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veridium · 5 years

Text

dirty little secret

WOAH BOY. I did not expect such a quick turn around, but when you’re writing sweet, sweet friendship, shit happens. thanks to @bitchesofostwick and her fabulous writing that got my gears going.

I have been wanting to use an all-american-rejects ref as a title since we started and now, here I am!

on this episode...Olivia awakens to find Ellinor wearing a strange fleece (HM??). BUT, that is not the only incident that surprises her, as a message left on her door gives her cause for concern.

part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5 // part 6 // part 7 // part 8 // part 9 // part 10 // part 11

Her cell phone alarm goes off as it always does on wednesday: 7:30, just enough time to get her shit together before her 10am lecture. However, as she revisits the text she got the night before from Ellinor, it also becomes a beautiful morning for hearing all about her “group project meeting.” Luckily she doesn’t have to travel far, or bother with pants. Wearing an over-sized, old All-American Rejects tour shirt she thrifted a year ago, she fits the bill when lastly she slips on her pink fuzzy slippers -- the only items of her wardrobe she would accept in such a color. She then wanders a few doors down to Ellinor’s and Sera’s room. Sera is gone for a few days on some road trip to one of her many hair-brained destinations, so Olivia has no minced feelings about knocking loudly.

Knock, knock, knock. Nothing.

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK. Nothing again.

“Knock, knock, bitch, get up! We need coffee!”

The door rips open, and a face with slight drool on the corner of her mouth and hair tousled over her eyes appears. But, it’s not her expression that Olivia’s eyes fixate on like a moth to a fleece flame.

A Knight athletic fleece, the expensive one.

“Good morning sunsh--shit, is that…”

Ellinor jerks her chin down, suddenly coherent. Her brow furrows and she whirls around to retreat back into her lair, mumbling things while she lazily swings the door shut. Olivia, of course, slaps her hand on it and waves it open with gusto.

“Ellinor Trev--”

“NO.”

“Is he in here?!” she skips in, looking around in all corners and nooks as if Cullen is compactible like a lawn chair or something. “Oh, God dammit, I never catch your lovers! No fair!”

Ellinor crawls back under her covers and pulls them up over her head. Interestingly, she does not forsake the fleece sweatshirt that has seemed to magically exist out of nowhere.

“Is that his…”

“Mmph.”

“So it IS. You’re a filthy liar! You said you didn’t do anything in your text, I got receipts!” Olivia promptly hops onto the lower side of the twin mattress, curling her legs up under her sideways.

“I didn’t do anything. I meant it. I just...this...it was cold, okay! Why does everyone think I am magically not cold susceptible? I have questionable circulation…” she half-whines the last part, before squirming into her pillow some more like a burrowing naked mole rat.

Olivia hums, not convinced. “You got some explaining to do, and this calls for extra strong coffee. And scones. I want every detail. I’m gonna throw on some sweats or something, I won’t be long.” The casual mood she has yesterday with Cassandra has carried over through a full night’s sleep, and Olivia feels all the pomp and makeup of her typical routine to be unnecessary for once. She swats on the bump in the comforter she suspects is Ellinor’s ass before hopping back onto her feet and out into the hallway. She’ll be back to wrangle her soon enough out of the depths of her ironic despair.

Scooting her poof-slippered feet out into the hall she spots her door half-shut. Only, it’s not her door -- not the way she remembers it, anyhow. There’s...papers? Taped on it just above the doorknob. Posted notes and event reminders aren’t exactly unheard of in dorm halls, but as she walks she scans the other shut and locked doors -- nothing. Just hers has stuff on it.

When she arrives she yanks off the posted paper and notices some hastily copy/pasted clipart of some crosses mounted on a hillside. Her stomach churns as she reads the message. It’s a pamphlet-esque flyer asking the reader if their soul has been saved, and if not, resources in order to accomplish that. On the back there’s a scripture excerpt as the header, and then a list of every Church in the city limits with their contact information and addresses. It has the design skills of a 4th grader who’s project is due the morning after and all they have to use is Microsoft Word 2003.

And on the very bottom, handwritten for that special touch: “For the Slut in 21C.”

She looks both ways down the end of the hall and sees no one lurking, though the hair on the back of her neck stands up. The faces of those Church preps that pouted at her when she was on Cassandra’s bike pop into her head. Oh, it would be an interesting coffee sesh indeed.

What had originally been intentions to come outside casual and no muss, no fuss, turned into a black knit oversized sweater dress, thigh-high black velvet boot stilettos, and loose curls with a full face of sharp makeup. She looks like an insta model out in the light of day instead of in her cardboard box, but it is better this way: people don’t fuck with her.

