Work Text:
Red struggled with her locker door for the millionth time that day; she hated this Auradon school. She hated locks and textbooks. She hated the smell of fresh grass and the sight of the preppy, bright cheerleaders and tourney team who didn't have a care in mind. But most of all; she hated her roommate.
Red was an outcast here. The upbringing by The Queen of Hearts’ ever-so-distant hand was enough to draw all eyes to her, and never were those eyes kind, if anything, pitying. She was for all intents and purposes hated by pretty much everyone, but that didn't really bother her or come as much of a surprise, after all, she was a villains offspring. She was never meant to be liked or trusted by anyone on the upside of the world. But she stood well respected beneath the ground; the Queen’s heir. The crown princess. A young woman with evil flowing through her veins, a lack of fear in all she did.
But except it wasn't completely true.
Because that same roommate she despised looked at her as if she was the one to hang the stars themselves.
Stupid doe-brown eyes and stupid curls of blue that complimented soft, tan skin and those outfits that were uniquely her. It was revolting. Every day Red woke up, groggy and grumpy whilst that damned roommate of her's sat like the picture of Auradon pride- effortlessly beautiful and full of energy dancing around the room like she was about to do some frickin’ somersaults off the wall.
With a huff, she managed to pull the stupid locker door open and glared at the emptiness inside. If she had her way, the entire thing would be red and black. She hated blue. Blue meant good. Blue was what surrounded the world above her kingdom. Blue saved her, or so the remedial goodness classes were trying to drill into her head. Blue was her stupid, annoying, Charming roommate.
And she wasn’t idiotic enough to realize what that little humming in her heart was everytime she saw her, or the way she could practically feel her composure melting away each time Chloe was near. But she wouldn’t say anything. She wouldn’t let it materialize beyond the lock and key of that useless thing in her chest. She’s surprised her mother didn’t have it removed as a precaution at birth. Or saw it as a defect.
“Red!” So calls the devil. Red groans as she grabs a book from inside.
“Chloe, to what do I owe the pleasure?” She replies, leaning back with a hand on the locker door to offer the princess a large, fake smile. She may be whipped, but she doesn't need to project how much of a dork Chloe has turned her into the whole goddamn planet
The blunette didn’t seem put off in the slightest, skipping over with her books clasped tight to her chest and a patented smile in place. “I’ve been looking for you all day! You’re not an easy girl to find.”
“Some do enjoy being elusive, Princess. I’m sure that’s not a common thing with your whole… posse.”
Just over Chloe’s shoulder lingers a group of a dozen people, equally as bright eyed and smiley as her. It was nauseating to breathe the same air as them.
“Well, I was going to ask if you wanted to hang out since we have a long weekend coming up, and I thought some roomie bonding might be the perfect thing for us since we haven’t really gotten a chance to talk since the term started!”
“Wow, that was…”
“A lot, right?” Chloe blushes, tucking a loose curl behind her ear and Red is reticent to admit it’s sort of… sweet. “I kinda word vomit sometimes.”
“I’d notice if I actually paid attention to what you say.” Red says in snark, returning to her locker for any excuse to not look at the doe-eyed girl a second longer. “So, us hanging out. Why, in less than ten words.”
Chloe scoffs, but doesn’t demure.
“I don’t have any other primary coloured friends to hangout with.”
Red bites at the inside of her cheek to stop from smiling. It’s just so… “That’s eleven words, princess.” She says as she finally shuts her locker, shouldering it to face the other girl.
Chloe’s hand gestures in a vague upwards motion. “Whatever. Just… it doesn’t have to be anything crazy! We can stay on campus and just… chill.”
“I wasn’t aware that word was in your vocabulary, princess.”
“Exactly! Theres so much we don’t know about each other. So, hang out with me?”
Red can’t resist the smirk playing at her lips, “Wow, begging already? Treat me to dinner first.”
