┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
@Aewin, @Legion02 & @Melo
𝐓𝐖: Gratuitous profanity, threats of violence
┗━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┛
The sun was already pouring through her window when Melissa woke up. Her blankets were tangled around her legs and her head was laying on her arms. With squeezed eyes and a groggy mind, she looked at her shared room. Someone must’ve forgotten to lower the blinds. Or someone broke it. Yesterday the floor was nice and cleaned. Now it was littered – again – with tons of buttons, springs, relays, circuit boards, and other devices. She could accurately guess what about half of them were for. Then the still uncapped sharpie in her hand came into her blurry vision.
“Oh no.”
She craned her neck upwards. It happened again. The ceiling was a mess of strange symbols, lines, and scribbles. It could depict a circuit, a chemical formula, or just a random mind map. There really was no way to know right now. Exhausted, she let her head fall on her arms again. For five more minutes, she just wanted to sleep. In those five minutes, her curiosity got the better of her. Quite gracelessly, she rolled out of her bed and started taking pictures with her phone of the drawings. In a month or two they might serve as a catalyst for her next Eureka moment. Her slowly booting up brain then realized she probably had a witness of last night!
Melissa kicked some of the tools on her floor out of her way as she made her way to her door and then to her first suitemate’s door. She never tried the handle though. It would be locked. Really, some people could be so inconsiderate and make her do all this work in the morning! She pulled out a pen-like device and pushed it into the lock. It buzzed, cracked and made the insides of the lock glow for just a second before a soft click told Melissa that she was in. As per usual really. Without even knocking she opened the door and walked up towards Mithra. “Mithra. Hey Mithra, Mithra. Mithra are you awake?” Melissa asked as she poked her suitemate.
A hand appeared from the pile of blankets, pillows and fluff Mithra’s head was suffocating under, swatting away at Melissa’s incessant poking. “Why the hell are you awake so early-- go back to sleep.” The demand was comically muffled by the layers covering her face and only her face. The rest of her body remained completely uncovered by any sheet, with the sunlight from the window beside Mithra’s bed hitting her directly.
“I need you to tell me what I was saying yesterday.” Melissa said. There was a certain urgency in her voice. The poking would get her to wake up in the long term but really Melissa did not have that time right now. She got up and walked out of Mithra’s room for just a few seconds. Then walked back in. A moment later a cup’s worth of cold water fell down upon the Indian girl’s stomach.
A moment it was called. A moment where Griffin stood in the bathroom, shaving and perfectly minding his own business. All in just his underwear, as men tend to do. He left the door unlocked because, as has been previously established, in a home with Melissa and this dude who can literally teleport, locks are merely an inconvenience.Then, Miss Carter storms into the bathroom, doesn’t even acknowledge his existence and steals his cup with water without even a second thought. Perhaps it was because he had only been around these crazies for a week, but he hadn’t quite gotten used to bathroom invasions.
”Yo Mel, what the fuck!” He shouted after her, following her out of the bathroom. Partially because he was curious what kind of crazy scheme she was cooking up now and because that WAS. HIS. CUP. He arrived in the room just in time to see her pour it down all over Mithra. ”Isn’t it a little early to be watering the plants?” He said, continuing to shave his half-slain stubble all the while.
The cold water disrupted what comfortable warmth Mithra felt while lounging under the sunlight. It sent shockwaves up her spine, and a strangled surprised cry escaped her as she flailed out of bed dramatically. “Couldn’t it wait FIVE minutes? Fuck!” Her cotton pyjamas were soaked, leaving her feeling uncomfortably wet on the floor.
She looked at the two bedroom invaders, pointing an accusatory finger at each of them. “I get Einstein being here, but why Santa? I didn’t sign up for a threesome!” Not like it was uncommon for her two roommates to barge into her room uninvited. With the three of them together, doors were only a formality, not a necessary privacy.
“Not really.” Mel said as she shrugged her shoulders, tossed the cup - without really looking - at Griff’s general direction and finally crouched down beside Mithra and looked into her eyes. “You know that it vanishes for me. I really need you here, Mithra.” There was genuine pleading in her voice. Truth be told she really needed Griff and Mithra to remember the things she said when she was in one of her states. They gave her so many breakthroughs, but whenever she tried to record herself the devices ended up smashed or broken. It was as if her alter ego during her bouts knew she was being recorded by technology and broke it apart. Really, all she had were Griff and Mithra. “I’ll owe you one.” Mel added with a small smile.
”Jesus!” Griffin exclaimed as the cup came straight for his head. Luckily for him, the glass cup simply disappeared into a puff of silvery mist the moment it made contact with him, the mist seeping into his body as it did. Who the fuck threw glass around? ”Is some common decency in this place really too much to ask for? Tits on a pike.” He said, suppressing the urge to toss his shaver right back at her. He wasn’t quite sure whether to be more annoyed at being target practice or because she was blatantly ignoring him in favor of Mithra. What was he? A goddamn phantom? ”Also, I told you to stop calling me Santa.”
Mithra’s giggled uncontrollably watching Griff’s reaction to the tossed cup, but when Melissa’s face grew closer, it forced the plant girl to contemplate her request. “Well if you say it like that...” Mithra could never resist the cry for help. Maybe it was some kind of dormant protector gene-- Nah, who was she kidding, Mithra liked being owed, and Melissa had plenty to offer. Mithra got up from the floor, dusting away (uselessly) at her damp clothes before sitting back down on the bed. “Santa over here might know more shit, I barely understand half the things that come out of that mouth. Anyway, you were spewing something about a gravity flexing something that makes your chicken soup taste better. But only in specific conditions, otherwise it becomes shit soup.”