They get their coffee downtown and walk out onto the sidewalk. She has class in 30 minutes, anyway. Ellinor is holding the flyer in her hand, though it’s bent outta shape from Olivia’s wrath.

“I don’t know, Liv. It is kind of concerning that they know where your dorm is. Isn’t that a hate crime if it’s targeting a member of a targeted group?”

“Biphobia getting treated as biphobia instead of ‘free speech’ discussing sexual behavior that both straights and gays sneer at? In this economy?” Olivia slips her own shades on and shoves the forsaken paper into her bag. “And besides, my dorm is easy to find out. All they’d need is one person to see me walking in, or one person who lives in the same hall as me.”

Ellinor slurps her hot matcha latte and hands it over to her, before pulling her aviator shades down from atop her head of a loose braid crown. She slides her arm through the second shoulder strap of her backpack.

Olivia is steeping. On the surface she looks straight up pissed, which is intentional. But deep down she’s nervous. This was more than she signed up for.

“What are you going to do then? It’s obvious this has to do with you hanging out with her. This is bullshit. if I was there when those punks came into the dorm, I would have shoved my timbs so far up their pastey Jesus mayo asses that….that...gah! Just really far, okay?” Ellinor grumbles and sips as they near the corner. She hasn’t had enough caffeine yet.

Olivia veers to the left and punches the crosswalk button. She reaches into her back searching for her keys as she spots her black mini cooper parked on the curb a block from them.

“I don’t know what the fuck to do! I feel like I’ve become this Scarlet Letter for something I haven’t even done. It’d be different if we had actually, like...did stuff. But she is so prim and…” the crosswalk signals walk, and they push onward. “She goes from this super interested and focused person to hands-off and out the door faster than I can get my eyeliner wings to match.”

Olivia walks faster as Ellinor hones in on the passenger door facing the curb. “Woah that’s...that’s pretty fast.”

“You think?” Olivia faces her over the car hood as she hits the car alarm button, making the headlights flash. She unlocks fast and eyes both ends of the street for surveilling gazes before sliding in.

“At least with Cullen...” Olivia tries to keep her conversation going while settling in, tossing her bag over her head. She slides her key into the ignition and checks her mirror. Ellinor slides her drink into the center console and pulls her seat belt. She’ll need it -- Olivia has a love of driving, and that love translates into speed and mastery of a stick shift.

“At least with Cullen, what?” Ellinor replies, dreading it already.

Olivia bites her lip and eyes her. “You know...at least…” she slumps forward against her steering wheel. “At least you know what his intentions are...I mean, were, for you. He was pursuing you. He wanted to do...to do things with you.” Her tone has gotten less spirited and more melancholy. Enough for Ellinor’s initial defensive pouty face to melt into sympathy. Though, Olivia worries if it’s less sympathy and more soreness at being reminded of what she tossed up.

Dammit, Liv, she thinks to herself. Ellinor isn’t as tough as she plays.

“Well...I think she really does like you,” Ellinor comforts after a pause, her gregarious personality trying its best to rally.

Olivia twists the key to start. The engine grinds and then starts with ease, and she clutches the stick shift with her manicured hand covered in black, dramatic rings on almost every finger.

“I know she likes me. What I meant was, like...you know.”

“You said she asked if she had another...didn’t she call it a ‘shot’ or something?”

“Yeah, but, I don’t--”

“Liv, I don’t know anyone who would ask if they could be friends with someone by asking if they had another shot. Remember how we met?”

Olivia looks at her windshield and snorts. “Yeah. You asked if I had time to talk about our Lord and Savior Gerard Way at a freshman ice cream social of all fucking places. Then I sat on my retainer.”

“Hah,” Ellinor sits back, elbow on the door. “Exactly. Not ‘Do I have a shot?’”

Ellinor, in her particular brand of eloquence, has a point. Cassandra is one of the most intentional people Olivia has ever met. She doesn’t even sneeze out of line. And she doesn’t strike Olivia as the kind of person to sit idle while the things and the people she wants float on by. But, there’s something still hanging her up on it all. An unspeakable hesitancy that comes from having one foot in and one foot out the door.

“I just wish she like...did the thing.”

“Thing? What thing?”

Olivia pulls the car into gear and puts her hands on the wheel, staring out her side mirror for oncoming traffic. “You know, like, there’s a thing queer people do when they want to drop their queerness on the radar. Say you loved the new Hayley Kiyoko single, or...shit, like, you went to Pride last summer and had a blast. Something.”

“Cassandra Pentaghast at Pride? Even if she’s 1/24th lady-lover, dude, I doubt she’d be down.”

