This is probably going to be a series of short snap shots of Gaige, Angel, and all the other vault hunters interacting and growing closer. There won't be much of an overall plot and I'll just write them whenever I have the time and ideas. If you have ideas for some shenanigans the group could get up to, I would appreciate it if you could let me know in a review, a private message, or a message on tumblr (there's a link to my tumblr on my author profile page). Also if you have any ideas for a better title, please let me know, I'm terrible at them.
Angel glanced at the clock as Professor Tannis turned her back on the class to draw on the white board, suppressing the urge to start bouncing her leg as she watched the hands of the clock tick closer to the end of class. Her eyes flicked back to the board at the front of the room and she squinted, trying to focus on whatever chemical reaction they were learning about today. After a few seconds, she gave up and glanced down at her notes, which were covered in more doodles than usual. She let her eyes travel through the spirals she had scribbled in the margins of her notebook, a tight knot growing in her stomach. It was almost time for lunch again. Which meant another half an hour of sitting and eating by herself before trudging to her next class.
She couldn't figure out why her lack of friends was bothering her so much lately. Growing up, her father had switched jobs every few years, moving them from college town to college town as he rose through the ranks of administrators, which had made it difficult to build any lasting friendships.
Now that he was president of Pandora University, Angel guessed they wouldn't be moving for a while. Knowing that hadn't made making friends any easier, however. She was already shy to begin with and most of the students seemed to know that she was the daughter of the university president, which made her feel even more awkward.
So here she was, halfway through her first semester of college, friendless and dreading lonely meals in the cafeteria. It wasn't exactly how she'd hoped things would be going at this point. She should have known better. No one had been rude or mean to her because of her dad's position, but people were…careful around her. They didn't want to get on her or her dad's bad side.
The clock ticked off the last seconds of class, causing the students around her to begin packing up their belongings but Angel continued to stare at her notebook, in no hurry to get to the cafeteria and eat another meal by herself.
"Um, hello?" a voice asked next to her and Angel jumped, dropping her pen. She looked to her right and saw a girl standing a foot or so away, smiling at her hesitantly. The girl had red hair pulled into short pig tails on either side of her head and bright green eyes. When Angel didn't respond immediately, the girl's smile dropped somewhat and she pulled up the left sleeve of her oversized sweatshirt to reveal part of a prosthetic arm, her right hand beginning to fiddle with a small bolt on her robotic wrist. "Uh, are you at least going to say hi back?"
"Oh, right, yes, I'm sorry," Angel said quickly, sticking out her hand. "Hi. I'm Angel."
The girl's eyes lit up as her smile grew again, stepping forward and extending her right arm to shake Angel's hand. "I'm Gaige."
"Good to meet you, Gaige," Angel said. "Was there something you wanted from me?"
"Oh, uh, I guess I just wanted to ask…I mean I noticed that…look, I see you eating alone every day after class and you always look really sad so I just wanted to ask if you wanted to, like, sit with me and my friends at lunch today?"
Before Angel could open her mouth to respond, Gaige threw up her hands with an exasperated sigh. "Wait that probably sounded like I'm asking you out of pity or something, sorry. You seem really cool and I think we could maybe be friends or something, that's why I'm asking if you want to sit with me and my friends."
Angel's immediate instinct was to decline Gaige's offer. Sure, being lonely hurt sometimes, but being alone was familiar and comfortable. But another part of her was tired of sitting by herself. And a smaller, quieter part of her was intrigued by Gaige.
"I'd love to, Gaige, thank you," Angel said finally. She couldn't help but smile when Gaige immediately pumped her fist in the air.
"Sweet! Should we walk to the dining hall together then?"
"Yeah, just let me get my things…" Angel trailed off as she grabbed her notebook and pen and stuffed them in her bag. Once she was ready, Gaige bounced ahead of her to hold open the classroom door.
"Thanks," Angel said, laughing as Gaige bowed slightly and held her free arm out to direct Angel through the doorway.
"So, did you understand anything in today's lesson?" Gaige asked once they had set off down the hallway.
"Honestly, I wasn't really paying that close attention, so, no," Angel admitted.
"Ah, damn, that's too bad," Gaige said, jumping forward again to hold open the door to the street. "Half the time I have no idea what's going on in that class."
