proscenium — yan & uly / college au

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

❦

The classrooms smell like chalk dust and old wax, the shiny veneer on the ancient wood floors dulled now by a month of winter boots. He pushes open the heavy doors of the East Hall, and the air is sharp and stinging on his lungs.

It’s Friday evening now. The clock tower on the hill tolls at six p.m. Redwater College in Redwater, Massachusetts.

Weaving between the small colonies of students filing out from the last few classes of the day, Ulysses walks across the eastern quadrangle of campus towards the dormitories by the hill, shivering against the chill. December is always ugly in Redwater. This year hadn't snowed much, and the ground is damp with rotting leaves, thawed and frozen and thawed again until it was deader than dead.

Funny, he feels like he's perpetually sick in the winter, the scent of cherry menthol clinging to the collar of his coat, loose pills of acetaminophen lost in a pocket, and they stain his fingers red each time the enteric coating melts to the heat of his skin. He grew up in the suburbs of Connecticut. Ivied brick, the twisted forms of dark trees, and the jagged, teethy beaches, all lived in his bones in familiarity, all lived in him like the sickness of winter.

Born with one lung. What the doctors said.

He feels it on a day like this.

“You have to come,” Juliet says on the payphone. His pager had lit up during recitation. Silas was always on the dorm floor phone, screaming or sweet-talking at his girlfriend from California. Often, he couldn't figure out which it was by tone and cadence alone.

The sky goes gunmetal gray, a kind of dreary yellow murk behind the clouds as the sun sets.

His fingers are cold. He thinks about hanging up. “I'm busy.”

“Half the school of TDM will be there.” Party after the Winter Productions.

The cord gets twined in his hand. Blue of his veins faint under the dim light. He stares at minutes, leaning against the cool pane of glass. For a moment, he's thinking about pressing down on the switchhook until there's only the hum of silence. And for a moment, he's thinking of a boy on a stage, the briefest second of contact when he peered inside Theater H-1 while waiting for Juliet.

Snow begins to fall outside the booth. It's the lightest coat of white. His mouth tastes bloody, cheek chewed raw.

Ulysses shrugs into his scarf. The smell of cherry menthol again.

“Fine.”

[tick 12a / calla]

❦

"You're finally out of bed." Is the first thing Marcus says.

The tone is pleasant enough. His face is neutral. But the fact that his jacket is off and thrown over the back of the sofa means that he's been waiting too long.

"That goes in the closet."

Marcus smiles. He slides his arm around Yan's waist and lifts him down the last two stairs.

Yan recoils immediately, one fist flying out hit Marcus' shoulder - "You're wet."

"It's snowing."

He's right. There are people that have settled in already, red-cheeked from the cold. There are people still filing in through the front door shaking the slush from their shoes. Yan winces at the water already trekked in.

The student housing blocks are not particularly nice. They're better than the dorms, but really that's only because of the amenities.

The paneling is two decades outdated and the curtains never really lost that musty smell, but it's still nicer than the other blocks. Dr. Wang apparently had to fight for it, but the argument for TDM to move in over the other departments was sound enough.

Performers need space. They'd be disruptive to the other students.

It didn't hurt, people started to scoff, that the department head's grandson was in the program.

But the bedrooms are just as cramped and the bathroom sink still drips at a steady allegro. Having a full kitchen in nice, but still no-one cooks. Having a private space for parties is the real perk - according to Aloys.

He's lounging already. Three sheets to the wind. There's a stack of CDs in his lap but he's clutching Ingénue like someone's about to snatch it from him.

One host down, then.

It's funny, how sometimes rising blood pressure can be a physical sensation. It's Yan's grand entrance back into society, his redemption event, and Aloys is already sabotaging it.

He'd be touchy on a good day. This, is uncharted territory.

He smooths his hands against the pale blue of Marcus's chest, tries to stop his nails from digging into the cashmere.

"Babe," He says tightly, "Drink?"

[lucius branwen / 10 — fox]

❦

“And that's Yan.”

Juliet has his hand in her lap, not so much out of affection as a kind of loose familiarity, some place between intimate and quotidian like they've been most of their adolescence. He watches her sip her drink, leaning in on the sofa, her breath sweet as she points with her gaze.

“Oh, he's famous already,” she says. The other students, sitting languid in their corner, laugh. “Greatest audition for the shark in the next Jaws.”

There's another round of tittering. He doesn't look in the direction.

The conversation drags on, feels like there's a fault line in his chest. Must be the weather. He glances at his watch, only half past ten, and it becomes more tedious to mime the motions of listening.

So Ulysses takes her cup, one smooth motion out from her fingers, and leans in with a casual affection that doesn't reach his eyes.

“I'll get you another drink.” The boredom lying under his tongue. He's already turning away, stretching off from the couch.

“What a sweetheart,” she answers coldly.

He smiles tepidly.

Someone is singing in the other room. There's the sound of guitar strings poorly strummed over the din and the strangest music for a house party. The building's carved with pre-war details, the most ornamental moulding trim over scarred wood floors, and then there's the rundown, mismatched furniture, the smell of an old attic in the fabric of everything.

It feels like the beginning of a headache, that light pounding behind the eyes. Three steps towards the kitchen, he turns around and goes up the staircase instead. The noise sheds gradually, softer strings of conversation in the dim hallways.

One bedroom is open with the door ajar. Inside, the air is colder, the wispy curtains fluttering against the crack of the window opened. There's no light but the glow of the moon and the streetlamp outside.

[tick 12a / calla]

❦

Even after Yan's glare, Lilian stays perched up on the kitchen counter. She pulls up her feet. Fuzzy purple socks.

To make a point.

Dating that boy from econ has gone to her head. Anyone who shows up to a mixer with a tie already wrapped around their head should be shot on sight.

He's awful. Terrible. Yan leans against Marcus while he pours and watches Lilian do the worst approximation of a shiver that he's ever seen. There's a reason she's in theatre production and not performance. Still, Econ immediately shrugs off his blazer (blazer) and drapes it over her shoulders. Lilian wiggles her purple toes against the countertop. Yan audibly scoffs.

He pouts a little, moves to hold Marcus' arm and starts toying with his cuff.

"Marcus, I'm cold."

Not even a twitch. Marcus reaches across the tiny kitchen space to pass a very full cup over to Econ and several things happen.

The first, is that someone trips. Lilian shrieks a little. Econ is suddenly going "Oh dude, shit, sorry-" and Yan is looking down.

Half of the Surge and vodka's landed on the floor. The other half's landed on him. The kitchen is very quiet for a moment.

"At least now you can put something warmer on." Marcus says.

Econ is still trying to apologize, just sort of throwing paper towel towards the sticky parts of Yan. Idiot.

"It's fine." He grits out, in a way that shows how fine it really isn't. He turns and barrels away, not even pausing to listen to whatever Marcus tries to patch it all up with.

He stomps up the stairs and ignores every single stare that follows him. Something warmer. Fuck him. Fuck them. Yan storms down the hallway and stops short in his doorway, vibrating.

His room is the only one with a single bed. Mostly because Aloys was the only one brave enough to consider being Yan’s roommate, but quickly deigned sleeping so close to pictures of Dr. Wang way too weird, even for him.

“The rooms are off limits. Unless you’re using Aloys’.”