A/N:

So she updates! -cowers-

Hey, dears. School has started, y'know, and ugh, have been busy as hell.

So anyway! The fifth chapter. Here it is. Finally.

But um, before you guys start reading, I want to say— or write— a few words.

Lila:

Thank you for giving me my first flame. As everyone knows, your story isn't well-read until it has been flamed. So thank you, my dear. But sadly, I will not be taking your advice.

Jesus and Mobster:

I am disgusted at the two of you. Fancy starting a fight at my reviews page; how low. I appreciate the fact that you're trying to increase my reviews (This is sarcasm, people.), but please, not this way, okay? This... Elena person and the banning of several MCBC members is something that I do not know and am not familiar with, so please stop antagonizing my reviewers and take your quarrel elsewhere. Oh, and if you really wish to defend your friend Elena from any misunderstanding that she had been accused of, leave your email with either Mush Elena, ok, veela or Adel. Don't be such a coward.

MUSH ELENA, OK/Jackass, veela:

Thank you for defending me, dears. Even though, well, I don't know why that Lila started this in the first place. Unless she was really bored.

Adel:

I love you too, darling. Yo shizzle, sista! Hahah.

BUT.

YOU LEFT ME TO EDITED THIS CHAPTER MYSELF. HMMPH.

Anyhow.

Hope you darlings will like it! (Please excuse any errors. This chapter is currently unbete-ad.)

Note: STRONG LANGUAGE IN THIS CHAPTER. And by that, yes, I mean the F-word. And no, it's not Fluffy.

CABOT ACADEMY

Chapter 5

"Ouch."

"Ouch."

"Oh, don't—Ow! Adel! Please!"

"I'm so sorry, Evie. I'm trying my best to be as gentle as possible," Adel muttered as she continued rubbing salve onto Evanne's redden, roughed hands. The latter was lying back against her bed, while the former was sitting on the edge, spreading greenish salve with a herbal smell across Evanne's tortured fingers. The abused wee ickle ones had James and his steaming pot of Potage aux cèpes to thank for their present state.

Across them, tangled in the sheets of Adel's bed –although in an entirely platonic way— while laughing their heads off were Cassy and Jess; the latter whom was looking more model-like and dazzling than ever with just a simple pink T-Shirt that said "I Heart Adrien Brody" and plain blue jeans on. Cassy, their resident heartbreaker, was decked out in a white halter top and a denim Levi's skirt. The reason for their mirth was of course, the state of Evanne's hands, as well as what her detention had turned out to be.

Preparing edible breakfast, lunch and dinner for one whole day.

That was the detention for Alex, James, Lauren and Evanne. It might not have been such a horrific punishment had they been allowed helpers, even if it was just one or two extra students or the cafeteria staff to lessen the burden slightly. But sadly, that was not the case, and the four of them had to prepare three meals for over a thousand students, not to mention the faculty.

It was hell. There was the fact that they had to wake at dawn ("Since, the lot of you seemed to love the morning air so, it won't be nice of us to deprive you of it, would it?" Professor Simon had uttered with the Slater trademark smirk on her face), and that they had to think up the menu by themselves, with no recurring items in either of the three meals, and also, should they serve, say, a slice, a single slice of burnt toast to a member of the student body or the faculty, they would then have to repeat kitchen duty for the next day!

And to think that Meg (a.k.a. Cabot, not Meg with the Previously-Purple-Then-Green-And- Now-Orange-Hair) had actually wrote Jes— Professor de Silva as a gentleman and Professor Simon as a nice girl in the Mediator series, indeed. Hardly, Evanne grouched silently, staring at her slathered fingers in acute misery. Actually, they had two choices for detention; A) To wash the collective feet of the faculty, or B) To serve as cooks for the entire school for a day.

A) would have been easier, and they were on the verge of agreeing to do that particular task when James got it into his mind to clarify with the two task-setters if the phrase "the faculty" meant all of the school's staff, or merely the teaching professors. Upon hearing that the answer would be the former, Alex immediately declared in a pitch so high that Evanne half-feared that the windows may just give in and crack; that no absolutely (insert Spanish swear word here) was she going near to Pau— Professor Slater's feet with a foot-long pole, much less wash it.

Evanne didn't have the heart to tell her that she would have to wash his feet anyhow, because Professor Slater was both a member of the faculty and the teaching staff.