"Have you tried going to Professor Tannis' office hours to get help?"
Gaige laughed. "I did, once. But Tannis seemed pretty surprised that someone actually showed up to her office hours. And horrified. Actually, she kind of looked like she was going to throw up as soon as I started talking to her so I left as quickly as I could."
"Really? She seems to do all right teaching in front of a class."
"Yeah, I guess it's just the one on one stuff that's a problem for her. Which isn't so bad, our textbook is pretty good even if it is boring. I've mostly been able to figure things out by reading it after class."
"Maybe we could study together sometime," Angel suggested as they approached the building that housed the cafeteria. This time Angel stepped forward and held open the door before Gaige got the chance, causing Gaige to grin at her.
"That would be kick ass," Gaige said, walking over to the cubbies near the cafeteria entrance and depositing her backpack in one of them. Angel followed suit and they entered the dining hall together.
"Okay, let's get some food and then meet over there," Gaige said as she pointed to the area near the drink dispensers.
Angel nodded and they split up, meeting at the specified spot a few minutes later. As they got their drinks, Angel felt nervousness bubbling up in her stomach again, her grip tightening on the edges of her tray.
"Ready?" Gaige asked, frowning slightly when Angel hesitated. "Everything okay?"
"I just…I don't know if…" Angel sighed, her eyes dropping down to stare at the slice of pizza on her tray. "I'm not very good with people."
"Okay, um, how about this? We'll try sitting with my friends but if it gets too overwhelming we can go sit somewhere by ourselves." Gaige balanced her tray on her prosthetic forearm and reached over to squeeze Angel's shoulder with her other hand. "My friends are really cool, so they won't hold it against us if we leave. Well, they'll probably tease me, but you should be fine. Just don't pull a Tannis and throw up on them and everything should be fine, I promise."
Angel offered Gaige a weak smile. "Thanks. I'll let you know if I need to leave."
Gaige gave Angel's shoulder one final squeeze before nodding and leading the way to a table near the back of the seating area. As they approached the table, the people seated at it burst into laughter, allowing Angel and Gaige to find their seats with little fanfare.
"Hey, everybody!" Gaige all but yelled. "This is Angel. Angel, this is—"
"Wait, are you in Gaige's chem class?" a large, bearded man with a Band-Aid on his nose asked.
"Yes, she is," Gaige cut in before Angel could answer. "I'm trying to introduce her, Salvador, so be quiet."
Salvador burst into laughter and smacked the person sitting next to him on the arm. "Brick! Hey, Brick! You owe me five bucks."
Brick, a muscular man who was somehow even larger than Salvador, turned to look at Angel before also starting to laugh. "Ha ha, Gaige actually did it!"
Gaige, whose cheeks were turning slightly pink, spluttered out, "Brick, shut up, I'm trying to—"
The woman sitting next to Gaige, who had blue hair, pale skin, and tattoos spiraling up her right arm, turned to look at Angel. "Oh my god, you're the cute girl from Gaige's chem class, aren't you? Gaige has been talking about asking you to eat with us for the last week. I'm glad she finally did it."
Angel felt heat rising to her cheeks, opening and closing her mouth several times but at a loss for words. She glanced over at Gaige, who was now holding her face in her hands, her ears a bright, burning red.
"I'm Maya," the blue haired woman said. "I'll take over introductions, since Gaige seems to be a little too embarrassed to do it right now."
Gaige removed one hand from her face to shoot Maya the bird, causing everyone at the table to laugh.
"So that's Brick and Salvador," Maya said, pointing to the two men who had teased Gaige earlier, who were now engaged in an arm wrestling contest.
Maya gestured toward the two people sitting opposite Brick and Salvador. One was dressed in all black except for a red Pandora University baseball cap that had various emojis written on the bill in permanent marker. The other was wearing a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up to cover most of his face, his muscular physique obvious even through the bulky fabric. "That's Zero and Krieg."
She elbowed the thin man sitting on her other side, who had his arms folded on the table, his head resting on his forearms as he slept. Maya's nudge woke him and he lifted his head, blinking blearily and taking a sip from a thermos before falling back asleep. "This is Mordecai. I would recommend not asking to drink out of his thermos, I can guarantee he's got something a lot stronger than water in there.
