More food for the starving gays, dig in my beloved readers!
All feedback appreciated!
Edited 1/2/23. Edit notes at the end of the chapter.
For the first time that semester after a night of partying Sam didn't wake up with a hangover, let alone wake up in an unusual place. She didn't overdo it at all, and the previous night was probably the most amount of fun she'd had in a long time. After she and Lara had finally talked their issues out and made up, they ended up going to a massive party off-campus. Lara, being as shy as she was, had taken to hugging the walls at first but Sam wasn't having any of that. After she had gotten a round of shots for them apiece and got Lara nice and marinated, she helped her roommate tap into her inner party animal.
And by God, was Lara Croft a closet party animal-and the most incredible dancer Sam had ever seen. The moment Wearing My Rolex had come on the stereo system, Lara went off. Her limbs all appeared to be moving independently, yet still as a united whole as she started busting out moves Sam had never expected to see out of someone who was supposed to be a member of the English nobility. She made a mental note to ask her normally reserved roommate where she had learned to move so well. Not that she had to wait too long to do so as the phone alarm she had forgotten to turn off from the previous day rang. Lara groaned in protest as she came to.
"Shit, sorry!" Sam squeaked as she scrambled to turn it off, dropping her phone in the process and debatably making even more noise than her alarm was. Finally, she retrieved her phone from where it lay on the floor and swiped across the screen to turn the alarm off, but it was already too late. Lara was wide awake at that point. "So...uh...good morning, sunshine?"
"Mmh…" Lara grunted, clumsily groping for her phone on her nightstand to check the time, "oh hell, it's already eleven…?"
"You have anywhere you need to be?" Sam asked, feeling guilty all of a sudden for having not asked before getting Lara wasted the night before.
"Not necessarily," Lara's eyes watered as she yawned, "I was just planning to get to the library to-"
"It's Saturday. Forget the library," Sam scoffed, "you worry too much about your academics."
"And that's a bad thing?" Lara asked, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and sitting up slightly.
"It is when you're eighteen years old-"
"Seventeen," Lara cut in.
"What?"
"I'm seventeen years old," Lara corrected her, and Sam regarded her for a few moments.
"Wait...but...I thought the drinking age is eighteen in the U.K.?"
"Oh it is," Lara assured her, "but you had already gotten the drinks at that point so what was I going to do?" Sam felt a smile creep upon her face.
"Paint the picture however you want. Just admit that deep down you're a rebel who knows how to have a good time-speaking of which! Where the heck did you learn to dance so well?" Sam demanded, and Lara scratched the back of her neck sheepishly.
"Come again?" She asked innocently. When Sam pulled up a video she had taken of Lara dancing on her phone and showed it to the latter, however, her cheeks instantly went red, "Ah, it's a bit embarrassing actually...when I was a bit younger, I was sent to dance classes to help with gymnastics." Sam frowned.
"What does dancing have to do with gymnastics?" Lara was scratching the back of her neck so vigorously at that point, Sam thought she was going to break skin soon.
"Ever seen a gymnast do a floor routine? It requires the performer to combine the artistry of dance with acrobatics." Sam started to grin mischievously.
"Sounds like my type of sport."
"What was that?" Lara blinked.
"Nothing," Sam replied quickly, "seriously though, that's not embarrassing! That's actually pretty cool, you have to teach me some moves!" Lara's face was as red as a tomato by that point.
"I-I'll...I'll think about it," she remarked at length, "I'm a bit mortified that I even did that last night."
"Why?" Sam raised a brow at her, "You had fun didn't you?"
"Well, yes," Lara conceded bashfully, "but I don't typically like to draw that much attention to myself."
"Well you did," Sam said, "and you sure as hell owned it. I'm serious, you should be proud! I know I was standing there drunkenly saying 'Yo! That's my roommate tearing it up over there!'" That finally got Lara to let out a small laugh, "See? There we go! I'm taking that laugh as a sign of your reluctant agreement."
"Take it however you want," Lara finally said, heaving herself out of bed and walking over to her chest of drawers.
"You're seriously going to go to the library on a weekend?" Sam asked incredulously as Lara rifled through her clothes to find something to wear.
"Wanna come with?" Lara offered, and Sam paused.
"Come with? To the library?"