So B) it was, and calling it hell would be the understatement of the millennia, as none of them knew how to cook gourmet cuisine, which was unfortunately the standard of the food over at Cabot Academy (one of the finer points of the school). However, attempting to level up to the cafeteria cooks' –yes, cooks, in the plural form— had resulted in, well, disaster. Aside from the incident with Evanne's fingers and James' tureen of poshly named mushroom soup, Lauren had managed to slice off a chunk of her hair with the butcher knife (she had been bending too far over the beef while cutting it and had forgotten to tie her hair up), and Alex had, somehow or rather, gotten her hair singed by the oven.

Only James had managed to unscathed, much to the disgruntlement of the three girls.

Which brought them back to Evanne's currently state of misery, as she sat scowling at the current two occupants of Adel's bed, and her roommate herself. They were still laughing, Cassy and Jess were. And even Adel, a sympathetic soul there was ever one; even Adel had a tiny grin on her lips. Evanne's scowl grew blacker.

"Oh, c'mon, Evie!" Cassy half-gasped, half-cried as she slammed her head against Adel's pillows in a failed effort to control her laughter, "You gotta admit –Hahahahahah!— that it does sound funny! I mean, Gawd. Heheheheh. I mean, seriously, the image of James, and you, and—"

"Yes, I get your meaning," Evanne said sourly as she eyed her hands wretchedly. They looked as though they had been covered with slime. Thick, green, clotting slime. She flipped her right hand over, palm facing down. One of the lumps on her index finger was inching slowly towards her tip. She'll burn in hell before she'd allow these... blobs to contaminate her pristine, neatly made bed.

Just imagine. The Attack of the Blobs. Chomping and ingesting the school, inch by inch—

"Oh, no!" Adel's face appeared beside the half-opened door of their bathroom, wearing a most distressed expression. "Evie, I can't find the box of bandages you brought anywhere!"

"What? Are you serious?" Evanne stared at Adel in horror and flicked her gaze back to her green, lumpy hands. "Oh, no. What are—What are we going to do? I am abso-bloody-lutely not sleeping with this covering my fingers."

Jess and Cassy stopped laughing –yes, well, finally— upon hearing this and sat up together, legs still tangled, arms around each other. Personally, Evanne mused inside her head, she thought that the two of them looked as though they had just finished a quick tumble. Why, if she hadn't known that both girls were, well, straight, she would say...

Hmmm. So many possibilities.

Jess' voice cut through her thoughts as the latter snorted at her, her voice husky with laughter. "Of course you aren't, silly! Our rooms don't even have a piece of Band-Aid each, but... I know, I'll help you call Alex and Meg's rooms to ask them if they have any bandages over there."

"Hey, Lauren, I was just wondering –Whoa, it sure is real noisy over there! Oh, a party. Well, happy partying to you. But, yeah, anyway, D'you have any bandages over there? Y'know—no, not plaster! No, no... nothing like that. Just those gauze-like, white—Oh... none at all? Ah, yeah, thanks so much... Mmm hmm. Mmm. Okay! Yeah, bye! "

Adel moved the rest of her body out of the bathroom to join her face. "So Lauren and Alex don't have any bandages in her room?"

"Nope... At least, I don't think so. She's more than three sheets in the wind, though... Maybe she didn't even know what I wanted. But even if we go over to confirm if they have any bandages at all, I doubt we'll be able to search for them. She has a party going on there right now, and I heard Alex beside her, and it sounds like even she's pretty sloshed too." Jess replaced the phone back into its cradle and tugged a curl of golden hair that had escaped from the confines of her ponytail.

Cassy propped her head up with her hand. "Try Sarah and Meg's room, then."

Picking up the phone again, Jess' finger hovered over the numbers. "What's their number?"

"0900-2876-0668. I think." Cassy rattled off, flinging her arms over her head while staring up at the ceiling.

"'Kay," Jess murmured, punching in the respective numbers.

"Ah, Sarah? This is Jess, Hmm? Oh, naw, I've over at Adel's and Evie's room. Say, do you have any bandages over there? Oh, okay. Ask Meg to take her time. Hmm. Oh, she says none? Oh... okay, thanks, anyway? Oh, no, it's for Evie; y'know, her detention today... Yeah. 'Kay, bye!"

Jess hung up and turned to the others. "Nope, they don't have any over there too."

The four of them stared at each other, not knowing what to do about Evanne's predicament. None of the girls had bandages in their rooms. And Evanne could not possibly sleep with her hands stretched out in front of her like an Old World imperial Chinese vampire.

