A/N: Decided to keep having fun with naming the websites different things (so Facebox- Facebook pretty obvious, Chatter- Twitter). Enjoy!
Cath felt like she couldn't breathe. All this time feeling things were fine, and then suddenly the first day of class and poof all confidence gone. The only thing keeping her from turning around and going back to hide in her dorm room was Levi's smile from the end of the hallway.
"Come on, you're gonna be late," Levi said.
"That's the point," Cath said with a sigh. "Then there'll be less time in class…less time…being there…being stressed."
"You'd just have to deal with the professors pointing out your lateness to everyone. Trust me, you don't want that. Come on, sweetheart. I promised to walk you to your first classes before I head over to my shift, and I'm going to."
He held out his hand and Cath clutched at it.
They walked together, Levi patiently reassuring her as they walked.
"It's advanced fiction writing," Cath whispered. "I don't think I'm going to survive."
"Don't be stupid. Your stuff is great. Your professor said so last year," Levi pointed out.
Cath bit her lip but couldn't come up with an adequate reply to make him understand what she was feeling.
"It'll be fine," Levi said again.
She just wished she could believe him.
Cath arrived at her building with ten minutes til class. Levi leaned in and pecked her lips before letting her head in on her own.
Sinking into a seat at the back of the classroom, Cath tried to remind herself to take deep breaths. Maybe Levi had a point. She'd taken one class from Professor Piper before. And she had survived somehow.
Professor Piper arrived, setting her bag on the front table and going up to the chalkboards that still lined many of the older lecture halls. She began scratching out her name and the course title.
"Welcome," she said, looking up at the clock and seeing she was a minute into class time. "This is advanced fiction writing, and I believe by this point I should know most of you, considering fiction writing is a prerequisite for this course."
She smiled and looked around the room, focusing briefly on Cath and giving her a smile.
"For any of you expecting to have this be the same as that course, I'll disappoint you right now and say it's going to be much more challenging. I'll expect more writing, and I won't have as much tolerance for low quality work." She paused at the board. "We've also begun considering an interesting problem with our fiction courses. Can anyone give me a form of fiction please?"
Various students who were braver than Cath raised their hands and contributed.
Professor Piper wrote them in order of smallest to biggest. Flash fiction. Short story. Novelette. Novella. Novel. Series. She paused and looked back at the room.
"There are quite a few as you can see. Probably more if you were creative. And then different genres as well. I've had complaints in the last few years that we don't cover longer fiction writing. That we focus too heavily on the shorter works like flash fiction and short stories. So…this year we're changing that. During the course of semester each of you is going to develop a longer story idea."
Cath could feel the little confidence she'd had shrinking with every word out of her professor's mouth.
"For some of you, that idea might suit the shorter forms better—so those writing a novelette will actually finish it. For those working on novella or novel length ideas…I'm just going to hope you don't try for a series… you will be writing a few sections and then displaying a potential plot outline. Oh yes, you can tell already this will be a lot of work."
She gave a smile and Cath glanced down at the syllabus. Writing assignments every week. A portfolio due at the end that included the long fiction excerpts, a short story, a flash piece, and several other writing exercises they'd be doing. She could already envision sleepless nights staring at her computer screen.
Alongside that, Professor Piper had included a participation component, not only in making comments in class, but in being required to read works to the entire class. She felt like she couldn't breathe.
"Now, why don't we go around the class and we'll say one thing we wrote this summer, sound alright? It can be anything—Facebox statuses, emails, journal entries, etc."
The class murmured in agreement. Cath held her breath, trying to figure out if she should lie and say something lame like emails, or if she should tell the truth. In a fiction writing class, blurting out that she wrote fanfiction just seemed like a way to make everyone automatically see her as a lesser writer.
When it came to her, Cath cleared her throat and looked up at Professor Piper who was examining her with an encouraging smile.
"Um…hi I'm Cath. I'm a sophomore. I…um…I wrote some Facebox statuses this summer. Pretty boring," she said and sat down.
Professor Piper smiled. "Now Cath, I hardly believe that's it. You're really telling me you didn't write a single interesting thing?"
"Well…I did write some fanfiction," Cath whispered, cheeks heating as she aimed her stare at the ground, well aware of the eyes on her. A few people snickered and thankfully Professor Piper moved on to the next person.
By the end of the class Cath was feeling near tears. She only half-listened as Professor Piper described their assignment for Wednesday, an exercise in creating character. She should never have allowed that out. Now every time she read something in front of the class, everyone was going to think of her as the nerdy fangirl who would never be a serious writer.
After class was over, Cath focused on putting her things away as quickly as possible so she could disappear before Professor Piper had a chance to talk to her. Unfortunately, as she was heading for the door, another girl made a beeline for her. Cath found herself being confronted by someone she would probably guess was a senior, wearing a cute sundress and makeup and looking very very confident in herself, even pulling off glasses in a way Cath never felt she could.
"I'm so thankful I'm not the only one," the girl gushed. "Seriously, you write fanfiction?"
