Authors Note: Well I'm back now, I've been out of commission longer than I meant, this will be the first day of school for Alek and Deryn, with being back I will try and update regularly but I am working more so there might be a conflict. The beginnings of this chapter is mainly just setting up classes so it may be tedious but near the end of the school day it gets better. Thank you all so so so much for sticking with this it means a lot and the more like positive reviews the more I know you like it and it keeps me writing tbh. If you have any requests for small snippets of Dalek stuff for later on or anything you want to see or see in this story just let me know, again thank you and enjoy.
BEEP… BEEP... *SLAM*
I pulled my hand back away from my now silent alarm clock, which read seven. I started to try and rub the sleep from my eyes though it never works, I pushed the blankets off of me with my feet and sat up. It's only been two days, but waking up in the dorm was still weird. It felt a bit cramped, not because I was sharing space, our room was well divided with enough space for our stuff, it was just a smaller room than I was used to, and much more tidy.
I slid my feet off the bed and onto the cold tiled floor and padded my way to the dresser at the foot of the bed. I was rooting through my clothes trying for something nice but not too over the top. As I was digging around for an outfit, I looked over at the other bed occupying the room. My roommate, Alek, was sprawled out on his bed. He was still wearing his clothes from yesterday; a khaki pair of shorts and a plain red t-shirt. His reddish hair, normally a cute and tidy but mussed up look, was now a crazy bit of bed head. Most of the top part of his hair had slumped down past his forehead onto his face.
He started to shift around a bit as if to sense my staring. I could feel myself start to blush as I pulled out the cloths I had left forgotten in that moment. I took my clothes, a pair of grey slim fit pants, purple LSA polo shirt and a pair of low top black converse, and put them in the bathroom off of our dorm. I exited the bathroom once more and picked up Aleks sheets that had pooled off the side of his bed, I balled them up and threw them at his head. He jolted up sending his book flying to the foot of his bed, he seemed flustered with his hair all over the place.
"Time to wake up sleepy head, breakfast starts at eight." I said laughing, Alek in response to this just grumbled something and flopped back onto the bed. I closed the bathroom door pretty loud and heard him yell from his bed
"Alright! I'm up!" The barking prince wasn't used to the simple one-hour time change. I turned on the shower and stepped in. Today's the day! First day of school here we come, luckily I'll have Alek in most of my classes. Alek and I had hit it off the past few days at Leviathan, we talked about music and videogames and books, Alek was into old books about world war one while I was more interested in books on biology. Our one most common topic of conversation was about the major project alluded to by Dr. Barlow. Our speculation went from genetically modified creations onto a real life flight with full crew of students manning a bomber of some sort for the RAF. Obviously none of the above but it was fun. I leaned out of the shower and checked my phone 7:30. I shut off the water and hopped out, drying off my hair and getting ready for the day, I styled my hair, only really having to worry about the top with my undercut. I combed it back with my fingers, and once that was done, I set about binding my chest. I unrolled the ace bandages and got to work, it hurt during the day I just didn't have the resources to get an actual binder, which would have helped. Once I was dressed I stepped out and saw Alek waiting patiently to go in, once I stepped aside he barreled past me.
At seven fifty Alek re-entered the dorm from the bathroom wearing a simple grey V-neck shirt and a pair of maroon pants that went well with it, his hair was a far cry from the mess it was earlier, close cropped sides an inch longer than mine, the rest swept back from his forehead in soft waves that are longer than the rest, his green eyes and smattering of freckles completing a look that could only be described as a messy handsome, but in a way that was purposeful. I averted my eyes to avoid looking at his small smirk that he seemed to always have on. We both grabbed our lanyards with our school IDs, phones, and bags with our laptops and notebooks for class, then headed down to the common area to meet up with Newkirk.
Newkirk was an interesting fellow, he is from Britain and is taking the aeronautics program, the rest of him can be defined in a few words like, awkward, weird but funny, he seemed to be a bit skeptical of Alek because he was what the aeronautic kids called a "clanker" an engineer. Alek seemed to take it in stride saying it was pretty cool.