"Yeah," Lara replied, shrugging, "we have that written exam coming up in our Lit class." In spite of herself, Sam stopped to consider Lara's offer. Her grade in Literature up to that point was still less than satisfactory in spite of her best efforts. Perhaps Lara could actually help her?
"Could we at least get something to eat?" Sam asked, and Lara froze where she was, t-shirt in hand.
"Oh right, I guess we should probably do that," she said, as though food was an afterthought. Sam had to resist the urge to laugh.
That explains why she's so skinny, she thought to herself, she's so engrossed in her schoolwork she forgets to eat. "Alright," she finally declared, getting to her feet and looking for something suitable to wear, "I accept your invitation to accompany you to the…" she gave an over exaggerated shudder, "library." She pretended to retch.
"Funny," Lara mused, "you should be an actress."
"No thanks," Sam retorted, "they demand that actresses be a certain weight and I like potato chips too much, so…" she shrugged.
"Fair enough," Lara replied, going to the bathroom to change. Sam frowned as she began to get changed herself. Lara was on the gymnastics squad; shouldn't she be used to getting changed in front of other people in the locker room? She knew Lara was shy and a little awkward, but to what extent? "Alright," Lara said, re-emerging as Sam pulled her head through her shirt collar.
As Lara went about gathering her books and study materials, Sam couldn't help but indulge in some ogling. Realistically, there should be no reason for Lara to feel self-conscious with a body like that. Up close as she was, the lean tone to Lara's arms was thrown into full relief, along with the shapeliness of her curves. Sam had to shake her head to clear it, reminding herself that Lara was her roommate, and she probably didn't play for the same team anyways. Abandoning her shameless gawking, she instead went about gathering her class materials as well.
"So where should we go to grab a bite to eat?" Sam asked as she put her laptop in her bag and coiled up its charger, "I'd suggest Gordon's but that place is usually pretty crowded." Lara frowned thoughtfully.
"There's this place I went to on move-in day with my fath- well, you know what I mean," Lara quickly corrected herself mid-sentence. Sam raised a curious brow but didn't press Lara for an explanation. She knew by that point that if Lara wanted to tell her something, she'd do so of her own accord. "Anyways, it's an old sandwich shop but I saw breakfast items on their menu so we could try that? It's not too far away." Sam took a moment to think on Lara's suggestion.
"Yeah that works," she agreed, slinging her bag onto her shoulders, "let's go."
They exited the dorm together and began to walk down Tavistock Square. As they did, endless questions began to swirl around Sam's head and she found herself having to bite her tongue to keep from blurting one out. She had just found out the previous day that her and Lara shared a fairly similar lifestyle, and yet there was one thing in particular that was bothering her the more she thought about it.
"Hey," she finally began as they came to a stop before a crosswalk, "could I possibly ask you something without you getting mad?"
"It depends," Lara said evenly, looking down the street both ways.
"So, you're technically part of the British nobility, right?" Sam posed as they crossed the street together.
"Technically, yes," Lara replied simply.
"So why go through all the effort? Why work a job, pay out of pocket, come to school with barely anything?" Lara let out a sigh, and for a moment Sam was worried that she had overstepped her boundaries once more. Much to her surprise, however, Lara began to speak very calmly.
"Well, for starters British estate laws prevent minors from accessing their inheritance-"
"Well couldn't you just have your mo-? ...Oh," Sam knew that Lara's father was a little out there and had committed suicide, which was probably why she never bothered to mention him. But when she started to think about it, Lara had also never made mention of her mother. Was it possible that…?
"It's alright, you didn't know," Lara reassured her before letting out a soft sigh, "my mom died in a plane crash when I was young, so it's just me." Sam felt her insides squirm guiltily and bit her bottom lip.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"Like I said, you didn't know," Lara repeated, "anyways, to finish answering your question: even if I could access my inheritance, I don't want to. I'd rather do things my own way and earn my own way. That's kind of the long and short of it." Sam didn't think that Lara's explanation, which certainly covered the 'short' of everything, covered the 'long.' However, she was learning to recognize when it was appropriate to press Lara for an explanation and when to back off. It was all in Lara's eyes. Whenever she talked about a difficult topic, her eyes would get this distant, unfocused look to them.
