Caspian made it all the way to the Crossroads before his thoughts began to set him free. Just enough to come to, just enough to feel the frigid rain soaking through his shirt and jacket. He didn't know why tears wouldn't come. Before the churning tide of emotion, he felt numb. Disconnected from the dark, empty campus. His mind wouldn't let go of the image of Cattleya and Blaise, Blaise's hand in her hair, his eyes on him. Cattleya pulling away to fix her dress's skirt and top.
He realized by the cloud billowing from chapped lips how heavily he breathed. He felt dizzy. A puddle sat in the bench behind him, but Caspian figured his clothes couldn't get any wetter. He fell back onto it, and decided he was wrong. But he didn't care.
He could still hear the beat and bass from the dance halfway across campus. Cattleya and Blaise probably resumed whatever they were doing as soon as Caspian left. Nothing he could do about it anymore. His head slouched beneath his shoulders, and he tapped on his Holoband, staring at his list of contacts.
He didn't want to bother anyone. And he didn't want to admit how wrong he had been for so long.
Just as he switched his Holoband off, the stifled music stopped. He thought he heard a fire alarm, or sirens. He hoped it was the former. He hoped the sprinklers came on, and drenched everyone enjoying the Ball. Would serve them right.
A shriek from the direction he just came from caught his attention. A couple of silhouettes ran out from behind the mathematics building, the slim woman reaching only up to the shoulders of the burly man. When they came near a streetlight, what Caspian suspected was confirmed. Cattleya and Blaise had come after him.
"Damn it, leave me alone..." Caspian muttered into the rain. The world had stopped spinning, at least momentarily, so he stood.
Cattleya was barefoot and a few strides behind Blaise, clutching only one of her pair of ten thousand lien shoes. Her eyes were open wide, brows contorted in horror. Blaise slowed for a second to let her catch up, and chance a look behind the two. His gaze rested on Caspian for a second as his head turned back to the brick path ahead of him. The pair kept running.
Something was behind them. He heard claws on brick, and the doglike snarls he had heard too many times before. He didn't believe it until the Beowolf slowed to a stop under the same streetlight.
Gleaming eyes stared him down, and the fear returned in earnest.
"...Holy shit..." he whimpered. It was all he could muster. Fighting a Beowolf with Undertow in hand was one thing. Unarmed, he was prey. And even if he did manage to escape, there was never just one Beowolf. He whispered his next words aloud. "This thing's gonna kill me."
It wasn't even a particularly big Beowolf. Waist-high on all fours, it stood up to about seven and a half feet as it eyed Caspian. He took a couple slow, measured steps back. The beast matched them, huffing the chilled air and flicking its tongue across its jaws.
When Caspian turned to run, the wolf returned to all fours and followed.
He repeated the same words as before on panicked breath as he sprinted fast as his dress shoes and tailored slacks would allow. Behind him, just over his shoulder, he heard the snarling breaths of the monster, heavy footfalls and the sound of claws scratching on brick.
Campus was deserted. No humans, since Cattleya and Blaise had left him. No androids. He knew Slate Library was the go-to for late night cram sessions. But that was halfway across the Crossroads, down a stair set, and all the way across Blue Square.
It would have to do.
Almost to the stairs, Caspian heard the Beowolf's claws leave the pavement, and heard jaws snap just behind his neck. He hit each stair at first, then took them by twos, and he leapt down the last six or seven. Forgetting how slippery the bricks of Blue Square were in the rain was almost a fatal mistake, but he barely righted himself. He rounded the brutalist, stark concrete corner of the campus's primary lecture hall and got his first look at safety.
The lights inside were off. The library was empty. Looking at the closed doors felt like reading his own obituary.
He kept running. He didn't know where to, and he didn't know how the Beowolf hadn't snapped his neck in its jaws yet. He had actually gained a bit of distance. But somewhere toward the other end of Blue Square, he began to question it.
Why bother running?
Why bother making it to the next day, after everything that had happened during this one?
Why bother facing Cattleya, telling her everything on his mind?
It was easier this way, wasn't it?
He slowed until he knelt, looking up to the night and watching raindrops splatter on his lenses. This was it. After everything, he was going to die in that spot on Blue Square he had passed dozens of times without a second thought. It was like fighting the Bullfiend during the entrance exam. Like running back onto that time-bomb of a cargo ship. But this time, there were no heroes. Death would be no different than life; no one would remember him. He was going to die sad, alone, drenched in rain and smelling like cheap cough medicine.
He heard the beast snarl behind him, and just hoped it would be over with quick.
He heard the sound of something sinking deep into flesh, and the wounded squeal of Grimm.
Caspian's glasses had fogged far past the point of being useful. He took them off to glance over his shoulder, and saw a slim figure in all black approaching. Despite his eyes providing only the haziest details, Caspian was almost sure who it was. The seed of doubt was planted by disbelief.
"Get up. There are more coming," an annoyed-sounding voice grunted.
"...Noxis?"
"Or stay here and die. Less effort for me."
It was him.
Caspian was slow to his feet, and wiped his glasses on the driest portion of his sleeve he could find. They were smudged, but just barely usable.
Noxis cursed when he saw Caspian's chest. "You hurt? What happened to you?"
Caspian followed Noxis's eyes and saw the crimson splotch on his shirt. "No, that's... that's punch."
"What were you even doing out here?"
Caspian tried to reply, but the tears that had neglected him finally threatened to arrive. Noxis was the last person he wanted to let see him cry. He swallowed. "I could ask you the same thing," he muttered.
"We didn't want any casualties today. Big enough a target on our back as it is, without killing Sentinel kids," Noxis explained. His semblance-bladed hand skewered the chest of a Beowolf that sprung at Caspian. With a burst of dark aura, everything above the Grimm's waist ruptured. "But, Grimm have a bit of a mind of their own. And your miserable ass is like a beacon to them."