As we walked to the lunch building, we made small talk and talked about the schedules for the first day of school. Newkirk and I both had maths at nine o'clock, and from two o'clock until three fifteen we have aeronautics together. While on the other hand Alek and I had our language, biology and gym classes together. There was talk of special uniforms which had gotten a lot of the first years in a tizzy as we entered the Nikola dining hall. It was a goliath of a building but the new amounts of people demonstrated the size, with the second and third years now back and ready for the new year, the building had no lack for space, whether it be food lines or seating. We entered the line with Newkirk, who was seemingly still overwhelmed by the massive choices for food. The school supplies many food options for the many international students which, to people like Newkirk who grew up in London proper, can be a bit much. I myself grew up with haggis, which comes with being a Scotsman, and Alek grew up with whatever posh junk you eat in Austria. Needless to say breakfast went off without a hitch.
Around eight forty-five we left the dining hall. Newkirk was ranting and raving about the vegan pancakes and how he's only going to eat them. I shared a look with Alek which said 'It's going to be a different food every day' , he seemed to understand with a nod in confirmation. The campus was teeming with students ready to get back into the swing of things; students milling about in the courtyard, outside the administrative school building, walking through the halls, and across the campus like blood through the veins of a giant beastie. The school had an atmosphere that felt alive, with the sun beating down, and the slight breeze mixed with the voices of kids who were relishing seeing their friends, it felt like a community where I could belong, albeit as a double agent of the opposite sex.
We made our way into the school building. Weaving through the throngs of people horsing around. Newkirk and I had math class on the second floor while Alek's math class was on the first. We parted ways at the main staircase going up.
"Good luck, Alek!" He looked up with a smile on his face and saluted me and Newkirk,
"I'm gonna need it." And with that he walked to his class. Newkirk and I continued up the stairs to our classroom.
Math is alright and only interesting in some cases, but very rarely. Mainly it depends on the teacher, ours was one who put us to work on the first day. We sat down in the lecture hall type classroom, Newkirk and I next to each other, He gave us our textbooks, and told us to open them to chapter one and we would start working. No day-one introduction games like in my first two years of high school. As soon as the instruction came I immediately groaned and leaned over to Newkirk,
"It's the first day and we're being told to learn!" He looked at me quizzically, he was still a bit awkward just because it's who he is, but after the call out he took from Barlow, he was hesitant to talk while a teacher was talking, but he relented.
"Dylan it is called school for a reason, like we're meant to learn," I scoffed and gave him an astounded look.
"Not you too? I mean first Alek and now you? What's wrong with you guys it's supposed to be fun and all about flying, not numbers and clart." Newkirk had gone still looking towards the front of the class where the teacher was looking straight at us. He cleared his throat and asked,
"Well, Mister...?"
"Sharp, sir, Dylan Sharp."
" Mister Sharp, open your textbook and stop with the disruptions, or we'll have some problems." He was quiet but his threat was well delivered, I gulped and settled down, this is going to be a long class period.
Newkirk and I left the class at nine fifty-seven, the bell for the school was like an air raid claxon but one that had relief and not impending doom. We had been assigned piles of homework, while from my texts with Alek it seemed that he had day one activities which were, according to him, "grueling." When I had seen that text I started to grumble about showing him something grueling but Newkirk shouldering me slightly helped, avoid getting in trouble again. Newkirk went back upstairs to the third floor to biology while I headed downstairs to meet up with Alek. He was waiting outside his classroom fixing his hair which looked fine to me, guys and their hair I thought to myself as I approached. He looked at me and grinned his clart eating grin asking,
"How was math?" I socked him in the shoulder, his grin getting me to smile but I pretended to be mad. He smiled again and rubbed his shoulder and listened to my rant as we entered the classroom.
It was a lecture hall type area like the math room, except instead of what teachers think are clever posters of puns and jokes (you all know what I'm talking about) were flags of various countries, with posters next to them of the country they stood for. We were told to take our seats and wait for the bell, we only had three-minute passing periods which was a load of clart but it apparently helps with time management.
As the bell rang, five teachers filed into the room, each holding a flag of a certain country, then a sixth person entered, he introduced himself as the director of the language department. He went on about how he expected the best from us in our language we choose. The teachers introduced themselves one by one and went over what language they teach. The list is of, French, Spanish, German, Japanese and Latin.