The bone-deep flush that colours Chloe’s face makes her smirk drop and eyes nearly pop out of her head like a pug that got squeezed a little too tight.
A sheepherder in Iceland.
A weather monitor in Antarctica.
A terrain specialist in the Gobi Desert.
All jobs she could feasibly hold if she packed her bags at this very moment and fled Auradon and this neverending pit of embarrassment that is interacting with Chloe today and accidentally flirting with her.
But when has suffering ever sounded boring to Red? “Okay fine. We can hangout tonight.”
Chloe beams, and it starts a drum beat up inside Red’s chest. “Amazing! Okay… well, I’ll see you then! It’s a date!” And then she bounces away, leaving vanilla in the air and a whirring slew of mindless blabber inside Red’s brain.
What had she gotten herself into?
｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ
Red finds herself completely distracted for the rest of the day, and thankfully the teachers are too wary of her to care and the students are too disturbed by her to bother her. She went from waking up, glaring at the blue haired girl who for some reason woke up like she had slept on clouds and sugar, to now…. Hanging out with her? If only the Jabberwocky would take her as its next meal.
She now stands in front of the mirror, knowing Chloe is still at practice and she has an hour until she’s back to fret over her outfit. That’s another inane thing about this whole situation- her? Fretting? About her style?
She groans lowly in her hands, running them down the front of the red and black striped top she’s chosen and smoothing out the frays in her ripped black jeans. This was a completely reasonable hangout outfit, so why was her closet currently decorating the entire room?
Her hair is going to be a problem, though. It is was particularly drizzly earlier and a warm night, breeding humidity, which is the archenemy of her hair. It manages to look limp and frizzy at the same time, and she doesn’t know any updos that will look good enough. She settles on straightening it just so it doesn’t explode on her, and clips half of it back.
By the time she’s done putting on her rings and fidgeting with them a million times, her phone lights up with a text.
Weird Blueberry Person : hey!! just got done practice and had a quick shower at the locker room :) wanna meet me in the quad?
Red swallows thickly. She didn’t have to go. She could very well kick everything back into her closet and go to bed, or go climb a particularly large tower to stew on or dangle upside down by her ankles from. But then she imagines Chloe’s hopeful eyes, and the way she bites her lip like when she’s pouring over a textbook and Red really didn’t know she paid so much attention to her.
Sighing, she slips a pair of combat boots on and bounds down the hall, rolling her eyes at packs of girls that practically flatten themselves against the walls to get away from her.
It doesn’t bother her. She’s always had at least one friend in the halls which was more than enough, and she sort of feels guilty that that girls been trying all year to get to know her while she’s just been ignoring her. That same weird thing from earlier tugs in her stomach, something her mother probably had surgically removed many years ago given how it somehow gathered the reigns to her brain and started steering her to the coffee shop a street down. A small detour, and she was just glad her wayward brain didn’t decide to write a one thousand word essay beguiling her time lapse, too.
Soon enough, she finds Chloe lying on one of the lunch tables under a tree, paper in hand and phone nestled between in her shoulder and cheek.
The earlier clouds obscuring the moon have mostly vanished, and blue moonlight trickles down, its beams threading through Chloe’s pretty hair and catching at the whites of her eyes.
Red knows she made the right decision showing up when Chloe’s face lights up at the sight of her. She rattles off a quick goodbye and hangs up her call, flying off the table to greet Red in the center of the quad.
Chloe presses a thoughtless kiss to Red’s cheek and plucks her coffee out of her hand. Heat rises to Red’s face at the gesture, butterflies filling her body from her stomach to her throat.
“For me?” Chloe asks with a giggle, inhaling the steam from the cup that Red may or may not have run back to keep from getting cold.
“Yeah. I noticed your obsession, what with the like nine-hundred takeout cups all over the dorm. I literally asked for what Chloe Charming gets and the guy at the front got this weird look on his face and just… made it.”
