AA: let me know how things go!
TA: ii already know iit'2 goiing two be awful.
It would be a grave understatement to say that Sollux Captor was upset about his recent move. He was upset when Mituna ate the last piece of pizza. He was upset when he got a bad grade on a test. This was far more drastic than either of those things. This uprooted his entire life partway through his junior year of high school, more or less on his father's whims.
Sure, it could be argued that the job offer his father got in this new city would pay better and make him happier. It could be argued that a new start after Mituna's accident would be good for all of them anyway. And that was the way Simon Captor was choosing to spin it. But Sollux had a lingering suspicion that there were other reasons. The timing of it all would make anyone suspicious, he thought. The move had been announced barely a month after Sollux had come out as bisexual. And then his father had proceeded to enroll him in a Catholic school, while allowing Mituna to continue to attend public school under the excuse that they had better special ed services.
At the moment, it felt like messaging Aradia was the only thing keeping him sane. Sollux had a slew of various acquaintances back at his old school, but only two really close friends. Aradia and Karkat. Leaving them was the worst part of the move. Not to mention how he'd been the one holding the three of them together. It was dubious whether Aradia and Karkat would even continue to hang out without Sollux there.
He was abruptly snapped out of these thoughts by his father's increasingly irritated tone of voice, leading him to wonder how long he'd been sitting there.
"Just get out of the damn car, Sollux, please." Right. They'd been parked near his new school for about five minutes, and the Gemini was still just sitting in the passenger's seat, staring blankly out the window. The new house was within walking distance of the school, and some solitude might've done him some good before having to face the day, but his father had insisted on driving him to make sure he didn't just ditch.
Running his slim fingers through his hair and shoving his phone in his pocket, Sollux grabbed his backpack and got out of the car, slamming the door purposefully behind him. It was childish, yes, but he was intent on expressing his displeasure every possible way he could.
Even as he walked inside, tugging self-consciously at his required white button-down shirt, it became increasingly obvious that Catholic school was a unique experience. He'd never seen so many religious items together outside of an actual church, for one. Another, more pleasant thing was how much smaller and easier to navigate the building was.
Periodically checking for new texts from one of his friends, Sollux easily found his locker and started shoving stuff into it. Every other group of students who walked past made some kind of comment to the effect of "Is that the new kid?" Clearly fresh meat was big news here.
His morning classes were entirely uneventful, not all that different from at his old school. Sollux thought he saw someone staring at him, a girl with shockingly red hair and glasses to match, but simply shrugged it off, convincing himself that he'd imagined it. Besides that, nothing until lunch really caught his attention.
CA was Sollux's best online friend, and was therefore the perfect candidate for a distraction. They never shared much about their personal lives, so he wouldn't be prying about how the day was going like Aradia or Karkat would.
TA: ii'm haviing 2uch a 2hiitty day.
CA: neww towwn losing its appeal already?
How could he even answer that without revealing why he'd moved? Sollux had no idea how old CA was, and the reverse was also true. If he had to guess though, he'd say that the other was probably at least in college, so learning that Sollux was still a junior in high school might not exactly be welcome.
TA: iit never had any appeal iin the fiir2t place...
TA: diidn't you 2ay that you liive around here though?
CA: yeah, i did. wwho knowws, wwe might run into each other at some point and not evven knoww.
TA: ii gue22 that make2 leaviing the hou2e a liittle more exciitiing.
TA: the thought of fiinally 2eeiing the face of the my2teriiou2 caliigula2aquariium...2woon.
CA: i could say the same about you. maybe wwe can set something up.
CA: i gotta go for noww though. i'll talk to you later 3
TA: yeah, ii 2hould probably go too. 3
He wasn't really sure when they'd started sending hearts with their goodbyes, but it was oddly comforting. It didn't exactly help with Sollux's crush on CA either. Even with the minimal amount of personal information he knew, something about him and the dynamic between them was just perfect. They still argued sometimes, but a lot less than when they first met. Back then, they could hardly have a conversation without it devolving into some kind of petty argument.
Starting to really hear all the cafeteria noise he'd been tuning out before, Sollux sighed and threw away what was left of his lunch. He'd wasted a good portion of the time talking to CA, since his responses weren't the quickest. Before he could even decide if he had time to do anything else, the bell rang, answering his question for him.
