I printed out two copies of each. The bastard better be grateful I have a ridiculous amount of printing credits, I thought to myself. Grabbing the warm papers off the printer, I walked back to the table. Sitting down, I slid one of the papers over to him and smiled sweetly.

"This is your Chemistry 167 lab report worksheet. We're going to work on this first," I said. He scowled at the paper on the table and didn't make a move to touch, let alone read, it. I raised my eyebrows at him. "Would you like a pencil?" He glared at me.

"No. I'm going to write with my fucking blood. Yes, dumbass, I would like a pencil."

I felt his eyes watching me as I leaned down to reach into my bookbag. Unzipping one of the pockets, I pulled out a mechanical pencil. Sitting back up in the chair, I rolled the pencil across the table to him. He stopped it and held it between his fingers. I watched as his eyes skimmed over the paper. I don't believe that he actually read it, but remained silent as he started writing notes in the margins. As he was obviously engrossed in the worksheet, I opened my computer again and resumed working on my research paper for Astronomy.

Ten minutes later, he slammed the pencil down on the table and pushed the paper toward me before leaning back in his seat. I looked up from my computer and shut the lid half way. Pushing it aside, I picked up the lab report. I glanced over the notes he made and read through his analysis of the data he obtained. Having taken the same class the previous year, I knew what the correct answers should be, and everything he had written was spot on. Though his handwriting was sloppy and uneven, I read through the entire three pages. When I was done, I looked at him. He greeted me with a lopsided grin.

"I told you I didn't need a fucking tutor," he retorted, crossing his arms over his chest. I put the paper down and looked at him.

"It seems as though you're just not going to your full potential," I said. He shrugged.

"Frankly, I don't give a rats ass about most of the classes."

"Well, maybe you should start," I replied bluntly.

"And if I don't?" He retorted.

"Then you'll just have to come see me more often, and I know for a fact that neither of us wants that."

"Are you so sure about that, Princess?" he grinned, raising an eyebrow. I felt my cheeks heat up a little at the question, and quickly turned to look away.

"Just… just do the next worksheet," I mumbled, sliding another piece of paper over to him.

Several days passed, and Saturday finally arrived. For me, the end of the week had been much anticipated, considering I had insisted on tutoring Cain all through Wednesday and Friday, all on top of juggling my own classes.

In reality, it wasn't even the tutoring part that was exhausting for me, but rather the struggle with how to approach improving Cain's grades. Sure, forcing him to do his worksheets right in front of me was effective, but things like that could only make a small dent in his overall class grades. There were labs he had to go to, nighttime exams he had to attend, online quizzes to take, and I would bet my virginity that he wasn't doing any of them.

So, in other words, I had to give him an incentive to care.

"Well fuck me," I muttered. Ethos gave me a confused look.

"What was that, Abel?" he questioned. I froze, realizing that I had accidentally said that out loud.

"Oh, nothing, never mind!" I exclaimed, waving my hands. He and I were supposed to be finishing our online math homework, but I had somehow gotten sidetracked and had only 2 problems finished. I gave a heavy sigh.

"Abel, what did you get for number thirteen?" Ethos asked me. I shook my head in defeat.

"I'm sorry, I'm not even past three yet," I admitted, earning a chuckle from him.

"To be honest, I'm not surprised. You have been daydreaming a lot recently, and it's hard to concentrate with all that loud music coming from Alpha Kappa anyways."

Once I realized all the racket coming from next door, it then became nearly impossible for me to finish my homework. At first, I tried ignoring it, but nearly every other minute we could hear shouts and whoops coming from outside, then a constant shuddering under our feet from the heavy bass, and finally, when I heard something shatter, it became the last straw.

Shutting my laptop closed with a highly audible 'click', I got up and put on my hoodie and converse.

"Where are you going?" asked Ethos worriedly.

"Just next door to ask the Alpha Kappa guys if they can tone it down a little bit."

"Do you think they will?"

"Probably not, but if I threaten to call the police to end their little get-together, then I'm sure they'd be reasonable," I replied, and headed outside.

In just the thirty seconds that it took for me to get from Beta Omega to the front door of the Alpha Kappa house, I already knew that it was a huge party. I saw people from nearly every single one of the forty-something fraternities and sororities that belonged to the university there, and I was certain nearly every one of them was drunk off their ass. But what could you do? It was a Saturday night in Greek land.

After finally managing to weave my way through the multitude of unsteady bodies, I politely rang the doorbell, hoping someone would be able to hear me. But alas, after several long, awkward moments, I simply let myself in.

I wandered around, intending on confronting the first Alpha Kappa I fixed my eyes on, but with no luck. As I turned a corner into the kitchen, though, I was suddenly bumped into by a frat boy who reeked of alcohol. When I looked up to see who it was, though, I had to do a double take.

"Cain?" I asked, surprised. He grinned and leaned against the doorframe, an unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth.

"Evening, Princess."