Another one for CaptainCanary Week! For Day 3: Alternative Universe.
College AU, based on a Tumblr post I first saw about a year ago. (Search "the murder game.") This was just too much fun! For SylvanHeather, who requested it way back then.
As always, many thanks to LarielRomeniel for the beta.
In a way, Mick reflects later, it's no surprise at all that it comes down to Snart and Sara.
Snart's sneaky, and he's smart. Mick knows this; he's been friends with the guy for about seven years and roomed with him here at Waverider University for three. And Snart's got no problems being a bit…cold, and he's very pragmatic. He'd tagged their suitemate Ray Palmer right outsight their door minutes after the game had started this year, for Pete's sake. (At least Mick had waited a while to take out their other suitemate, Nate.)
Ray still hasn't stopped whining about it, but the physics major had allowed himself to become distracted, Mick figures. You can't do that during the Murder Game.
Ah, the Murder Game. Their RA, Rip (that's so definitely not his real name) Hunter, has been trying to put a stop to it, but no one ever listens to him. (In fact, Mick suspects Rip's girlfriend, Gideon, of organizing the whole damned thing.) The game had been going on at the university long before any of them had started here, and it would probably be going on long after.
All you had to do was sign up, by emailing an account that'd been started, so far as Mick can tell, for this very purpose alone. On the allotted day, at midnight, someone would shove a plastic knife under your door, a knife with someone's name on it. It became your job, the next week, to "kill" that person. You couldn't do it while they were in their room, or in the dining hall, or when they were naked. Everything else? Fair game.
Oh, not really kill. Tagging them with the blunt end was good enough. Then you got their knife and had to kill that person. And so on…until there was only one person left.
(No one's sure what the prize is. Rumor has included everything from a bottle of vodka to a free pass to break any number of university or dorm rules. The prize is beside the point.)
Their first year, he and Snart had signed up, although Mick, distracted by the new environment, had promptly fallen to innocent-looking anthropology student Kendra Saunders, of all people. Snart had made it to the final 10, rarified territory indeed for a freshman, before Alexa Sinclair, a senior, had seduced him…and then tagged him the moment they'd left her room.
(Snart, already suspicious and standoffish by nature, had become more so after that. Mick just hoped Alexa never crossed their path again.)
Last year, Snart had won, easily, tagging Marty Stein, an older student with about 10 degrees who'd unexpectedly won the year before-mainly by bribing other participants with pot. This year, of course, everyone was gunning for Snart…but it quickly became very clear who his main competition was.
Sara Lance, a women's studies major and a transfer from Star City, was—in Mick's admiring opinion—a real badass. Rumor was that she had some sort of a high-rank black belt, and she put it into good effect, sneaking up on people and dispatching them in a manner that quickly earned her the nickname "The Assassin." Mick knew she'd taken out a number of their friends, including Leonard's fellow engineering student Jax and zoology student Amaya Jiwe, who'd been the one to take Mick out of the game this year herself.
(Mick's still a little flustered by that, actually. He'd taken to walking around the dorm in a towel alone, comfortable enough in his skin that he'd just drop it to obtain immunity. But Amaya had started talking to him outside the dining hall on the bottom floor, and it'd been a good conversation, and by the time she'd gently poked his arm with the knife, they'd both been a little regretful about it. Mick's still trying to get up the nerve to ask her out.)
Anyway, at this point, everybody's pretty sure it's down to Sara and Snart. It doesn't hurt the sense of drama hanging over the campus that the sparks fly whenever the two are in the same room, or that they circle around each other while making eye contact that verges on the obscene. Mick just hopes Sara doesn't try Alexa's tactic, but he has a feeling she has more of a sense of honor than that…and that she genuinely likes Snart. Plus, while Mick hasn't spent much time with her, she's a friend of Amaya's and Amaya has vouched for her. That gets her some points in his book.
The game drags out, longer than usual. The tension—in general and around the suspected final two—is overwhelming. Whenever they're anywhere near each other, everyone is watching them, and the eye sex, Mick decides, is enough to make anyone all hot and bothered. If they exchange words at all, it's banter and innuendo, and it's all rather distracting.
"They're going to have to do something," Amaya muses in the dining hall one day, staring into her cup of coffee. "Their week's almost up. Has it ever ended in a draw before?"
Zari, a friend of hers and a computer student who's better than most of her teachers, has joined Amaya and Mick for breakfast that day. She shrugs while popping a piece of a doughnut into her mouth. Zari, Mick knows, had been the one from whom Sara had taken the knife with Leonard's name on it.