So what now?

Cassy spoke up after a pregnant period of silence, running her hand through her curly hair and snapping her fingers. "I know! Let's pop over to James' room, we haven't tried him yet. Maybe he has some bandages with him."

"Can't we just call him?" Evanne sulked, wrinkling her nose at the heap of green goo which were her fingers. Cassy rolled her eyes at the British girl as she stretched and got up from the bed.

"And just how, sweetie, are we going to call him if we don't have his number?"

"Oh. Yeah. That. I, er...forgot." Evanne brought her hand up in a reflexive action as she attempted to scratch her temple in embarrassment, only to pause with her finger halfway to her head as she recalled the reason to just why having her fingers on any other part of her body besides, well, themselves, would be a really bad idea.

"Well, if we want to head over to James' room, we have to go now, you know. It's currently twenty-minutes to ten," Adel pointed out while shrugging on her pullover. She had taken to the habit of wearing an extra layer whenever they stepped out of their dorm room, because to quote her, her "tropical-climate-inclined body was going to freeze in the chilly autumn air".

And it was with that the four of them started towards James' room, with three out of four walking along normally, while the fourth skulked behind, struggling with the effort not to stuff her hands into her pants' pockets to hide them or chopping them off once and for all, handicap and the inability to write again be damned.

They arrived in front of James' room on the seventh floor at a record-breaking five minutes. Evanne and Adel were both panting, even Jess was looking a little flushed, but Cassy remained as poised as ever.

The three of them stared accusingly at Cassy, who had set the speed from them by racing them from Adel and Evanne's room, down the hall, left into the sixth floor common room, out via one of the many doors leading to the room into a corridor, right into the elevator, up to the seventh floor, left into the seventh floor common room, out through one of the many doors, right into the hall and straight down the hall to James' room at the very end.

Yeah.

"Why," Adel demanded in between pants, a hand over her flushed cheeks, and the other clutching her stomach, "aren't you out of breath at all?"

Cassy tossed her hair back and said something about tennis and exercise in return, but Evanne was too busy banging at James' door as though her life depended on it to concentrate on what it was. Knock. Knock knock. KNOCK. Bang bang. Bang bang bang. Bang. BANG BANG—

One. Two. Three. Four. Five—

"What the fuck is your problem, Platten? I thought I told you to fuck—" The door whipped open with such force that it banged against the wall and rebounded back onto the masculine palm that had shoved it ajar in the first place. The first expression that came to Evanne's mind when she saw Stefan Yusgov, James' Russian roommate for the first time was "A mortal Adonis come to life".

Cassy made a funny little gasp and went into predator mode; Jess managed to look both neutral and politely amused at the same time (although Evanne did catch a quick flicker of her eyes towards the abdominal region of the gorgeous male specimen's body), and Adel's face was so red that Evanne felt amazed that her facial arteries had not burst. Yet.

It seemed like she was the only X-X chromosome owner who was unaffected by the supreme model of physical attractive-ness in front of them. Or rather, she was affected, but not in the way they were; she was very, very, very annoyed with this... young man for blocking the only entrance to his, and James' room, thereby halting her search for clean bandages.

The reason that her friends had turned into twittering half-wits was not solely to the handsome facial features that Stefan Yusgov possessed. Oh, no. The fact that he was naked from the waist up and had only a teeny white towel to save him from being accused of indecent exposure in public also aided a lot to the fact. Manwhore.

It was at this very moment the Adonis Come to Life opened his mouth and spoke. "Well, well, well... What do we have here?"

His Russian accent and debonair air gave a dangerous edge to his words, as he propped his arm against the door and leant slightly onto it.

Cassy's sexy little smile grew wider and sexier.

Jess' breathing quickened very slightly. But a lot more audible.

Adel's face grew redder (Evanne had not considered that possible), and her gaze more focused on the floor.

Evanne grew more annoyed. She could feel the herbal salve squishing between her fingers as they curled inwards. Opening her mouth, she started to ask if James was within the room—

–Only to be interrupted.

"Hi. I'm Cassy." Said girl tilted her head coquettishly and widened her smile even further at Stefan. Glancing downwards, Evanne noted sardonically that he was not unaffected. Oh, no, au contraire.

"Cassy. It's such a pleasure to meet you." Mr. I-Have-Such-A-Deep-Voice-And-A-Sexy- Russian-Accent murmured, favouring her with a flirtatious smile of his own. Evanne opened her mouth again to remind them for the time and that it would be quite all right for them to chat, but please, wouldn't they continue socialising after she had gotten her bandages and cease to drip green slime over the floor?

