Fire Alarms and News to Vic: Fire alarms suck and Vic gets some shocking news.

There is something to be said for Rachel Roth's level of self control that when a fire alarm shocked her awake at three in the morning, after three consecutive late-nighters catching up on reading and writing an essay on the historical context and cultural effects of 1984, she did not punch a hole into the nearest wall.

After fifteen whole seconds of the blaring siren and the flashing light, any hope Rachel had of ignoring all of it and just going back to sleep was dashed. She rolled over and groaned, dragging it out until it became a growl. Matching protests of a scratchy voice came form the other side of the room.

Neither of them moved for another minute. They both just laid there and suffered.

Then there was a pounding on the door and Vic booming, "Rise and shine, losers! Gotta evacuate!"

"Make him go away," the voice rasped. "He likes you better."

"He's your best friend," Rachel mumbled. "You make him go away."

When Vic pounded on the door ten seconds later, Rachel felt around the bed for her sweats and stumbled down the ladder. The flashing blinded her and she could only see blobs in the half seconds of light but when her feet touched the floor she saw the blob on the other side of the room touch ground at the same time.

Slitting her eyes, she started for the door and said, "Don't forget to put on a shirt this time, dumbass."

"You're a dumbass."

"You're a dumbass," she muttered back because maturity went out the window on two hours of sleep.

She opened the door at the same time the blob walked into her, not getting the timing right to follow her out, and Vic raised his hand to knock on the door again, shouting, "Gar, I swear to God—"

"Nnnggghh, I heard you the first time, Vic," Gar grumbled, rubbing his eyes. He was close enough for Rachel to feel the heat of his chest against her back but neither of them were coherent enough to be aware of it. "Got it, jeez, evacuating."

Vic stood there, staring down at them with his fist still raised to knock, frozen.

"We can't evacuate with you standing there," Rachel snarled.

"I just—" Vic stammered. "I wasn't—I didn't think—I wasn't expecting Rachel to be here."

Gar and Rachel blinked.

And then with the brain power of a person tortured out of bed by a fire alarm at three in the morning, comprehension dawned on them.

Of course Vic wasn't expecting Rachel to be here.

The reason for that being that this was Gar's room.

Because when Rachel came back last night from a late trip to the library to check out some supplementary reading, Dick and Kori had already been tangled together in bed. And if Rachel had been thinking clearly last night, she wouldn't have been so taken off guard by this that she took some binders and notebooks out of her backpack to trade them for a random textbook or two sitting on top of her desk and made some lame excuse to get out of there as fast as she could. But she'd been bleary, drained, and tea-deprived and ended up sitting in the hallway next to her door with a book open in her lap and her head falling forward as she fought off sleep. She'd shaken herself awake for the seventh time when Gar found her and after a clipped exchange because he hadn't exactly been at his best either because of a few exams he'd been up late cramming for, he invited her to take Dick's bed again, and because she'd been desperate she accepted.

It wasn't the first time they shared a room and it wasn't even the second or third. After the awkwardness of that first morning wore off, it made more sense to offer a roommate's bed than to hijack someone else's floor. (Dick had had a weird reaction when he first heard about Gar sleeping in Kori's bed and really, it was none of Rachel's business how Kori got Dick to let it go since she had enough issues ignoring the fact that they probably had sex in the beds Gar and Rachel borrowed in the first place.)

So Rachel waking up in Gar's room wasn't news to them.

It was, however, news to Vic.

Rachel could see the dots connect in all the wrong places in Vic's head and she glared at him, ignoring the blood rushing to her face. "Whatever you're thinking right now, stop it, because it's too early and probably wrong."

"This is wrong," Vic agreed, looking haunted and disturbed. "On so many levels. I-I don't know who's ass to kick. Gar for violating my little Rae or Rae for toying with my boy Gar's heart."

"Hey," Gar said, half asleep and grouchy but still offended. "How come I'm 'violating' but she's only 'toying'?"

"It doesn't matter," Rachel said, punctuated with an elbow to his gut. "Because neither of those things happened. Nothing happened last night. Nothing happened on any night, ever."

"You mean this has happened before?" Vic said, verging too close on hysterical for comfort.

Rachel gave him a flat look. "What did I just say?"

"C'mon, dude," Gar said, yawning. He ran a hand over his face and through his hair. "You gotta know we didn't do anything. Why would we?"

Rachel frowned and glanced at him, one eyebrow raised. "Should I be offended?"

"Like you don't feel the same way." He paused then looked at her. "Unless you don't? Because, you know—"

"Evacuating!" Vic boomed, making them both jump. "Now."

He stepped out of the doorway and loomed over them from behind as they walked down the hall. With the vague feeling of being walked to the principle's office, Rachel led the march down the stairs.

There was a crowd a few feet away from the front doors, murmuring complaints and questions about when they would be allowed back in. A group of security monitors gathered at the edge of the crowd and one of them waved Vic over when the three of them stepped into the cold night air. Before he left, Vic looked down at them disapprovingly and wagged a finger in their faces. "I'm not done talking about this so better get your stories straight before I get back."

"There are no stories!" Gar groaned after him. Then quieter to Rachel, "Why would he think there are stories? Do we look like people with stories? Seriously."

Rachel hummed, searching the crowd for anyone familiar. A lot of them were from other floors, which was maybe for the best. She didn't feel like fighting off more assumptions of what she and Gar were doing together. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gar move and watched him find a patch of grass and collapse onto his stomach, his head cradled in his arms.

"What are you doing?" she said.

"I'm tired, Rae," he whined, dragging out each word. Like Timmy, Rachel thought.