Red chooses to skip over how she had wanted to throw her overpriced matcha tea in his smarmy, love-stricken face.
“That’s Brad. He won’t stop asking for my number.”
Brad. She doesn’t think the Jabberwocky has ever had a Brad before. Perfect. Red moves to join her at the bench. “I’m sure you have princes falling at your feet everyday.”
“Hardly,” Chloe laughs. “Maybe if I looked like you.”
Red blinks, taking a sip of her drink like it would provide clarity on this particular matter. “What do you mean?”
“You’re beautiful.” And she says it like it’s fact- like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Red burns under the intensity of it.
“You are, too, yaknow. Pretty as a princess.”
She can’t really stand to stare at such warm eyes without going running head first for the rabbit hole, so she glances down at her boots.
“You’re a princess too!” Chloe scoffs. “Hardly works as an insult.”
“Please, if I was trying to insult you I would be much more imaginative.” But she can’t get that girl’s attention off her face and it’s starting to make her panic. “So, what did I interrupt?”
“I was reading lines for my Theatre class! We’re doing a play on the first monarchs of Auradon!”
“You… seem excited.”
“I love history! Don’t you?”
Red makes a face, bedraggled and horrified. “Uh, no. But you can practice with me if you want?”
Chloe lets out this hybrid between a squeal and a cheer, grabbing the paper she had put aside earlier and smoothing it out on her knees. “Okay, so, I left off at the part where they’re exchanging their weddings vows…”
Really, the rabbit hole couldn’t be too horrible to go face first down. “Okay, cool, I’ll just-“ Red waves a hand, “Wing it.”
Chloe clears her throat, her expression clearing like the coming down as she settles into her role. “…And I promise to help you, and cherish you - but not to obey you, because that’s asinine and patriarchal, and what are you, a sea captain? But most of all, I promise to love you. For richer and poorer, in sickness and health, ‘til death do us part.” She frowned, and turned to Red. “Should I keep that in?”
“In sickness and health? No way. That’s too serious.”
They both break out into laughter, their shoulders bumping on the shared surface. Chloe’s laugh is like honey, just as every part of her is sweet. “That was good, though. I mean mine would definitely blow it out of the water, but good.”
Chloe narrows her eyes, “oh yeah? Try me.”
Red clears her throat, sitting up properly with a stiff nod. “Okay, ready for this?” She holds a hand out in front of her like it may prevent Chloe from swooning. “But you best not fall in love with me, I can’t be made an honest woman.”
She bites her cheeks to stop from grinning when Chloe doubles over in laughter, waiting for the bluenette to wave her on to continue.
“ ..I do .”
“You are actually incorrigible, you know that?”
“Oh flattery gets you everywhere lil’ miss,” and she says it with that same, strange southern brand she’s taken on like her mother’s strange-English, but Chloe fluffs her hair and fans her face and it’s all so tender that Red thinks she might melt entirely until that thing in her chest that feels a little less tight, and a little less locked away jumps itself into Chloe’s hands to show off the brand new tattoo of her name on it’s every side.
“Hey, wanna go for a walk?” It’s Red who asks- and she tucks her lips in like she’s surprised the words managed to jump out.
Chloe’s eyes widen in similar shock, but she breaks into a wide smile, nodding so fast her head looks like it may pop off. Red’s fingers itch to still her neck, but she digs her nails into her palms. “Let’s paint the town, Red. C’mon!”
Their drinks have gone cold by now, but they still taste good and the cool of it helps combat the hot air. They find themselves on a beaten path, the way lit by string lights and fireflies. This is the part of Auradon Red loves- the wild nature. She lets her fingertips brush the tops of flowers as they walk, comfortable in the silence until Red gasps, and goes running.
“Red! What are you doing?” Chloe admonishes, a little in wonder, when Red hangs from a thick arm of a tree.