"Roland, Lilith, and Axton aren't here right now, but they usually sit with us, too. Axton's at an ROTC meeting and Roland and Lilith are…"
"Gettin' a little afternoon delight!" Brick yelled as Salvador pulled his arms back while thrusting his hips forward repeatedly.
Maya laughed, shaking her head. "Anyway, that's all of us. And you're name's Angel, right? That's a really pretty name."
"Thank you. It's good to meet you all," Angel said, looking around the table with a small smile.
"Wait, what would Angel do on our pirate ship?" Brick asked.
Gaige finally lifted her head to give Brick a confused look. "What? Pirate ship?"
"It's what we were talking about before you two got here," Salvador explained. "If our friend group was on a pirate ship, who would have which job."
"Mordecai is the drunken lookout in the crow's nest," Maya said, elbowing Mordecai, who grunted but kept sleeping.
"Roland would be the captain, then, wouldn't he?" Krieg asked.
"Nah, I already called dibs on being captain," Brick said.
"You can't be captain, you'd resolve every conflict by punching someone," Salvador said, laughing as Brick punched him on the arm.
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Brick said indignantly, making Angel giggle and almost choke on her bite of food.
Maya, who had been scrolling through her phone for the past few seconds, looked up and said, "Hey, Brick, Professor Ellie sent out emails with our grades for those papers we handed in last week."
Brick took out his phone and tapped the screen several times before letting out a groan. "Aw man, I got another B."
"Why are you so sad/what upsets you about that/it is a fine grade," Zero said.
"Because I got Bs on my last three papers. And every time I've gone into office hours and tried to completely change how I wrote the papers and still I only get Bs."
"Just don't throw another manhole cover, bro," Salvador said.
Gaige started laughing through her bite of pizza and then caught sight of Angel's confused look, swallowing before explaining, "The last time he got a B on a paper he went on a run to try to calm himself down. But it only made him angrier so he ended up throwing a manhole cover across a street."
"I think campus security is still trying to figure out who did that," Maya said.
Brick grinned. "They'll never catch me alive."
Angel glanced at the clock on a nearby wall and all but jumped out of her seat. "Oh! I should leave or I'm going to be late for my next class. It was nice to meet you all, thank you so much for letting me sit with you."
"Can Gaige walk you there?" Maya asked, earning a glare from Gaige. "Oh, come on, you know you want to."
Gaige looked at Angel, who smiled and nodded, then stood and grabbed her tray. "Later, losers. I'll see you all at dinner."
Angel and Gaige made their way through the dining hall, depositing their trays at the cleaning station and retrieving their backpacks from outside the cafeteria.
"So where are we headed?" Gaige asked.
"Back to the science building. I have biology with Hammerlock next," Angel said.
"Sweet. How's Hammerlock as a professor? I've heard good things but I don't have his class until next semester."
"He's really good. Very enthusiastic. And I like his accent a lot, it makes listening to lectures more interesting."
"I heard he's got kind of a weird TA this semester. He goes by CT, which stands for…damn what was it?"
"Claptrap. But, yeah, he usually goes by CT. He's also very…enthusiastic. And talkative." Angel scrunched up her nose. "He hardly ever stops talking, actually."
Gaige laughed. "That's a cute face, you should make that one more often."
"Uh, thanks." Angel ducked her head, letting her hair fall over her face to try and hide her blush.
Gaige paused just inside the doors of the science building. "Um, which way are we going now? I don't actually know which classroom is Hammerlock's."
"Oh, it's down this hallway, but I think I can make it the rest of the way on my own. Thanks for inviting me to have lunch with you and your friends today, it was really fun," Angel said.
"I'm glad you had fun! You can sit with us whenever you want. And we definitely need to study together sometime."
"I'd love to have lunch with you all again. And studying together sounds great. Um," Angel darted forward and placed a soft kiss on Gaige's cheek. "Thanks again."
Gaige looked shocked for a few seconds, raising her hand to where Angel's lips had touched her face before grinning hugely.
"I'll see you later," Angel said, spinning around and hurrying down the hallway. She couldn't help but smile when she heard Gaige let out a loud whoop behind her.
P.S. I apologize for my terrible haiku.