"Which language are you gonna take?" Alek asked me as they were talking. I shrugged my shoulders and said to him,
"Whichever seems easier." He smiled at that and thought for a few minutes before I asked him what he wanted to take. He replied almost instantly.
"German, I mean I'm already fluent." I was stunned silent for a bit,
"You speak three languages?"
" What do you mean by three?"
"Well, you know, Austrian, German and English?" When I asked the question he just nodded his head in understanding.
"I get the confusion now, no I only speak six, Hungarian, Latin, Italian, French, and German and Austrian are essentially the same languages." I simply nodded feeling a bit lost at this new information. I was stunned Only six?! Of course he does the barking prince but an idea started forming.
"So being fluent, would it be easy to help a certain friend with their homework if they chose German?" He looked a bit confused but still agreed with a yes. I held out my hand with a clever grin spread across my face,
"Then I guess we'll be in business then Mister Hohenberg." He realized what I was talking about and shook my hand,
"I guess me are Mister Sharp, I guess we are."
When the time came, Alek and I selected German and went off to the class to get our textbook codes to be used digitally on our laptops, and to get our work packets, needless to say, this class had first day introduction games.
The period ended and we got our homework assignments, which was to just read the introductions to the textbook and be ready to start learning German, simple enough. We saw Newkirk sulking his way towards his next class which was English with Mr. Malone, He opted out of a language to take the class. When Alek raised a questioning eyebrow, Newkirk simply responded,
"She remembered me." He looked down trodden so I put my hand on his shoulder and he looked up at me, gave me an awkward smile, and walked off down the hall. I turned back to Alek and we continued walking.
"So Alek, are there any, like, German words that transfer into English weirdly?" His eyes seemed to light up at the question, like he'd always wanted to have the conversation.
"Well, let's see, there's Innerer Schweinehund, Treppenwitz, Zungenbrecher, und Backpfeifengesicht." My face scrunched up as the words continued they were like tongue twisters but an actual language.
"What do they mean?" He was about to say something but stopped himself and instead said,
"wo ist der Spaß, dass." He walked into the biology classroom and left me in the dust, trying to figure out the German that was just thrown at me. The barking Prince
I stepped into the class to see it was very different from the other classes, in the way that the seating was. Lab tables of two or three, the walls were full of cubby's and cages full of lizards, spiders, fish, turtles, almost every small animal known to man. At the desk in the front of the room was Dr. Nora Barlow, in a business suit with her boffin bowler hat on.
Me and Alek sat down at the same lab table. Alek was looking at the lizards strangely, as if they were going to start talking. A voice came from behind Alek and I,
" That is a Chamaeleo calyptratus," she looked at Alek's adorably confused face and said "A chameleon." Realization hit Alek as he started to nod. She turned to me and said, "Well it seems you two have stuck together, have either of you thought of a future in biology?" In response Alek simply shrugged while I nodded, biology was cool and I had read an article about Dr. Barlow I was just starting to remember, she worked on CRISPR, a genome editing device and was working towards grants to use it for animals, it was quite fascinating. Barlow nodded in approval.
"You two should come after school and sign up for the student-teacher work opportunity." I again nodded and thanked her for the request and as did Alek but a bit shakily. She looked like she was about to say more but the claxon rang and Dr. Barlow turned and launched into her introduction to the class and all we'd be learning this year and how we can relate it to real life. For me finding subjects in school fun was rare but biology and genetics were something I could get behind. Although Alek seemed to be stumbling in trying to catch the words like me hearing his German. He looked over to see if I understood what she was saying about her work in genetics and all these big words about splicing and things like that.
"Are you getting this?" he asked quietly, I nodded simply, still listening to the Doctor, he shrugged and was about to go back to listening before I responded,
"Are you having a tough time?"
"Yea it's just I don't get science; I like to be more hands on with machines than typing data points." I thought about this for a minute, he did seem to be more a worker with his hands, he mentioned he used to work on engines and cars in Austria and mechanic stuff, it just never occurred to her that the science wouldn't just click to him. I reached out and patted him on the back as we both settled in for the rest of Dr. Barlow's introductions.