"It was a week ago tomorrow morning that Sara got me," she notes. "And rumor has it Leonard took Sara's knife the night before, from John Constantine, but he's not talking."
Amaya sighs. "It's almost a pity, really."
Mick looks up from where he's studying his laptop and his latest creative writing assignment. "Why?"
"It's just…they might be good for each other." Amaya nibbles her lip. Zari shrugs and takes another doughnut. "Sara and Snart. They're similar, and they pretty much exude sparks. But Sara's likely to take him down, and I don't how he'll…"
"Nah, Snart's got this," Mick says before he thinks better of it, then winces as he realizes how he'd interrupted. "Sorry."
"No, it's OK." Amaya studies him, then smiles. "Wanna bet? Sara vs. Snart?"
Mick considers her a moment. "Sure. And tell you what," he says, mustering his nerve. "You win, I'll buy you dinner."
Amaya looks serious a moment, then glances down, seemingly nervous herself. "And if you win? Can I buy you dinner?"
"Um. Ah, yeah. That'd be cool."
They both ignore Zari making gagging noises nearby.
Snart's in their room later that day when Mick finally arrives after his late writing class, sprawled out on his bed with his nose in a book, seemingly unperturbed that it feels like half or more of the student body is loitering around their dorm, waiting for something to happen. He flicks a glance at his friend, but that's all, and Mick takes care of his laptop and other supplies before he finally sits down at the end of his own bed.
"What're you gonna do?" he asks, breaking the silence.
Snart turns a page. "What do you mean?"
"Well, from what I can tell, you're almost out of time." He fidgets a little. "You're not the type to just let it go to a draw, but…"
"Oh, I'm going to win." Snart turns another page, eyes fastened on his book. "Don't worry about it, Mick."
Mick gives up.
He turns the room light off about 11:45—a little early for them, but they both have earlier classes tomorrow. On the other side of the suite, there's still light from Nate and Ray's room and he can hear the two chattering at each other, but Snart closes his eyes and seems to fall asleep nearly immediately. Mick shrugs again. No matter who wins, he figures, he's got a date with Amaya Jiwe.
And on that pleasant thought, he falls asleep quickly.
The crash, when it comes several hours later, is loud enough that it jolts him out of that deep sleep immediately, blinking at the ceiling, getting his bearings and then hissing, "Snart?"
No answer.
Mick's not sure how he manages to move so quickly. Snagging a T-shirt from the pile on the dresser, he drags it on over his boxers and surges out into the common room, then the hallway. Nate and Ray follow, clearly looking for their other suitemate to no avail.
But there are other people running toward the big lounge at the end of the hallway, so they follow.
Rip's a few steps ahead of Mick, cursing, but he seems to be the only sign of authority, so it can't be that bad, right? There's no smoke, the fire alarm hasn't gone off (using that as a Murder Game tactic had become an immediate disqualifier, under threat of the campus fire department) and Mick can't hear sirens. But it's immediately apparent that something's going in the lounge, and as they get closer, he uses his size to shove his way through the murmuring crowd into the room, Rip dropping back to follow him, until they finally stop in his tracks.
Someone's clearly been in the air ducts overhead. Two someones, actually, given the layer of dust (some still hanging in the air) and the pieces of ceiling lying around-and that, there, in the middle of the lounge, Sara and Snart are standing. Close. Really close.
Concerned that one's literally stabbing the other—he'd left his glasses back in the room, OK?-Mick takes another step forward before he realizes they're kissing. More than kissing, really, they're so wrapped around each other than it's tough to see any space at all between them. Mick squints. Is that…? Yeah, there are two knives lying on the feet at their feet, but neither seems at all inclined to pick one up.
"Get a room!" Ray yells from behind Mick. The couple ignores him…although Mick's pretty sure Sara heard, given how she stuffs both hands in Snart's back pockets and pulls him that much closer—not that much closer is possible unless some clothing gets removed.
The watching crowd catcalls and cheers, but when they're thoroughly ignored, the fun starts to wear off and people start to drift away. Rip stares at the wreckage, running a hand through his hair, then shrugs, apparently deciding to deal with it in the morning. Gideon, who's not even supposed to be in this dorm, catches his other hand, catches Mick's eye and winks, then starts towing the RA off toward his room.
Mick shakes his head.
"So," Amaya says quietly, a smile in her voice as she moves up beside him, "who do you think gets the prize? I'm not sure who tagged who first. And I get the impression that they might not know, either."
Mick barks out a laugh, shaking his head again. He's pretty sure she's right. And he's pretty sure of something else, too.
"I think," he says, grinning, staring at the very involved- couple, "they'll be OK with sharing it."