“Yeah because that’s how it works, Ellinor,” Olivia chuckles and pulls into the lane, clutches and shifts into gear again as she accelerates. “It’s just like...okay, you know what I mean. Something. Just a little tidbit. Like...letting me go home with a fleece sweatshirt.”

She only has to side-eye her once to see Ellinor’s cheeks go deep with blush, her lips rolling shut.

Olivia raises a brow and adjusts her large, round black sunglasses. “Mhm.”

“Look, I said what I said. It was cold.”

“Fine, fine. I’m only holding off on hounding you ‘cause I know you have to see him again. I can almost see his face watching you leave with it. Ugh, good shit.”

Ellinor slaps her on the arm before grabbing her drink. “It wasn’t like that, dammit.”

“Not when you were looking it wasn’t,” Olivia continues to tease in that sultry tone. “But…’as she walked off, her figure becoming shapeless in the dark and only traceable by lamp light, I knew that she took a piece of my with her...a piece, of fleece…’”

“GOD you are HORRIBLE!” Ellinor’s laugh gets louder the longer Olivia does her act. The ‘poetry recitation’ voice Olivia does is too good, too pure even in its mortification. She laughs, too, as they turn onto the boulevard which will take them directly to campus.

“You talk a good story for a cynic,” Ellinor settles down, resting her knee against the door. The woman can’t sit right in any chair to save her life.

Olivia smirks as she turns her signal on, the car arriving at the light before the campus entrance. “My Mom had those movies on all day when I was a kid, okay. I internalized that trash in between Blue’s Clues episodes.”

“Ugh, I forgot, my bad.”

They pull in and drive past all the pretty red brick building tops, and people walking with backpacks on the sidewalks or running with shorts and tanks on. Olivia notices a jogger weaving through the pairings of people walking to class and she remembers the way Cassandra looked on the soccer fields, back when she was just a tall, dark, and beautiful stranger she could pretend was all these things. Never could she have foreseen this all unfolding, but a part of her misses when it was all a mystery. When it was a mystery, she could believe that Cassandra was for sure into girls. Now, she is attached to finding out the truth, and the truth might not be so kind.

They pull up into one of the Blue parking lots and by some miracle, someone is pulling out in time for her to snag the spot. She turns in and puts it into park.

“Tits up, girl,” Ellinor sighs, grabbing for her things as Olivia turns the key back, the engine going quiet. They both adjust their bras on cue at her word.

“You’re hiding that fleece in your backpack, aren’t you?” Olivia eyes the bag, a little swollen in shape.

Ellinor glares at her. “No.”

“Ellinor,” Olivia giggles, as she pulls her drink up out of the cupholder. “You don’t want to give it back. Admit it.”

“I admit…!” she looks away for a moment and composes herself. “I...am not the owner of this garment, and I will not be keeping it. It was borrowed. I said I would give it to him during class.”

“Mhmm,” Olivia hums again, reaching for the door. Before she does, though, Ellinor is not done with her side of questioning.

“You gonna tell her what happened?”

“Why should I? What is she gonna do, challenge all the preps to a duel on quad? It’s not gonna change anything. Don’t tell Cullen, either. I’m gonna...handle it. It’ll be fine.”

Ellinor rolls her eyes. “Look, I’m not any of your horoscope apps, but the Cassandra I saw last night staring down a guy stick up for someone she barely knows, seems like the kind of person who’d like to know if people are messing with her girl.”

The phrase ‘her girl’ makes Olivia’s stomach erupt into butterflies, and she blushes and looks away towards her window. Thank goodness for giant sunglasses.

“This isn’t High School. I’m not ‘her girl,’ I’m her friend. And a friend who could quickly turn out to be more work than she wanted to deal with when she realizes all her peers want to burn her at the stake.”

“Over my dead body,” Ellinor says, before grabbing Olivia on her forearm as she tries to get out for the car. “Hey, I mean it. If it’s not Cass, it’s me grabbing a crowbar, alright? Just say when and where to aim.”

Olivia looks back at her and her lower lip curdles. “Aw, Ellinor…” she tilts her head, “you do have affectionate emotions….?”

Ellinor quickly scoffs and pushes her. Back to normal in an instant. They get out, and Olivia locks the door. Slinging her bag on her shoulder she looks around again, slightly paranoid despite her cool exterior. No pastel polo shirts and no french braid pigtails. No woman in a black long-sleeve with pants and a pixie cut. For once, she’s relieved on both fronts, and walks with Ellinor down the way towards their respective lecture halls.

On the way, OIivia elbows her in the shoulder, a sly smile on her black lips. “Thanks, babe.”