"Um…yes…do you?"
The girl shook her head and laughed. "Nope, but I read a crap ton of it and deal with everyone thinking I'm a pathetic English major. I'm Lauryn by the way. Did you say your name was, Cath?"
"Yes…what do you read?" Cath managed to ask.
"Well, a little bit of everything, you know most anything mainstream. But what I really really love is Simon Snow." She laughed. "I mean, as a kid my mom never let us read them because of like magic and stuff…weird that way, but once I got to high school I just decided I didn't care and I was going to read them all. Since then I've become like…a super nerd. What about you?"
Cath couldn't deal with this. Had she fallen into some sort of wonderful dream?
"Oh, I used to write a lot of Snow too, but I've been more involved in Cornelius lately."
"Ooo, I like it! What type of stuff do you write?"
"Oh, well…a lot of…I write mostly slash actually," Cath managed to say, even as she felt her cheeks heating again.
Lauryn's grin widened. "Ah! Nice! I'm more of a canon girl myself, but I can appreciate a good slash fiction. I've run into a few I really liked. I mean…who can say no to Carry On, Simon, that's probably one of the best fanfictions out there."
Cath shifted from foot to foot awkwardly, wondering if there was a good way to just mention she'd written that, or if she should leave Lauryn in the dark.
"Send me your stuff sometime," Lauryn said. "I'd love to read it. Seriously, us fangirls are going to have to stick together."
"Sure…um it's Cath Avery if you want to find me on Facebox or something. I'll send you a link."
"Sweet! Well, I have another class in ten minutes. I'll see you later."
Lauryn rushed off with an enthusiastic wave, leaving Cath standing there wondering how she'd somehow managed to make a friend on only the first day of class. Unfortunately, her reverie was broken by a throat clearing behind her. She spun to see Professor Piper.
"It's good to see you again, Cath," the older woman said. "I do hope you're going to put a bit more effort into this course."
"I'll try," Cath said.
"That's all I ask," Professor Piper said. "You have a natural gift for writing, Cath. But sometimes a little work is needed to pull it all together."
Cath nodded and thanked her before heading to the door. She was relieved to see Levi waiting for her just outside, leaning against the opposite wall. He grinned on sight of her and welcomed her in to a tight hug.
"What are you doing here, I thought you had a shift?"
"Turns out they'd rather have me this evening instead. So I'm free to see you instead. How'd it go?"
"Awful, but I'll survive," Cath muttered into his shoulder.
"Good, you got this, sweetheart. You're going to blow the rest of your class away with your wonderful writing."
Cath smiled and turned to look at him.
"What would I do without you?"
"Carry your own books back to your dorm and drown your sorrows in peanut butter?" Levi guessed. "But instead you have me," he plucked her book bag out of her hands, "and I'm going to take you out for coffee before your next class."
She took his hand gratefully and let him lead her out of the building.
Of course, she recounted what had happened to her in class to Levi. He smiled at the mention of the other fanfiction reader.
"I don't know how to break it to her that I wrote Carry On," Cath said with a sigh before sipping at her coffee, grateful for the kick of caffeine. Early morning classes were going to be interesting.
"Yeah, that'll be interesting. You ought to just send it to her and then get her freaked out reply. Then again she might not believe you," Levi said.
"True," Cath murmured. "I hardly believe me sometimes. I put up another Cornelius one-shot yesterday and it had over a thousand hits in the first hour. I could hardly believe it."
"You're just that good. Now, what's your next class?"
"Journalism," Cath said with a shiver.
She needed to do two classes in two writing genres. So even though she was taking advanced fiction writing, she still needed another writing class. And unfortunately her options were limited. Poetry. Eh not really her thing. Non-fiction? That sounded equally boring. And while journalism didn't exactly inspire her, she'd heard the professor was very good. She'd muddle through somehow.
"Well, I'd better get you back in time for class. You got enough coffee?" Levi asked, peering at her cup."
"Get me one more refill, and I'll be ready."
They headed back to campus. Levi dropped her in front of her building before heading to his own class. Cath again felt knots twisting up in her stomach, and unfortunately all the coffee wasn't helping it feel anymore settled.
She chose a seat towards the back, only to notice a curly head a few rows ahead. Was it possible?"
"Lauryn?"
A head jerked up and turned towards her. The eyes behind those glasses flashed.
"Oh my gosh! You're in this class too!" Lauryn gave a grin and rose from her seat with her bag in hand, shuffling past other students to slide into the chair next to Cath. "How are you?"
"I'm so nervous. I feel sick," Cath admitted.
"Yeah, Professor Walton is a bit tough, but he's fantastic. I had him for a magazine writing class last semester and it was my favorite thing I've taken."
"Don't you only need two classes?" Cath asked.
"Yep, but I'm taking this for fun. Seriously, you have to tell me more ab—"
She was quieted by a tall slim man walking into the room. He walked to the front and fixed all of them with a piercing gaze. Cath's already overly excited stomach did another roll. His fixated stare was like something she'd write onto Cornelius, deep and calculating and mysterious.