But of course, Mr. Evanne-Finds-You-More-Irritating-By-The-Minute chose that particular moment to bestow his favours upon Jess and Adel.

Omigawd, he's so hawt! N-O-T.

Evanne felt like screaming in frustration and yanking her hair out. But that would require her to take another bath, so she chose to suppress the urge instead.

A stupid trickle of water –he must have just finished his bath— made its clichéd way down his perfectly formed collar bone, passed his nipple, and continued down, down, down...

It was rather obvious from the enraptured expressions on Cassy, Jess (who had by then given up all pretence of being aloof) and Adel (who had also given up the pretence of being shy) that they had absolutely no trouble at all in envisioning the destination of the droplet's journey.

"I am Yusgov. Stefan Yusgov." He well, erm, purred, for want of a better word. Evanne could not think of another adjective to describe his tone; because it did really bring to mind a cat sunning itself lazily in the sun. She was standing slightly behind the door, so Mr. Tall-Dark-And-Sexy could not see her. Or rather, he could have seen her... if he would just shift slightly to his right. "And these two lovely ladies are...?"

Evanne chose that moment to step out behind the door, giving Mr. James-Bond-Wannabe quite a scare as punishment for turning her friends to gooey shells. She spoke quickly, taking advantage of his sagging against the doorframe. "Jessica and Adelyna. Hullo. Name's Evanne. Say, is James in there?. (And this was uttered rather pointedly.) We came by to see him."

Evanne was pleased to note that she seemed to have disconcerted Stefan (-ie? Perhaps...) Flashing him an artificially bright smile that was tinged with condescending civility, she continued, "I wanted to get some bandages from him, y'see."

Evanne was convinced that Stefan Yusgov was placed on Earth for purely ornamental purposes by his next words. He blinked, then uttered, "What do you need bandages for?"

Didn't he realise that he had just given her a perfect opening? Ignoring the simultaneous Stop-Bullying-The-Guy-And-Let-Us-Oogle-Him pinches on her waist and back by Cassy and Jess respectively –Adel was too overwhelmed by Stefan to do so, she gave him another fake simper. Evanne had always harboured an active and intense dislike for dumb but gorgeous people. She didn't know why though. They just irritated her.

Anyway, she took a deep breath and bellowed, "This!"

And shoved her greenish, slimy, lumpish hands into his face. Well, not really. It was more like leaving half an inch of space between her hands and his visage.

He uttered a strangled yell and leapt –yes, leapt— away from her alien-looking hands. Unfortunately (for him), his leap was miscalculated, and he ended up stumbling over a pile of clothes to land on his bum (and from the sound of it, it wasn't a soft landing at all) on the floor. Adel, Cassy and Jess gasped in harmony before running to Yusgov's aid.

Evanne barely could restrain herself from cackling and rubbing her hands together. She didn't know why, but she just did not like Stefan Yusgov. Hmm. It must have been because of all that smarmy charm oozing out of him like discoloured pus.

Stepping over him, she started towards the closed bathroom door, behind which sounds of an ongoing shower could be heard. Evanne wondered absently if Mr. I'm-Obviously-Hetero took his shower along with James, or before James.

She snickered softly. Surely it was the latter. Knowing the personalities of Stefan Yusgov's type, he was most probably a homophobe as well.

She raised a hand to knock on the bathroom door, but it swung open before her knuckle could come into contact with the wooden surface. Thus, her fist was positioned in such a way that it would appear to an observer that she was trying to smash it through James' throat. The statement "it's not what it looks like!" would be very appropriate for this instant.

"Evie!" He yelped, one hand going down reflexively to tighten his grip on his towel. Evanne noted that it looked very much longer than his roommate's. "What are you doing here?"

She gave him her most wheedling smile and held up her hands, giving her best Oliver Twist imitation. "Please, sir, can I some bandages?"

He snorted and stared guiltily at her glop-covered hands. "Was that all? You could have called me and asked me to bring it over to your room! Did Alex and the others' supplies all run out?"

Evanne squelched her smirk and went with him to the cupboard beneath the shared study desk, listening with half a ear to Yusgov's groans in the background and Adel, Cassy and Jess' concerned exclamations over his state of well-being.

That leap had totally made her day.

A/N: Boothers, darling, art ye happy? Anyway. Review, people.