"It won't be that long till we can go back in," she said (hoped).

He nuzzled his head into his arms and she thought about her pillow and her blanket, which somehow made the air around her colder. She hugged herself, rubbing warmth into her arms. Her hands slowed as her eyelids drooped and her chin fell onto her chest. She jumped awake and when she looked down, Gar was on his back looking up at her.

She scowled. "What?"

He patted the grass next to him. "C'mon, Rae."

"What?"

"Lie down."

"Why?"

"Because you're tired."

"I'm not that tired."

"Liar."

"The grass is cold."

"It's not that bad."

"I don't want to."

He didn't say anything and she thought that was it. She looked around again (where was Kori, that wasn't Jinks, that kind of looked like Argent) and a hand wrapped around her ankle. She choked down a shriek and looked down at Gar with wide eyes.

"Come on, Rae," he said. "You're tired. Just rest."

She kicked his hand away. "I'm not that tired, Gar."

"Sit down for five seconds and I'll shut up."

"Gar. No."

"Rae. Yes."

"Stop calling me that."

"Rae," he said. "Yes. Rae. Rae. Sit down. Rae. Rae. Rae—"

She dropped into the empty space next to him. "Now, shut. Up."

He mimed zipping his mouth and throwing away a key.

They were apart from the crowd, their murmurings reaching them but not close enough for Rachel to make out any of the conversations. Cold from the grass soaked into her sweats and she mockingly remembered Gar saying it "wasn't that bad" as she hugged her knees to her chest. Two minutes later, she tried to convince herself two minutes wasn't that long but it became more and more difficult to keep her eyes open.

Gar tapped her shin and pointed at the sky. "Look."

She did. It was overcast, casting the sky a dark purple, orange in some parts where the lights from the city caught on the clouds. It was pretty in its own way if you didn't care about looking at stars but it made Rachel feel suffocated, like she was surrounded on all sides without any escape. She still wasn't used to the city yet.

"Your neck's gonna cramp up like that," Gar said, his voice gravelly from exhaustion.

"I'm not lying down."

"Just lie down. Enjoy the sky."

She glanced at him. "I thought you'd hate light pollution."

"Of course I do," he said. "I miss the stars. But I like the colors."

"Do you." She looked back up at the sky for a few moments and nearly fell backwards when sleep almost overtook her again.

Gar tugged on the back of her shirt. "Just lie down," he murmured.

"No," she said, more to say it than out of any real objection.

"You can blame me if you get a cold."

"Like I wouldn't have anyway."

When she finally gave in, Gar's hand was still holding onto her shirt which she apologized for because she was crushing it, but he was already asleep. She wasn't far behind.


"Yo!"

Rachel started, gasping and turning her crinkled face up. Her legs were chilled despite her sweats but her upper body was almost warm and there was something wrapped around her shoulders. Right above her, Vic looked down with an expression halfway between scandalized and furious.

"I thought I told you to get your stories straight! Not make it more complicated!"

Rachel gave him a confused look. Then she heard groaning next to her, the thing around her shoulders tightened and fell off, and when she looked she realized she was half-lying on top of Gar. She jumped to her feet, too fast for how awake she actually was, and lost her balance. Vic grabbed her arm to save her from toppling over. Gar woke up slower and sat up, his hair flat against his head on one side. Blades of grass were laced through his hair, bright against the faded green at the tips of his hair.

The rest of the crowd was already trickling into the building with relieved and annoyed grumbling. They'd probably only been napping for at most five minutes. Rachel took a deep, tired breath and combed her fingers through her hair, just in case she had a matching hairdo. She matched Vic's frown.

"We fell asleep," Rachel said.

"I can see that," Vic said, hauling Gar up by his arm. "Let's go."

"Vic," Rachel said when they started up the stairs. "You don't actually think we're like that, do you? Me and Gar? Really?"

Gar glared at her sleepily. "Should I be offended?"

"Maybe."

Vic was silent until they reached the door to their floor. He kept his hand on it for a moment before turning around to look at both of them. Another moment and he said, "No. I don't. And, I'm not really worried about last night. It's more like tomorrow night that might be the problem."

Rachel and Gar exchanged looks. They both shrugged in confusion and followed Vic into the hall. It was empty, which was probably the only break they'd catch tonight. It was enough that Vic found out and thought something of it.

When they reached his door, Gar unlocked it (after a paralyzing three seconds of him not knowing where he put his key). Before he could walk in, Vic yanked him back into the hall by the back of his shirt, keeping the door open.

"Not you," he told Gar, and nodded at Rachel to go in.

"Wh—But, dude, that's my room!" Gar said.

"Not tonight. You're coming with me."

"What?"

"I have a space on my floor with your name on it."

"Dude! Rachel!" Gar looked at her for help.

Rachel considered the look on Vic's face and the open door. They were the only obstacles between her and the room—and the bed.

"Sorry, Gar," Rachel said.

The look of betrayal on his face as she shut the door would have made anyone with a kinder soul and more sleep turn around, defend him from Vic, and let him in.

Rachel had neither.

Gar's protests came in muffled through the door. As she climbed into Dick's bed, she thought about how it was a little strange that she was sleeping in a boy's room without a boy, but when her head hit the pillow she decided it was worth the sacrifice. In the hazy moments before she fell asleep, she wished Gar luck.

She dreamed of orange and purple skies.


A/N: ... It wasn't six months. (I'm so sorry. I blame life.)

This isn't over, I swear, and with recent events, there will probably be a lot more coming sooner than later. I need to get my mind off things and I wrote things out of order so I need to get to those too.

I don't want to get political, but know that if anything ever happens, you're safe with me.