I kinda made Gil a shitty person woops. But don't worry he's gonna get better. Also Feli is absolutely a boy, and Ludwig is very very gay. Katrina is 2p!fem Romano btw.

Get ready for some NorFin yall

Oh, and Inferno is a Finnish metal magazine. Now you know.

"Can I just drop out so I never have to do that ever again?" Gilbert moaned from where he lay, flopped on his back on the floor. "I'm so tired!"

"We're not done yet," Ludwig reminded him, a frown on his face. "We still have math and our electives." He sighed softly, and looked back at his Art History notes. "Why did I take this class? I can never remember any of this."

"Because you think Feli's butt is cute," Monika reminded him. "And, uh, she's taking it, and so you said, and I quote, "it'll probably be an easy grade." This is what you get for assuming that Feli only takes easy classes. Kid's smart as hell, or did you forget? Hey, speaking of hell, where's Maria? Is she skipping out on us again?"

Ludwig almost sighed in relief that Monika had remembered not to call Feli a he. Maybe he liked a boy, but Gilbert definitely didn't need to know that. He shook his head. "She's with Feli's cousin, I think her name is Katrina? They're working on the Spanish homework together, or at least that's what she told me."

Gilbert scoffed. "Katrina? The one with the shitty blonde dye job? Studying? I'll believe it when I see it. I heard that she's, like, a huge slut. We're talking varsity cheer level skank."

Monika kicked him in the leg and told him to shut up.

"Ow," he whined, clutching his shin. "What'd I do?"

Monika kicked him again. "Don't fucking talk about girls like that. She can do whatever she wants, and she doesn't need nosy little shits like you talking about her behind her back. Kat doesn't sleep around, and even if she did, you have no right to judge her. She doesn't cheat on people, so what she does in her free time is none of your business. She's a cool girl, and she shouldn't get made fun of because she likes to have fun. I hear you say that kinda shit again, and I'll kick your teeth in, got it?"

Gilbert raised an eyebrow. "Ok, but isn't that kinda gross? Like, going around with a whole bunch of people like that? Girls are supposed to be, like, pure or whatever, right? That's what you hear in church and stuff, at least." Gilbert and Ludwig had been raised to be strict Christians, though Gilbert tended to follow the bible closer than Ludwig. He practically had the entirety of the New Testament memorized at this point.

Monika made a face. "Not everyone believes that stuff, Gil. Jeez, I've never even opened a bible. I'm not gonna follow a bunch of rules some guys made up like a thousand years ago. Women are people, so if guys can do a thing, so can girls. We're not a piece of candy; being with multiple people doesn't make us dirty. That's something assholes say." Monika's were narrowed, and she seemed to be lost in a memory. She looked really pissed off about something, assumably something related to Gilbert's misogyny, but she wasn't even looking at him anymore.

Gilbert said nothing, a bit embarrassed to have said anything, as well as rethinking everything he had ever known. He knew women were people; he had just never really thought of all the stuff he heard in church and around the house as unfair to girls, but when he actually gave it some thought... Yeesh. Monika was probably not wrong, she's a girl, right? She knows about this stuff.

It wasn't like he'd had a whole lot of opportunities to really relate to girls before coming to this school; there weren't any women in his immediate family, and he had attended an all boys' school. Hell, that was probably why Ludwig was so bad at talking to girls and hadn't asked out Feli. Gilbert had never met her, but he had heard that she was super cute.

"I, um, I know Maria isn't here, but shouldn't we talk about the werewolf situation?" Ludwig asked, breaking the silence that had stretched on uncomfortably. "The full moon is the day after tomorrow, and we're no closer to figuring out who it could be than we were last week. The most we have to go on is Sadik Adnan missing class due to illness last full moon, which, obviously isn't anywhere near enough evidence to go after him. Any ideas on how to fix this?" Ludwig groaned internally. Why couldn't Maria be there? She would knock some sense into these two, get them back on task. He was only 12 for Christ's sake; why should he have to be the responsible one?

"We could do a stake out," Gilbert suggested. "We know the wolf will be in the woods, so we should just like watch out for people leaving campus at night. Everybody knows about the hole in the fence out front, so we gotta check that out, and then maybe the spot out by the equipment shed?" He looked back and forth, hoping for approval.

Monika and Ludwig nodded their agreement. "Sounds like a plan. I'll tell Maria when I see her," Monika responded. "We have to do this right, 'cause if we mess up, we'll have to wait until the next full moon. We have a lot of planning to do, but we'll be ready by Sunday."