“Climbing a tree! Come on-“ she grunts as she pulls herself up because she really needs to stop skipping gym class, and offers a hand, canting her head and wiggling her fingers when Chloe’s yet to reach out. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course I do.” So steadfast, so sure… “I’m just a little scared of heights is all.”
“Hm. Well a little isn’t a lot, and that means I can prove that little bit better.” Red squints as she talks, “I have no idea what I’m saying, but just trust me!”
“Okay!” Chloe relinquishes with a laugh, taking Red’s hand.
(It feels like touching a live wire, or holding a hand over a flame almost too long. It feels like sparks and colour and life.)
She helps hoist her up, surprisingly light, and steadies her on the tree with a hand on her side.
(Sparks, colours, life…)
“Chlo? Open your eyes.”
“What if we fall and break our heads?”
“We’re like, six feet high. Besides, you’d still look pretty charming with a lil’ melon head.” She says as she ruffles Chloe’s curls.
Chloe peeks one eye open. “Your compliments are really weird.”
“Fine, then get your own tree to hang out in.”
“No, no! I like this tree, this tree is really good. Super spacey, and comfy. We should mark the occasion!”
Red quirks a brow. “Want me bake a cake, Princess?
“No, dork. I was thinking we could carve our initials.”
She smiles faintly when Red just stares at her, her eyebrows raising as she stresses her point, “You know, first letters of our first and last names? Together? Carve it on the tree? Maybe you could do mine and I could do yours!”
Red nods dumbly, her tongue thick in her mouth. Her hands fumble around for the little pocket knife she keeps handy since though the image of using an entire sword to put some initials on a tree is funny, it’s not really practical. She finds the nicest patch of wood she can feasibly reach, though Merlin knows she would climb the highest hill to find a tree worthy enough for Chloe, and starts chipping away at the first C.
“Thats so cute! Where’d you get that?” Chloe says, now freely swinging her legs. Red glances at the handle of the pocket knife with a rabbit fashioned out of it. She smiles as she continues her diligent efforts.
“My trusty advisor back home, Maddox, made it for me. He makes all the cool things you’ll find on my side of the dorm if you ever want to snoop.”
“Why would I snoop? You don’t… do that, right?”
“Eh, only if I’m bored. Did you want to do your part now?” She offers the handle to the bluenette, who takes it ready to carve.
Except this puts them in a position where Chloe is more or less laying half on top of her, and Red has to help steady her with a hand on her waist and the other holding onto the underside of the branch for the love of God.
Everytime she tries to breathe, it’s Chloe’s vanilla scent and something faintly she thinks must be the cinnamon body wash that takes up part of their tubs shelf.
Chloe’s artwork is a lot more neat, and she even manages to make it look all loopy and pretty. She’s never seen her name look so… “It looks so much less intense.”
“What does?” Chloe pulls back, but her hair catches on the low hanging branch overhead and twines leaves in with her curls.
Red catches her by the bicep, smiling softly at her as she plucks the leaves free. “My name. It looks soft next to yours.”
Chloe’s eyes flicker interceptibly, and Red swallows thickly, her fingers slowing, threading through soft tendrils.
“Maybe… you’re actually just a big softie. My mom always tells me that some people act mean at first cause they don’t know how to handle how they feel.”
Red swallows heavily, her voice barely above a whisper. “And what is it you think I feel?”
Chloe’s eyes flicker again, warm and always seeing her. “I couldn’t possibly know what’s in your heart.”
Red thinks she must- she has to be able to hear how loud her heart is beating between the space’s of their bodies. How it’s callling her home.
“I think you think too highly of me to think I have a heart.” Red says snarkily, and flinches at her own tactlessness or the fact her voice has become so hoarse.
Chloe doesn’t demure, just offers her one of her guileless smiles and lofts herself off the branch. “Curfew is coming soon. We gotta get back.”
Red nods, “Okay I’ll… meet you back there, okay? I have something I wanna do first.”