Noxis escorted Caspian near enough to the line of flashing lights, police cars and androids circling the dorms before disappearing with only a spare word of farewell. Caspian made a point to not respond to Cattleya that night. That long, restless night filled with the clamor of emergency vehicles and news stations, which descended on the scene like hyenas to a kill. It was an experiment of sorts, to gauge her feelings after ditching him in the rain, sticking him with the Beowolf and running away with Prince Charming.
"Where did you go?"
"Hey, are you okay?"
At first, her concern almost drew a reply. But as the night wore on, his little experiment bore results.
"Hello?"
"Not going to check up on me? Do you realize Grimm attacked after you left?"
"Do you even care about me?"
Sleep finally did come, and Caspian awoke alone in a cold room. Cattleya was the first thing on his mind. The image of her and Blaise was chiseled into his memory. A foolish hope told him it was all a nightmare. A vivid, all-too-realistic dream. He would check his Holoband, and it would again be Saturday morning.
But as he found his smudged glasses at his bedside table, he saw the punch-stained dress shirt thrown onto his floor.
He had something to do that day. Something terrifying, and miserable, and freeing all at once. Something that affirmed the last shred of self-respect he had. He couldn't know whether it was something he wanted to do or not. But he knew he had to. He flicked on a light, and watched a few seconds of the morning news as he strapped on his Holoband.
His finger floated above Cattleya's picture. It approached the call icon, but stopped. He killed its quivering by balling a fist, then closed out of her contact page, just to open it again. He took a deep breath, but his hesitation was enough to force him away from her picture a second time. That pure, beautiful, charming, sensual portrait he hoped he never had to see again.
He settled for texting her a single line: "We need to talk."
It was one in the afternoon. Light rain fell from pale, shifting clouds onto the near-empty campus. Caspian took it all in as a distraction for his nerves. He offered to meet Cattleya under the awning of Slate Library- outside the dorms' thin walls, and in a place he could walk away from.
He could see the place he had accepted his own death the night before. But he was still alive, about to plunge headfirst into what had him kneeling on the bricks in the first place.
To Caspian's surprise, Cattleya arrived on time. He wondered if she chose her outfit, fitted peacoat with the short black skirt and leggings, intentionally. He knew he had told her before how good it looked on her. And he wasn't wrong.
"What's going on, why'd you call me here?" she asked, her tone and the hug she offered deaf to him.
Caspian held his arms out to catch her, holding her shoulders away and taking half a step back with a sidelong glare. "No," he declared. "You know what this is about. You left me, at the dance. You left me to find Blaise."
Cattleya's look of indignant confusion was infuriating. She matched his shake of the head with a suspicious eye. "What are you talking about?"
"I came back from downstairs, and you were gone. When I found you, you were- on him!" He felt a quiver in his throat, and his voice had already begun to crack. "You were cheating on me, you've been cheating on me!"
"What? I waited for you, but you never came back from downstairs! I don't know who you saw with Blaise, but I was so worried about you!"
"No, I... I know your hair when I see it. I-" Caspian stammered.
"There are so many girls at Sentinel with my hair color."
"That's a damn lie!" Caspian retorted. Louder than he had expected. He glanced to each side to see if anyone was in earshot. "Were they all wearing the same dress? The same twenty thousand lien shoes?!"
Cattleya scoffed, and formed the first word of a few replies before throwing her hands up. "Fine! You know what, you caught me. But don't act like you're innocent here! You don't realize how good you have it with me. You don't realize how lucky you are! I've seen the way you and Moka look at each other! Not to mention you lived with Snow over the Summer!" She stepped toward him with head cocked to meet his, lips curled in disgust. "What happened then, huh? What happened when I was all the way in Mistral?"
"You're blaming me?" Caspian snapped. "Those are my friends! I've been staying away from Moka because, I-I don't know. Maybe you're right about her. But Snow?"
"Yes, Snow. No idea what you see in her, she creeps me out so much I can't even stand to be near her."
"She's my friend," Caspian muttered. "And she still hasn't forgiven me since you made me stop visiting her."
"She's not forgiving you for something that petty?" Cattleya questioned. "Is that really what friends do? You don't need people like that in your life, Cas. You only need me."
"Are you joking right now?" He didn't know where the chuckle came from. Or why he couldn't control it, even after tears finally broke. He cleared his throat, and wiped them away. "I know one person I don't need in my life."
Cattleya looked like she got kicked in the gut. "Wh-What? Cas, don't! You can't! I love you!"
Caspian sighed, the fit of laughter passing so earnestly he forgot if it had even happened. "I seriously doubt that. And if you do, you have a twisted way of showing it."
"Please! I don't want to be without you!"
Caspian shook his head, closing his eyes to her plight. He turned away.
"I don't- I don't know what I'd do to myself if you left! DON'T!"
Caspian paused. He sighed, and turned back toward her. He dipped fingers into his pocket, and produced the card Midas had given him, a tiny plaque of white, purple, black, and gold. "This has the contact information for Frontline's counselors. If you need this, take it. But it's not my problem anymore."
Cattleya's tears dried in the half-second it took her to snatch the card from his hand and crush it in her fist.
"Do you know the real reason I cheated?!" she shouted. "Because you're not good enough for me, and it's hilarious it took you so long to realize! I closed my eyes when we would kiss, and pretend it was someone else! You were LUCKY to ever get with me!"
Caspian heard her laugh behind his back.
"Whatever you think Blaise and I did, we did it. And I enjoyed every second of it- SO much more than you! You know what I'd do the second I got back from your place?"
Caspian was thankful he had the foresight to bring his earbuds.