Later that day --

-- Hey, you didn’t say whether you’d come with to the gala next weekend. I need confirmation!!

-- Ellinor: I can, but I’m not going to! You already have someone who can go!

-- That is the opposite of what I have! I’m not inviting her. Ughhh don’t do this to me I’ll cry.

-- Ellinor: [Kim Kardashian Tragic GIF]

-- You’re the worst. How did Cullen act when you gave back the sweater?

✓ READ AT 4:12PM

If she weren’t in the library, she would have screeched like a harpie. As it was, she was not in the place or the time to do so, so her catharsis would have to wait. She shoved her phone in her bra and goes back to collecting her arms worth of books. They aren’t for her this time -- a Professor she’s TA-ing for wanted to scan and make copies of chapters for students, and asked her to do it while they...well, do Professor things.

Such as TA’s did, and Liv being a TA as a third year undergrad was an esteemed vote of confidence she did not shirk.

She comes around the aisle she’s in and decides to cut through to the stairwell. She’s down two floors from the ground level where the checkout desk is, a level that separates the boys from the men in terms of archival dedication. She balances the six or so books of varying densities, wondering how close they are to weighing the same as her.

Around another corner and she comes upon a cluster of single-seat study desks -- you know, the kind that only libraries have, with soft wood and worn out, grey-blue upholstery. A couple heads bob up from their stationed spots at them and she pays them no mind. That is, until she sees a blonde head. Blonde, wavy head.

“C...Cullen?” she says, and is promptly shh’d by someone else. Cullen himself looks up from his desk and laptop, and grins.

“Oliv--” another shh, and he gives them a pointed stare of come on man, before pushing his chair back. “How you been?”

She bobs from foot to foot carrying the stack in both her hands. “Uh, good! Good, just, doing some TA work.”

“Oh, nice. Cassandra mentioned you TA for Professor...uh, their name esca--”

“Erickson. Professor Erickson,” she smiles. “Just for the intro to political and economic theory classes. It’s not a big thing.” It was and is a big deal. The Political Science department has a huge group of grad students who could TA or assist courses, and they often do. Taking in an undergrad for a TA position meant that undergrad could do the work they did with Bachelor’s degrees, and sometimes even Master’s degrees, under their belt. Her parents didn’t stop talking about it like that for a month after she was invited by Erickson to fill the position. Though, they made it more pompous-sounding than she would have liked.

“Yeah, well, I don’t know. Cassandra is the only other undergrad I know who TA’s.”

“She...she TA’s?”

He looks at her and his brows go together. In a sort of, ‘yeah, of course’ kind of way. Like she was supposed to know that.

“Uh, yeah! In Philosophy, I think.” Figures. The woman breathes and spews philosophy and english lit fervor like Shakespeare has used her for a horcrux. It’s...annoying. And...wonderful.

“Ah, yeah, I think she mentioned that,” she lies, and tucks hair behind her ear while balancing the stack nervously in the other arm.

“You uh, you need help with that?” he gestures to get up, but she shakes her head vehemently.

“No, no,” she replies, smiling again. “It’s fine. I need the conditioning for dance, anyways. How is your group project going?”

He grins and looks back to his desk, blinking fast. He shouldn’t have to say, she already knows. But, it’s the kindness that counts. “Oh, yeah, it’s going good. Group projects, you know. They...they are what they are.”

“Yeah, but, at least it’s with Ellinor right? It’s always better with…” she catches herself, bits her smiling lip, and looks away too. Damn, didn’t think that one through.

“It’s better with people you know, right, I gotcha,” he finishes and puts her out of her misery. He’s a good guy -- he doesn’t let anyone hang out on a limb by themselves, even if he’s a bit awkward in his solidarity. It’s easy being in his presence despite the underlying melancholy.

“Yeah, right! Sorry, my head is fried from today. Look, don’t be a stranger. Come by anytime.” she sounds like she has a house with a picket fence and not a hole-in-the-wall dorm room. The olive branch didn’t fit the ecosystem.

He smiles crookedly and nods. “For sure. Yeah. You have a safe walk back with those books.”

“Oh you know, what’s a fall down some stairs?”

He chuckles and waves his hand casually. “Whatever you say.”

She waves back and sees herself off. A couple yards away from him and she spots the staircase, she reaches in her shoulder bag while keeping her eyes on the sign that says “TO LEVEL B,” feeling for her phone and attached headphones. The papers and pack of gum get shoved in and out, and the smooth plastic of her case finally turns up. She yanks it out before the stack of books in her hand fall apart. The sound and sensation of something falling behind her to the ground pries at the back of her head, but she ignores it -- the books are heavy, and the stairs are gonna be a pain in the ass, and that pain will pale in comparison to copying individual chapters 40 copies each.