History was his last class of the day, and after the utterly boring day he'd had so far, Sollux wasn't expecting much when he was asked to come early and talk with the teacher. But perhaps he was wrong...He froze in the doorway, just staring blankly at the man who must be the Ampora, E. that was listed as his History teacher on his schedule. He looked fairly young, perhaps mid to late twenties, and practically like he could be a model instead of a teacher. The man pushed his glasses a little higher on his nose and glanced over at Sollux, smiling knowingly.
The moment was disrupted by someone shoving Sollux into the room, causing him to stumble forward a few steps and look back at who pushed him.
"Damn, Eridan, this poor boy only just got here today and he's already crushing on you," the girl behind him said, almost mockingly. Her plaid skirt was rolled up to her mid-thigh, and there were blue streaks in her long, tangled blonde hair despite the school's ban on unnatural hair colors.
"Vris, shouldn't you be in class? I don't want to give you detention for skipping again, but I will." The man, presumably Eridan Ampora, sounded only vaguely irritated, like he was used to this Vris girl doing things like this. And when Sollux thought about it for a moment, he remembered that she was sitting next to the girl with the red glasses that had been staring at him earlier in Trig. Something about that particular coincidence made him think that they just might wind up being his new friends.
"Oh, please," the girl said with a roll of her eyes. "Give me a break, it's not like you'd really turn me in for skipping Theology." Another moment of thought provided the vague memory of the name Vriska Serket being called in Sollux's Theology class that he'd been excused from to come here.
"Whatever...Can you just let me meet with the student you're already harassing?" After saying this, Eridan moved his attention to Sollux rather than Vriska. "I'm sorry, Sollux, I certainly wasn't intending to be distracted by another student."
"Uh, it's no problem..." What else could he say, really?
"Fiiiine, I'll go," Vriska said with a heavy sigh, blue-painted lips twisting into a smirk. "But I'm sure I'll be seeing you later, Sollux." With that, she turned on her heel and left, strolling down the hall as if she had nowhere to be.
A little uncertainly, Sollux walked further into the room, pausing in front of Eridan's desk. He didn't even know why the teacher wanted to see him, and between that smile and Vriska's comment, the whole situation felt strange.
"So...what did you want to talk to me about?" Sollux nudged his own glasses up, trying not to stare. Even the violet streak in his hair that matched his eyes perfectly was enticing in some way, like it was encouraging Sollux to stare.
"Oh, I just like to check in with new students, see where their class at their old school was at with things, stuff like that. This is an AP course, so it's important to make sure you're not behind on things." As he spoke, Eridan gathered up a small stack of papers, along with a textbook, handing them over to Sollux.
The Gemini glanced over the materials he was given, discovering that they were on the same topic he'd be on if he was still at his old school. The conversation that followed was relatively short and exclusively about the classwork, so he didn't get any new interesting information about what that whole thing with Vriska was about, or anything about Eridan himself.
Soon enough, the bell rang, and more students came into the room for class. His calm alone time with Eridan was over. He supposed that he should probably be thinking of him as Mr. Ampora, but after hearing Vriska call him Eridan, he couldn't stop thinking of him that way.
As it turned out, Vriska shared this class with him too, as did her redhaired, freckled companion.
"Hey, Sollux," Vriska whispered from behind him, jabbing the back of his shoulder with her index finger. "We should talk later." Without any further elaboration, she tossed a folded-up scrap of notebook paper onto his desk.
Sollux shrugged and unfolded it, wondering why these two girls were so fascinated with him. On the paper were what appeared to be two Pesterchum handles. Scrawled rather messily in red ink was gallowsCalibrator, and then below it in blue was arachnidsGrip. Even though it was lacking significance, the fact that they'd written in his two favorite colors brought a slight smile to his face. Maybe he actually would message them later.
When he was surreptitiously adding them to his contacts list under his desk, he decided to send CA a quick message too.
TA: on the briight 2iide, at lea2t ii 2aw a hot guy twoday lmao
TA: and ii'll be 2eeiing hiim pretty much every day now. no need two be jealou2 though, ii'm 2ure you're even more 2tunniingly attractiive.
After he sent it, he tucked his phone back into his pocket before Eridan would notice, hardly even noticing that another phone in the room chimed twice as soon as he sent the messages to CA.