/generic apology about general lateness and lack of quality for chapter OTL

I really am sorry about the lateness and the crappiness (and shortness) of this chapter, though - I really didn't mean to take so long to update! There was just that...college thing that got in the way. But, ah well, since I'm on winter break now, I'll try to do better for the next chapter! - if not in time for the end of the world, at least in time for Christmas, I hope ^^;

Anyways, thanks again for reading, and please enjoy!

It's ten thirty when Matthew wakes up, and it's quite a while longer when he gets over the shock of that.

Ten thirty. Ten thirty, not six or two or four or some ungodly hour in the middle of the night because Gilbert had gotten bored of attempting to set their room on fire and was now going for the street – ten thirty. Ten thirty, the light a pale crescent on bed sheets, ten thirty and the sun for once up before he was – ten thirty.

On the bed opposite his, a white tuft of hair poked out from a mass of pillows and blankets.

Matthew stared.

And then laughed, just a little and not too loud, so not to wake up the sleeping form beside him.

Sleeping – well. He supposed even Gilbert had to sleep, once in a while.

He savored it for a moment, the warmth of the sun shining through the windows, the quiet of the morning, the unexpected sight of his roommate asleep.

And then, still smiling slightly, Matthew stood up and got ready for the day.

"And how the fuck are we supposed to get twenty-fucking-five people to volunteer for that?"

"Well, geez I'm soooorry," Michelle said, putting her hands as she leaned back in her chair," I was just trying to help, okay? Sorry for being the only one here with any ideas."

"Shitty ideas," Lovino replied, glaring as he picked up his cappuccino, "each one somehow fucking stupider than the last."

"Um, hey," Matthew said, gently squeezing himself between his glaring classmates, "can you guys, I mean, maybe if you just tried to understand, that is – look, for once, can you guys try to not kill each other? I mean," he added, voice faltering as he become aware of Michelle and Lovino's eyes on him, "um, I know this is a really stressful project and all, but you guys shouldn't, well, you know, take it out on each other. Um," he said, blinking under the continued gazes, I mean, it's just, it's no one's fault here, and anyways, we're just freshman, it really wasn't fair of her to–"

"Fair?" Lovino asked, practically spitting out the word out as he slammed his coffee down, splashing three-dollar-cappuccino all over the spindly table and the nearby patrons. "Damn fucking right you are, it isn't fair! We get here, what, one, one and a half fucking weeks ago? Fresh fucking out of high school, all nice and shiny and eager, so let's just take this fucking Intro to Psych class, sounds interesting enough, not too hard – and then first day of class, what do we get? A m-oth-er-fuck-ing experiment! For fucking homework! In a freshman class! I mean, what the fucking hell?"

Pausing, he grabbed his cup, and, still glaring in the general directly, drank his coffee.

No one spoke. No one moved. Around them, the cafe was still, a frozen tableau of shock and disbelief and general what-the-hell-just-happened-here as Lovino finished his cappuccino.

It couldn't, of course, last.

"So," Michelle said, delicately licking her gelato as they sat on the cafe steps, "any brilliant ideas coming now?"

"Shut up," Lovino said, glaring as he bit the top off of his bacio, but with his mouth full of ice cream, the retort could only half-hearted. "It's not my fault we got Professor fucking Hell to work with."

"Yeah, well," Michelle said, shrugging as she picked at the weeds growing through the cement cracks, "it is kind of your fault we got kicked out of Starbucks."

Oh God, Matthew groaned as Lovino opened his mouth to retort, not again –

"Oh, do quiet down," Michelle sighed, tossing a handful of grass at Lovino, "I was joking, you idiot. Besides," she added, smiling at Lovino over chocolate and cherries, "it's not like the coffee was all that great, anyways. The ice cream here was a lot better."

"Yeah, well," Lovino grumbled, the glare dull but still warily present in his eyes, "after trying to eat the fucking crap the dining halls pretend is food for three weeks, fried cat bowels on a stick would taste amazing. And old man Nicolo used to live in Palermo, so he knows his shit."

"Oh, come on," Michelle said, laughing as she threw another handful of grass at Lovino, "the food's not that bad."

"It's American."

"So?"

"So it's fat and cholesterol and salt maybe food between the preservatives, that's fucking what it is."

"Oh, come on! It's not that –"

"Actually," Matthew commented, taking a bite of his gelato, "he's kind of right."

"Oh, not you too," Michelle said, groaning as she turned towards Matthew, "I thought you were supposed to be on my side!"