"These idiots just don't quit," Halvard remarked to Timo from the end of his bed. The vampire lay on his back next to Halvard, flipping idly through last month's issue of Inferno.

"Oh, definitely," Timo agreed. "And now we have to warn the pack, and they'll probably want us to help them, and it'll be a- heh heh- a pain in the neck. Well, mostly for me. Team Rocket down there doesn't really seem to care about you magic users. But me and the other vamps? They hate us. It's annoying, like, I'm not my parents. I don't bathe in the blood of virgins and rip their still beating hearts from their chests or whatever it is they expect us to do."

Halvard chuckled. "At least they don't know about you. That's more than we can say for Mircea. Poor idiot. It's a good thing he was able to bribe Arthur into helping him make a ward around his room, or else he'd probably be screwed." Now that had been an interesting little incident, when Maria had caught Mircea mid-snack and scared the life out of him. At least Andrei hadn't screamed very loudly when Mircea bit down too hard in surprise. At least Maria hadn't staked him right then and there, if only because Katrina freaked out and had to be escorted from the room by the novice hunter.

Timo sighed and scratched his stomach. "I feel a little bad for Ludwig, though. Still not out to Gilbert. That sucks. Heh heh, sucks. I wonder if Gilbert's homophobic? I mean, he seems like an ok guy, aside from the whole hunter thing, but then there's the whole slut shaming incident that just went down, and you know how churchy he is. Jeez, I almost wanna help little Lud out. But that would require closeness, and that leads to secrets being discovered, and that leads to stakes through the heart." He flipped the page and grimaced. "Ooh, Hal, look at this girl's tattoo! Why would you put that on your body? And why there? What even is that? I mean," he continued, turning the magazine sideways. "If you look at it from this angle, it looks like a snake eating a baby? And I think those are runes next to it? Hey, you know runes, what does this say?"

Halvard looked at the picture and frowned. "That says "haista vittu". It's not even in Old Norse, it's just written in runes. Finnish?" he guessed, from Tino's choked snort.

"It basically means fuck you. Of course, we Fins are a bit more creative than that, but that's pretty much what it means. Again I ask, why would you put this on your body?" Timo looked exasperated with this random woman, and Halvard had to cover his laugh with a cough. The vampire was just such a mom.

And yet, as much of a mother as he was to his friends, he couldn't seem to take care of himself.

"Gods, Timo, you look paler than a damn Moomin, when's the last time you ate?" Halvard asked, slightly concerned. Hopefully, it hadn't been the last time he had fed him; that had been nearly two days ago.

Timo had to think about it, which definitely wasn't a good sign. "Um... Eduard yesterday morning? Probably? I had a biscuit a couple hours ago!"

Halvard narrowed his eyes. "Yeah? What the hell is that gonna do for you, idiot? A biscuit and no blood, that's real good. Come here, stupid. You need to take better care of yourself, or I swear I'll get a silver tongue piercing and never kiss you ever again."

Timo gasped dramatically, a hand splayed across his chest, and shook his head. "Why do I even bother with you? You're so cruel to me, you're the worst boyfriend in the whole world! Why must you hurt me so?"

A Cheshire Cat grin spread across Halvard's face. "Ohoho, so now we're boyfriends. I thought you didn't want to "define our relationship with meaningless words," which we both know is code for "I'll make out with you but I still want to be available in case Berwald suddenly comes to his senses." But if we're officially dating, then I guess you've given up-"

Timo cut off Halvard's teasing with another snort. "Yeah, right, I'll give up on Ber when you give up on Abel. When pigs fly. Speaking of pigs flying, isn't Roommate Extraordinaire gonna be back soon? I don't like an audience when I eat, so come on."

Halvard rolled his eyes and his sleeve, holding his forearm out to the other boy. Timo took it and bit down, and the momentary pain the Norwegian felt was replaced with licking and sucking.

"Why don't you ever put that mouth to better use?" Halvard asked, reaching to flip through Timo's magazine and pointedly ignoring the vampire's raised middle finger.

After a few minutes of skimming some article which Halvard understood none of, due to it being entirely in Finnish, Timo licked his arm one final time and pulled away. Halvard glanced down at it and grimaced. "Well that's gonna leave a mark. How 'bout you leave another one up here?" he suggested, pointing to his neck.

Apparently, that's something Timo doesn't mind an audience for, as Abel found when he entered the room mere moments later.