1:00
After lunch was the second to last class of the day, gym. Lunch wasn't very eventful just trading stories of what happened and ranting. Near the end of biology, a rather large ferret got out from its cage and had started to run around and some guys hopped up onto their lab tables yelling in high pitched voices about rats. It was comical and Dr. Barlow had calmly collected the ferret and put it away explaining that its erratic behavior came from the fact that it had been a test subject from crispr so its genetics were in flux. Otherwise the class went by uneventful, but me and Alek had a back and forth about whether to actually accept the work opportunity. We had decided to just look into it and decide from there even though Barlow seemed to have her answer already.
This period was the longest by far. Alek and I sat in the front rows of the bleachers and when the claxon rang to signal classes had started the gym teachers wasted no time in calling out names alphabetically to get gym uniforms and locks for the locker room. Alek left first being near the beginning of the alphabet got pulled away and put in a group of rowdy guys who were faffing about. He disappeared down through the door to the left of the bleachers. By the time my name was called all I wanted to do was go to next period, aeronautics were so close I could feel it like a physical presence. I grabbed a uniform in medium even though I was a bit more of a slimmer build to help hide the hopefully not obvious wrap job I had under my shirt. I went through the door Alek had earlier and went down a set of stairs into the locker rooms. My mind went into overdrive; I have to change here! No privacy no nothing! The locker room was a wide space set up into gridded sections by locker number, I went to my number and found I was near the back along the side of the room. All I need to do is wear a tank top underneath that's all, I tried to control my racing mind, I hadn't thought of this possibility, it was a flaw maybe a fatal one. I put away my clothes and looked around for Alek hoping to see some face I recognized in the sea of boys rough housing and joking around. I walked up the stairs and ran into one of the waiting teachers. He had me introduce myself and told me we needed seven more people till he walked us through the gym's facilities. As guys slowly filed out we started the tour.
To say this place was state of the art, wasn't giving it enough credit, multi floored work out spaces, a climbing walls complete with airship riggings on one side, two indoor tracks one above the other on separate floors, a lap pool with twelve lanes, two basketball courts, fully equipped workout rooms and on top of all of that, fencing areas, I doubt I'll ever see those in use. I was thoroughly overwhelmed by all of this. I learned that these areas were for use for students once curfew ends and anytime not when classes are running. We finished back where we started and the teachers who were left were handing out marked parcels with either an A or an M on them. I could feel excitement growing in my chest, apparently we would be getting special uniforms due to our class choice. As I approached the line I tried to see Alek over the sea of heads but he I doubted I'd be able to find him due to his height, he wasn't necessarily short, but he wasn't tall either, he was around five nine, while I am five eleven. When I got to the front of the line I got my bag and walked out of the crowd. That's when I saw Alek, he was still stuck in the group of rowdy guys except they had his package and were throwing it above their heads as he was trying to get it back. One of them looked about six feet tall with a buzz cut, not built very well kind of stubby in a way. Nice clothing but complete with ratty combat boots. Ah he's one of those people, who think they're a rebel because their mean and own a pair of boots. I could feel a bit of anger swell in my chest as I made my way over. Alek had made a successful grab for it and the buzz cut kid had him by his ears, his hair was messed up and he looked distraught. I could hear one of his cronies call out,
" Come on Fitz, Quit playing with the shorty." I could see Alek gulp visibly. As this kid Fitz made a grab for his package, I intervened, pushing him away, or at least trying to, he was barking heavy. He stumbled back a bit, looking a bit stunned. Alek whose face was red, with embarrassment anger or a mix of the two stepped up to my side.
"Looky here boys, look like shorty's got his boyfriend to help him out!" they all sneered and laughed their stupid laughs.
"I'm sticking up for a friend clart, for brains, it's what friends do, I doubt if you weren't there to scare them they wouldn't be following you around." I shot back heatedly. He looked stunned and I could see Alek had a triumphant smile on his face.