She reaches the checkout desk after a grueling journey up two flights and through another plethora of shelf rows. While catching her breath against the desk, she checks her phone. A new message sent 15 minutes prior.

Cassandra: Hey. I’m going to be grading practice midterms Friday afternoon at my TA office in Henderson Hall. I thought maybe you would have a similar workload? Want to keep each other company?

Keep each other company. How sexy. Had she said she TA’d, and Olivia just never caught that detail? That would have been something she’d remember. Oh, wait, they were talking about course-loads at one point during a walk to classes...oh, shit, that was the day Cassandra wore a blazer and took it off as she was walking and was so smooth while doing so and...and...oh. God, Olivia is too bisexual to function.

She looks up and scans the room, her gaze out of focus while she thinks. No, she has no reason to! She can deny her this once, what, does she come at her beck and call now? She has no work to do anyw--

Her email ding goes off. It’s Professor Erickson:

Hi Olivia,

My mother is in the hospital and we are heading out of town to see her. I know it’s short notice, but could you grade the stack of bibliographies in my inbox before Monday and hand them out on that day’s class? I promised the students. Just markup for Chicago style and make sure they have the 3 required sources and 2 outside, and nothing looks iffy. I’m going to cancel Friday’s class.

I might be out until middle of next week. Monday is just a hand-back day, so don’t worry about keeping them entertained after they get their work. Play a movie, maybe. Nothing too radically bootlegged, please.

Don’t worry about the chapter copies. Those aren’t needed until next Wednesday, and if you can’t get to them I will finish what you don’t. Good job today by the way explaining to that one student the difference between socialism and democratic-socialism. You are getting more concise!

Thanks!

Sent from my Iphone

Professors. The nerve. They emailed on phones even when it was a long-ass message, and yet threw fits when students didn’t title their emails with anything less than an oath to name their firstborn child after them. Erickson wasn’t that bad, though. A fun guy -- a bit too into loafers -- but a fun guy, and amazing Professor. And she was getting paid, which helped.

She rolls her eyes closed and groans so deep the poor library work study student flinches. She looks at them apologetically before turning her attention back to her phone.

-- Hey. Sure, but I can’t stay very long. What time?

Cassandra: Cool, no worries. Say around 6?

-- Yeah, that works. Henderson is that long building by bio sciences, right?

Cassandra: Actually, it’s the one to the left of quad. Big archway entrance. I’ll be at my desk in 10E.

Olivia sighs. Great, a big building on quad. In front of everyone. Open season continues for her. 6:00pm on a Friday? Why that time? Surely if they were exams they were not going to be handed back over the weekend. Did Cassandra have a life that wasn’t work, sport, and more work?

-- Right, I forgot. Whoops. Okay, see you then!

Cassandra: Awesome. See you.

Cassandra: Oh, also -- this song came up on my shuffle. It’s an old one, but it’s Adele. I would appreciate if you listened to it. I think you’d like it.

Another chance for a ‘sign’ thwarted. As promised, she sends the link to a song and it is, in fact, Adele. Adele. Olivia pouts to herself. Adele is a beautiful singer, but her songs tend to sound the same to her sometimes. One of those ‘you listen to one, you listen to them all,’ kinda deals. The song is entitled “Water Under The Bridge.” Olivia had hoped it would at least be one of the romantic ones, but it hardly sounds like a profession of love or crushing. Her frustration continues to grow in her mind, and she clicks her phone to lock.

“Alright, Ma’am, that’s it! They’re due back October 7th!” The woman on the other side of the table shoves the plastic bag of books. What a blessing to have them in a bag. She smiles, says thanks, and heads out the door into the open air of dusk. As she walks back to Jefferson Hall a few minutes away, she can’t help but look over her shoulder ever so often, hand clutching her keys in her bag. But, no one approaches or even appears, and as she gets in the door to her own academic building, it feels like it’s all in her head.

It’ll blow over. No big deal. Just have to pretend it doesn’t bother me.

She gets into the elevator and hits the #3. Thankfully, she, too, has an office to hull up in.

#update #college au #adventures of ellinor and olivia #ellinor trevelyan #olivia sinclair #modern!olivia #cullen rutherford #cassandra pentaghast #thedas modern au #GOD THIS IS JUST AHHHHHH #OLIVIA STOP BEING SO DIFFICULT #DAMMIT #ALSO ADELE IS AMAZING WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU #THIS IS NOT HOW I RAISED YOU

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