Then, like Melissa, Mithra threw one of her discarded pillows at Griffin, using the guy just like target practice. Why? Because it was funny watching him squirm. “And bitch, don’t talk about common decency when you’ve broken into my room as well! I’ll call you Santa all I want till then ‘cus you keep breaking in. And Mel, don’t throw your damn cup in my room. What if that shit got on my walls?” It wasn’t like she could tell the mold to go away, fungi control was beyond her capabilities.
“Griff would’ve poofed it.” Melissa just shrugged. Then fell into some deeper thoughts as she tried to fit the chicken soup condition in whatever strange mind construct her spotty memory was formulating.
”Oh yes Santa might know-” Griffin said high-pitched, then dodged the pillow. ”Well Santa is rather pissed right now. So you can both shove it.” Griffin didn’t quite have coal at hand, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to give them their just desserts. Griffin’s hand shrouded in mist, reaching someplace in the living room. Then opened another portal over the girls’ heads as he dumped potting soil from the houseplants over them. ”And it was graviton fluctuation, dumbass.” Knowing he was not welcome in the room, he turned around and retreated into the hallway.
Melissa was about to say something when the soil fell all over her. It surprised her more than anything really. “What did you do that for?” She asked. Her tone sounded genuine. She hadn’t done anything bad to him! And why was everyone so hung up over a cup? He poofed it. He always poofs dangerous things. That makes them no longer dangerous to throw at him then. “And why are you lying?” She quickly added. “Graviton fluctuations? Gravitons are still just a theoretical concept doofus. They’re not proven to exist. Gravity flexing makes way more sense.” Then she brushed off most of the dirt off her and sat down into the neat pile of black earth that Griff had indirectly made. “So what are you guys going to do today?”
“I’m going to beat a bitch up, is what I’m gonna do! SOIL? IN MY ROOM?!” Mithra’s voice grew shrill by the end, absolutely insulted by Griff’s choice of weapon. Of all things, soil, the very soil that protected her potted plants that were strewn across the communal living space. “Oi! Griff! C’mere you little gremlin, just cus you’re a freshman I’m not gonna go easy!” Mithra hopped off her bed, pulling Melissa with her to follow after Griff.
”Woman, you were the super genius here. Don’t ask me what the fuck is theoretical or not.” It was hard to put into words just how infuriating they were to live with. Was this what one year of crestview did to a person? It was a surprise it hadn’t gone up in flames sooner. And seriously, who took his stuff without asking and then threw it in his fucking face. It wasn’t that he was in danger. It was, simply put, the audacity and disrespect of the situation that had finally made Griff decide to go scorched earth here. A shame too, because Griffin was actually quite interested in finding out why super-genius Melissa was so interested in slow-boiling chicken soup. What kind of higher purpose could that even serve? Perhaps Griff would be better off not knowing about this theoretical science stuff at all. But unfortunately super-genius Mel had been a little bit too loud last night.
”Can’t catch up with those stubby legs, little gnome!” Griff called as he got back into the bathroom, properly locking the door this time.
Melissa got dragged to her feet in a very confusing instance. Though she gleefully joined Mithra in chasing Griff. The both of them reached the door just a second too late. Mel could clearly hear the lock mechanism. “Does Griff have some sort of short-term memory loss… thing?” Melissa whispered as she pulled the pen-like skeleton key out and waved it before Mithra. “I open it and then you do… whatever you’re planning to do.” She put the pen in the lock, let it do its thing, then counted down from three with her fingers towards Mithra before flinging the door open.
The door opened, revealing… an empty bathroom. “The pussy did his vanishing act!” She said, blinking incredulously before taking a deep breath. “AT LEAST FACE ME IF YOU’RE GONNA TOUCH MY PLANTS, YOU COWARD!” Mithra hollered into the bathroom as though Griff’s lingering portal would take her voice to wherever he was.
Ever since Mithra and Melissa were joined by the freshman, Griffin, in their dorm room, things had grown lively. Not that it wasn’t already with the bombastic Mithra and the clever mischievous Melissa combined, but Griffin added another level to their energy. Mithra and Griffin were avid bickerers, constantly quipping and trying to one up each other, but it was clear as day that that was how they bonded. It was enough for Mithra to even offer Griff the opportunity to run for her business. Though she would never admit to it, but they were business partners, roommates and rivals all packed into one friendship. However, no kind of friendship could stand between her and her plants. With those plants being her domain, she was naturally protective of them and Griff, being her roommate, would know that better than others. He declared WAR.
Yet war was just as much a part of their bickering as mischief was, part of a never ending cycle the roommates were caught up in.
Mithra turned to face Melissa instead, clicking her tongue in disapproval. “Right, guess I’m up now. So what, we still going to the club fair?”
“Club w-” Melissa’s eyes went wide. Shit. She knew she had forgotten something! “Yes!” She then quickly exclaimed. “You were going to show me some club right?” The girl was wrecking her already permanently chaotic brain on which club it was. Something with a Q? Or an H?
”The hiking club!”
It was so simple. Griffin just closed the door, and with the two extra seconds it took for them to open it up after locking it, he had already teleported himself. And so it was that he stepped out behind them, out of the door to his own room. He stood behind them with his usual, casual smile. ”I’ll meet you there, so don’t be late!” And with that, he was gone again. Normally he would’ve taken them with him through the pocket dimension. But unfortunately for them this was war, apparently. They could walk.
Mithra, upon hearing Griffin’s voice immediately and petulantly raised her middle finger in his direction, mostly shooting it at his poofy portal. “Fuck, we gotta beat him to that stall somehow. C’mon.” Mithra was ready to leave, still clad in pyjamas and all. The plant girl was on a mission and no attire could distract her from her goal. Didn't matter if technically Griff had already beaten the girls to the stall thanks to his portals, not when pride was on the line.