"Welcome to journalism 101," he said, going over to the whiteboard and scrawling his name. Cath was startled by a deep rumbling voice, tainted with a British accent.
"Now, from my past experience," the professor continued, "I have a mixture of students in here. Some of you are journalism majors, you are eager to study your subject and frustrated by the perhaps…basic nature of this course. Others of you are more likely English majors, trying to take a writing course for your writing credit. Many of you probably would prefer not to be here. You're more likely longing for the joys of free fiction work, or the fluffy nonsense of poetry. I can assure you this class will be a challenge if that is the case."
Cath felt herself sinking into her chair again. She was going to die this semester.
"You'll write five journalism pieces over the course of the semester, not including smaller pieces you'll have on a weekly basis. I'll place you in writing groups that will critique all of your main pieces before you hand them over to me. Hopefully that will help improve potentially problematic content so that none of you fail. My goal as a professor is not to be harsh or cruel, but to demand a level of excellence from all of you, push you to attain your best results. I believe each and every one of you is capable of such."
Lauryn looked at her and mouthed a "are you ok?" eyebrows furrowing. Cath wondered if she looked a bit green. Probably. She shook her head at Lauryn.
"Last but not least, in the modern world we rely on social media a lot for news now a days. Each of you will be required to create a Chatter account, and post at least fifteen 'chats' a week. No worries on what. You'll need to follow at least a hundred people, and hopefully have fifty following you by the end of the semester (but don't stress too much on numbers). So, with that done, let's talk about what journalism is and why it's important."
Cath almost felt her eyes closing, willing herself to concentrate on keeping her breathing even. Just another forty six minutes, and she'd be done with her first day of classes.
Baz let out a long sigh and snuggled closer to the warm body beside him in bed. Simon groaned and shifted, trying to get comfortable again with the change in position.
"Morning," Baz whispered with a long sigh into his boyfriend's ear.
"M'ning," Simon mumbled. "Time is it?"
"We have an hour til first classes," Baz said.
Simon groaned and sat up some, blinking a few times as he tried to wake up. He finally seemed to see Baz for the first time, looking him over and enjoying his bare chest, eyes trailing over the smooth pale skin and down towards the white sheet that draped just above his hips.
"Want me to make you some tea?" Baz asked.
"Yeah, that'd be nice. I'd do it…but…since you won't have any I guess…"
"Don't over-think it, Snow," Baz said as he slid out of the bed. "Don't you worry your pretty little head."
Simon smiled and leaned back onto his pillow, eyes closing. He waited until he heard water boiling and then opened again, watching as Baz pointed his wand at the cup, heating it with a simple charm. Once done, he trailed back over, handing the mug over.
"You're the best," Simon stated, leaning over to touch his lips to Baz's.
"Anything for you," Baz said, settling on the bed beside him. "Today we start our fifth year. Can you believe it?"
"No," Simon admitted, blowing on the drink to cool it slightly. "You nervous?"
Baz's brow furrowed, eyes fixing on the wall for a moment as he considered. "Maybe a little. Professor Hilterdale is supposed to be rough. You?"
"Yeah," Simon admitted, setting the tea to the side in favor of wrapping an arm around Baz, pulling him closer. "But if I have you there I think I can do it. I mean, with you I always know I'm going to make it. You remind me how much good I can do."
Baz let out a long laugh. "Me, Snow? Are you crazy? All those other people praising you, and I'm the one who makes you Mr. Confident?"
"Of course," Simon said, squeezing more tightly. "Because out of all those people, you're the only one who counts. What would I do without you, Baz?"
"Flounder around on your own and die?" Baz guessed dimple flashing as he gave a cheeky grin. "Eh, you need me, it's true. You'll do fine today, Simon. I'll be here for you after class. You'll get through."
"I hope so," Simon sighed. "I really do."
They moved a bit closer, remaining in a tight embrace. Simon accepted it without complaint, well aware that in a few minutes they'd both need to dress and be ready for class. But for the moment they could linger, comfortable in their own little world. Confident in one another, in their love, even as the uncertain future stretched out before them.
A/N: Just taking a Cornelius break and writing a short little Simon Snow one shot for you. A special shout out to you, Lauryn. Hope this helps prove it's really me in case you don't believe it.
2 comments:
Laurynguest- OH MY GOSH!? You're MAGICATH! I'm taking classes with Magicath. I can't handle this. Oh my gosh oh my gosh. You are sooooo having coffee with me.
Leviathan- Seriously, told you that coffee thing would end up here. Thought it'd be Cornelius, I was wrong. :-) Am I really the stalker vampire though?
Magicath- Leviathan, Baz doesn't drink tea. So yes it had to be you. And you really shouldn't think of that as an insult.
Leviathan- Didn't think it was. Looking forward to future Baz/Simon then ;)
-From "Confidence" posted September 2012
by FanFixx . net author Magicath
A/N: Thanks to reviewers JuliaBC and MBK264! You guys are so awesome!