"Do you know who I AM?! How dare you talk to me like that, my name is Robert Fitzroy," His face had gone purple with anger "My father is the captain of the British navy!" I realized that with him there was no gaining ground so I did what my brother Jaspert and my Da, taught me to do, or well more so my da. I scoffed and shrugged my shoulders in an 'so what' manner and turned and walked away. Alek following close behind, I could hear him yelling obscenities from across the bleachers as Alek and I sat down to look at the parcels we got.
"Thanks, Dylan." It was said so quietly I barely heard it over the din of the crowd. I looked over at him and he had a look of gratitude on his face with a small shy smile. Turning my head back to my package to hide the small blush that was growing I responded,
"It's what friends are for Alek, if they ever bother you again I'll help you rough em up." At that he laughed possibly imagining us in a fight,
"I doubt I'd be much use but I'd give it my all." At this I smiled and held up the package,
"Shall we?"
Inside of mine was a brown leather pilots jacket, with a collar of sheep's wool, it had a bunch of pockets that I could already see the uses for, it was much like my fathers, with the same heraldry patch on the shoulder where the chevrons would go above, I lifted up the jacket and underneath was another thing of leather with goggles over it, a flight cap, If I could see the way I looked it'd probably be a look of total joy. I looked over at Alek's package and he pulled out a light blue mechanic's jumpsuit but, it seemed more stylish, with a padded doublet area inside of the jumpsuit, stitched in a shade of brown that surprisingly worked well with the color of blue. The knees were padded as well which seemed to have Alek excited.
"Well no more scraped knees from kneeling, that'll be for sure, do you like your outfit?" All I could think to do was nod.
The Klaxon rang and all the students who were first years started along their way to the hanger for their first classes in aeronautics and mechanics. On the way over Alek went about attempting to fix his hair. I had to follow the flow of soon to be pilots and I left him with the other mechanic's students and the teacher Otto Klopp.
The classroom was in the way back of the hanger, it was a bit cramped and I tried to keep my distance from Fitzroy who was trying to be a pilot as well. Captain Hobbes entered last and had us stand at attention, giving the normal first day speech about before we could become pilots we were to be called midshipmen, and he handed out textbooks, The Manual of Aeronautics, by S. Wetserfeld. Then he told us about the big project.
"As students at Leviathan school of aeronautics you will be responsible for showing your prowess in teamwork, navigation, and flight, as you know you have been told to find teammates, the explanation to that is that you will eventually with your teammate or members, Build and fly a small aircraft," The class started to buzz with excited whispers until the Captain cleared his throat and began speaking again, "What you will learn and your partners in the mechanics program will be enough to support this project. By the end of this trimester, you will have to have submitted your team members, by the end of second trimester you must have a design, and by the end of the year you must have a working prototype, we aren't asking you to build 747s, just something small like the wright brothers or an air balloon with capabilities to work like an airship." He continued on about what is to be expected of us and what we are to learn in this class. After an hour we still had fifteen minutes left with all the information covered and so he dismissed us to go out into the hanger.
Outside the teacher had the students assembling parts of some kind of motor in the afternoon sun, I could hear him telling some kids to stop complaining and that this is just to test preexisting knowledge. I walked over to where Alek was and I could feel my heart beat a bit quicker, he had changed into his jumpsuit, but due to the heat he had it unzipped, and tied around his waist, a white tank top covered his chest, He was skinny but in a way that he had a lot of lean muscle, he was facing away from me and as he shifted his arms assembling parts I could see the way his muscles tightened underneath his tank. I was thankful for the heat so I could blame my flushed face on that. By the time I made it to him he had sat down apparently finished, he pushed a pair of engineers goggles onto his forehead pushing back his reddish brown hair which shown in the sunlight of the afternoon. I came to a stop and tried to form a question without stuttering like a flustered lass, cause Deryn Sharp does not get flustered because of boys.
"So… I um uh, I mean, how's the mechanics going?" Smooth you clart head, I averted my eyes from his adorably confused smile,
"It's been fun, I spent a lot of time working on mechanics in Austria so it's been a piece of cake, how about you, you okay? You seem a bit flustered." I wished my red face would just fade away and I could act suave and pretend that Alek wasn't getting to me.
"Never better."