"Yeah, well, you fucking said it yourself," Lovino said, shrugging as he plucked clover flowers out of his hair, "gelato's a lot better than shitty Starbucks coffee. Simple mercenary tactics, signorina. Nothing personal."

"Ass-hole."

"Fuck you, too."

Whereupon Michelle threw the rest of her cone at Lovino, whereupon Lovino ducked while managing to also throw his half-eaten gelato at Michelle – a truly impressive maneuver, one that would have been at least twice so if it had hit Michelle instead of Matthew – whereupon Michelle, with a cry of "passavant li meillor!" that was almost Francis-can in its melodrama, tossed something like looked suspiciously like a spider at Lovino, whereupon the whole thing, which had been causally strolling towards it for the past hour, went completely to hell.

"So," Michelle said, when they had run out of ice cream and unwary insects for ammo (and also, incidentally, been kicked off the steps of Nicolo's Gelateria for being 'a general disturbance to business'), "any brilliant ideas now?"

"And why the fuck should I have any?"

"Weeeell," Michelle said, hands in pockets as she shrugged, T-shirt sticky with melted ice cream and warm with sun, "you were the one who insisted we meet to talk about ideas for this project, so I assumed you might have some idea of what we're going to do–"

"Oh, wait," Lovino said, glaring at Michelle as they took a left towards campus, "I might just have gotten an idea – something on how long it takes people to start being complete fuckers to each other, maybe?"

Michelle stuck her tongue out at him.

"Asshole."

"Look who's fucking talking," Lovino said, glumly staring at the strand of ice-cream sticky hair wound around his finger. "Goddamn, I feel like I've been dipped in a syrup bottle – if this doesn't fucking come out, Bonnefoy –"

"Oh, save it, Vargas," Michelle said, not even turning to look at him, "a shower should do the trick. Aaah, a shower," she sighed, closing her eyes as she savored the word on her tongue, "now that sounds like the best idea I've heard all day."

Personally, Matthew agreed.

They left him at the door to his room, Michelle all cheer as she waved goodbye while Lovino grumbled something at his feet that might have been a 'see you later' or a comment to his shoelaces, depending on which way you looked at it – but Matthew decided to be optimistic, and so he stood there, waving goodbye until Michelle and Lovino were only dots in the distance.

Then, smiling as he adjusted his glasses, Matthew unlocked the door, and gently pushed forward.

He blinked slightly, eyes adjusting to the dim light.

Hm. That was odd – even when empty, their room was usually a cacophony of lights and screams from forgotten video games. Gilbert must have gone out this morning, then –

Only there he was, still in boxers as he sat with the blanket falling from bed onto ground, head cupped in one hand as he stared out the window.

At the creak of the door, Gilbert raised a hand, said, "hey, Mattie." He did not turn to look at Matthew.

"Gil," Matthew said slowly, then stopped. Stared for a few seconds – at the dimmed lights, the blank television screen, the unnaturally tidy floor. "Um. Did you just wake up?"

"No," Gilbert said, still staring outside the window. "A couple of hours ago."

"Oh." A pause, to reassess the situation. "Um, did you go to breakfast or anything?"

"No. Didn't feel like walking."

"Are you sure? I could get you something-"

"Not hungry."

Matthew bit his lip. Gilbert said nothing, continuing staring out the window, face turned away from Matthew.

"Hey Gil, are you, um, well, feeling okay? You're not sick or anything are –"

"No."

"Oh." Again, a pause; again, a reassessment before Matthew plowed forward. "Well, are you sure? I mean, you slept a lot more today than you usually do, and it's already two and you haven't had anything to eat all day, that doesn't sound very healthy, and, well, even if you're not hungry, you should at least have some lunch –"

"For God's sake, Mattie," Gilbert snapped, turning suddenly around to face him, "I told you – I am. Fucking. Fine. Christ's sake, you're almost as Tonio – always hovering about, looking for someone to mother and, goddamnit, it's not like I'm fucking five, okay? For fuck's sake," he muttered, rolling away from Matthew, "it's embarrassing – it's not like any of you give a damn, anyway."

And then he stopped talking, and then all was quiet for a long, long moment.

Matthew stood there for a moment, not moving, not talking, mouth slightly open and eyes unblinking behind his glasses –

And then ran out, the door slamming in the silence behind him.

Notes:

Bacio - a type of gelato which is a lot like Nutella in frozen form. Mm, Nutella...

Signorina - "miss," an Italian term of respect for a young woman

passavant li meillor - "let the best pass first," a French war-cry