And that was definitely the same look that Lara's eyes had to them now.
They made it to the sandwich shop and ordered their food shortly thereafter, from which point their conversation dissolved into casual banter about school, life, the party the night before, and generally normal topics of discussion. When it was all said and done, they didn't even get around to leaving for the library until around twelve-thirty in the afternoon, but Lara didn't even seem to be bothered by this reality. In fact, Sam felt as though it was the most relaxed she'd seen her roommate all semester, bright and cheerful as she was when they ascended the steps to the handsome, pillared library building. The relaxed atmosphere was short-lived, however, the moment they walked inside.
"Sam!" Came a familiar voice from their right.
Oh no… Sam thought to herself, donning her best smile nonetheless and turning to greet its owner, "Hi, Alex. Wasn't expecting to see you here."
"I work here, remember?" Alex replied with a grin, coming to a stop before them and regarding Lara with a slightly too intrigued expression, "Hi there, I don't believe we've had the pleasure of formally meeting yet. I'm Alex, you've checked out quite a few books here." He held a hand out, and Lara and Sam exchanged a look with each other.
"Sorry," Sam said to Lara in Japanese, "he's this awkward guy who's friends with my friend, Molly. I'm pretty sure the only reason Molly lets him hang around us is because he hacks things and sells us weed. He's actually kind of a dick." Lara let out a small laugh.
"I see, well let me try to get rid of him, then," Lara responded.
"Uh...what?" Alex looked back and forth between them in confusion.
"Sorry," Lara said, speaking English once more, "Sam's helping me with my Japanese and it's personal girl stuff. I'm Lara, her roommate."
"You're roommates?" Alex asked, raising a brow in intrigue and glancing in Sam's direction. Sam glared at him from over Lara's shoulder with a look that said 'don't you dare say anything.' After her previous experience with Steph, she didn't need anyone to cause more drama between her and Lara. "Nice to meet you," Alex continued, blanching slightly under Sam's murderous gaze.
"Likewise," Lara scratched the back of her neck somewhat awkwardly, "normally I'd stay to chat but I'm sure you have work to do and we have to study for an exam coming up in our class."
"Nah," Alex shook his head, "there's not really a lot to do here until the end of the day when the books need to be sorted back into place. Maybe I could help you two study?"
"Hey Lara," Sam cut in rather loudly, "could I get that tampon already?" It took all she had to not burst out into laughter at the way Alex's face flushed in that instant.
"A-Actually," Alex stammered, "I just remembered that there's some returned books I need to put back into the system. Nice meeting you, Lara!" He promptly took off without another word, leaving Lara and Sam giggling to themselves.
"Nice save," Lara commented.
"If I hadn't chased him off, that guy would have flirted with you and kept us from getting anything done. You can't tell me you didn't see that look in his eyes?" Sam asked as they began to make their way over to a table.
"Oh I did," Lara affirmed, "and thank God you chased him off. Guys like that are definitely not my type." Sam frowned.
"What is your type?" Lara paused right in the middle of pulling her class materials out of her bag.
"...Good question," was all she said after a moment or two before getting her laptop and the rest of her notes out.
"Good question?" Sam raised a brow as she took a seat across from Lara.
"I never really thought about it. I went to an all girls school so it's not like there were really any guys for us to fawn over." A small, mischievous smirk began to spread across Sam's face.
"What about girls?" She teased. Lara blinked in surprise at her.
"Girls?" She repeated blankly.
"Yeah, girls," Sam reiterated, "have you ever thought about dating girls?"
"With the type of vile girls that went to my school?" Lara remarked dryly, "No."
"What about girls who aren't 'vile'?" Sam pressed further, her heart racing in excitement. Lara bit the inside of her cheek and narrowed her eyes contemplatively.
"Maybe. I don't know, like I said I've never really thought about this type of thing. Never really felt interested in the whole dating scene." Sam figured that was the best answer she was going to get, and set about reviewing the list of essay questions that may be on their exam.
Question one: Starting with this extract, how does Lady Macbeth use language to manipulate her husband in the play?
Shit, Sam thought to herself as she read a verbatim excerpt from the play. She knew that sooner or later, relying on the No Fear Shakespeare version of the play would come back to bite her in the ass. She had been too self conscious to go to the professor for help on reading Shakespeare's work; doing so felt like an admission of her own intellectual inferiority. It took all she had to not mentally berate herself for not taking the help when it was available.
"Something wrong?" Came Lara's query from across the table. Sam looked up at her bashfully.
"Yeah," she admitted, "I literally have no clue how to read this Early Modern...whatever type of bastardized version of English this is, and I was too embarrassed to go to the professor for help and now I'm probably gonna bomb this exam."
"Maybe I could help?" Lara offered. Sam grimaced.
"If it's not too much trouble?" Lara shook her head.
"Not at all," she assured her, moving herself to the seat right beside Sam, "it's this first question, then?"
"Yeah."
"Alright," Lara scrutinized the words on the page and took a moment to gather her thoughts, "okay, first of all I'd like to point out that Shakespeare has a very tricky sentence structure for the sake of rhyme and meter. For instance, he'll omit certain words and leave it to the audience to pick up on the implied meaning of the sentence. Another thing he likes to do is take nouns and adjectives and turn them into verbs, such as 'cowarded' and 'portcullised' which can obviously make things a bit confusing. For now, let's start by systematically breaking down each sentence and decoding their meaning. Let me find a good example to start with." She picked up a pen, tore a sheet of paper from her notebook, and began writing.
Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none.
"So," Lara began, "consider 'I dare do all that may become a man,' this is an excellent example of Shakespeare omitting and implying words in his speech. What Macbeth is essentially saying here is that he would dare to do all that is proper for a man to do. How did I get this? Well, consider first of all that there are several meanings to the word 'become.' On one hand, its most common connotation is to begin to be, or to turn into, and if you think that's the meaning of the word in this context it's very easy to be confused. Ever heard the terms 'unbecoming' or 'becoming'? What those basically mean is to be appropriate or suitable to someone or something. So when he says 'I dare do all that may become a man,' he's really saying 'I dare do all that is appropriate of a man.'"
"So basically, he's defending himself saying that he's doing all a man should and doing more doesn't make him a man?" Sam asked, looking down at the sentence Lara had written intently.
"Exactly," Lara nodded approvingly, "Certain words were used in different ways back in Shakespeare's time, whereas today instead of saying 'clothing like that is unbecoming of her,' we say 'those clothes don't really suit her.' That being said, the meaning of becoming and unbecoming is still engraved in the English lexicon, they just aren't used as frequently in that manner."
"So then the sentence after that…" Sam continued, looking through the essay prompt.
"Right," Lara said, scribbling the next verse on her scrap sheet of paper.
What beast was't then
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man.
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time, nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both.
They have made themselves and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums
And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn
As you have done to this.
"Consider for a moment what Macbeth had just said. That he has done what is appropriate of a man, and to do more would no longer make him a man." Sam's eyes widened as she began to feel as though she was understanding.
"So, the crazy bitch is taking his words and throwing them right back at him, right?" Sam looked up at Lara, "Since he said that doing more wouldn't make him a man, she's asking him if he wasn't a man, what kind of animal was he when he said he would kill the king."
"Yes, actually," Lara looked mildly astonished, "that's the start of it. You picked up on that pretty quickly." Sam's gaze drifted downward, and she pursed her lips.
"I'm not dumb, you know."
"I didn't imply that you were."
"Sorry," Sam sighed emphatically, "it's just that certain people in my life think I'm a colossal airhead."
"I don't think you're an airhead." Sam stared at Lara skeptically, "Really, I don't. I actually think you're quite brilliant, I could tell the moment you started talking about Pride and Prejudice. You have a much more sophisticated understanding of the book than most other people I've talked to about it." Sam gave a halfhearted shrug in response. "Seriously, what's wrong?"
"Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the praise you're throwing my way, I guess I just...kind of wish my dad saw that, you know? He seems to think I'm some slacker who doesn't give a shit and it kind of gets me down a lot."
"Fuck your father," Lara blurted out all of a sudden, and Sam's head snapped up in surprise, "You know what? The exam isn't for a whole week. Why don't we go out and do something today?" Sam's sullen expression slowly morphed into a soft smile.
"Yeah, I'd like that."
Edit notes: honestly, I just deleted stuff that I don't even notice is missing after the fact.
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