Chloe nods and takes off with their trash. Red waits, without much reason, until she can’t spot her blue curls on the horizon before she turns back to the tree with her pocketknife.
CC + RQ
Yours.
｡ﾟ•┈୨♡୧┈• ｡ﾟ
The rest of the weekend is…. Different. Chloe is still dancing around their room, but the music has changed. From her hyperpop comes something slower, and sweeter. She’s dancing a lot slower, making up for it by quietly singing along (and if Red had to hear one thing for the rest of her life it would be that.)
Red doesn’t try and ignore her anymore. She couldn’t if she tried. Chloe is everywhere, even when she’s nowhere to be seen. She’ll see blue hair and her heart will start to ache, just to realize it’s Hades, which makes her actually start to gag. She realizes it’s too late to stop now- that her heart has broken loose and is intent on wreaking havoc on the rest of her insides with a bat and a dream.
“Hey, Red!” Ella calls genially on the opposite ways to their classes. That was also a new thing- people talking to her. Well, not everyone but enough for it to start making her memory cram up from names and useless things like that. “Fair warning- Bridget mixed up the sugar with salt today after a heavy midterm study sesh, so I’d be… wary with it.”
Bridget comes up behind her, holding a plate of cupcakes with sad faces drawn on. Red pouts, pointing at them in the pink-haired girls defence. “They still look cute!”
“I know, right? Ella is such a drag!”
She steps to the side, letting the two past her with their continuous bickering conversations about plants and cake or… whatever it was they talked about alone. Chloe follows, and as she passes by, her casual grin softens, turns gentle and… Red wants to call it intimate. “Hey, Princess,” Red says, half-whispering.
“Hey.” Chloe stares up at her for a moment before realizing that she’s standing still in the hallway, turned to the side to look at Red. She clears her throat, dropping her gaze and starting to walk down the hallway once again. She watches her go with a sigh, catching snippets of Chloe finally relenting and trying a cupcake much to Ella’s immense humour. The poor princess really oversells it, and when Bridget is excitedly turning to Ella with an I-told-you-so, the youngest Charming is spitting it into a nearby potted plant. With this her heart swings the bat around wildly inside her.
Red ignores the flood of affection that washes through her chest as she follows her path to her own class. She knows it will pass eventually, polluted or dried up by her anger.
The strangeness of morning has trickled into the afternoon, as Red skulks at the usual table in the quad that people tend to leave her alone at. She’s picking at a half eaten apple, while also dissecting the play Chloe was doing because these vows were so lame in comparison to hers. Chloe, who usually eats lunch with her gaggle of friends inside the overcrowded cafeteria. Chloe, who now scrambles around the far end of the table, her face broken into a wide smile as she hurries to Red’s spot on the bench, dropping two to-go cups of coffee on the table before she folded herself under it, pushing one toward Red and the other toward herself. She focused on Red as the princess glanced up at her in surprise, the other girl’s eyes so incredibly soft and brown that her heart skipped two full beats at the sight of them, having missed their paralyzing gaze all day. Chloe grinned, so vibrant in the sunshine as she nudged Red with her elbow.
Red takes a sip, pleasantly surprised when her tongue is met with the matcha latte she loves. Chloe grins in satisfaction.
“As I took the liberty of disposing our trash like a good civilian, I couldn’t help but notice your order. Thought I owed you one.”
Red sighs happily, closing her book to face the blunette with a knee tucked up to her chest. “You thought right. Remind me to make you owe me for the rest of our lives.”
“What’s your favourite colour?”
Red blinks owlishly at her, “Uh… I feel like there’s maybe some context clues here.” She gestures to herself with a thoughtful, teasing nod.
Chloe rolls her eyes playfully. “Come on! I’m just trying to get to know you, you know, as friends are to do. Favourite colour, animal, book, dream holiday spot?”
Red loathes small talk. She had gotten detention her first day here because she refused to participate in the introduction every teacher was so hellbent on. But she can’t help but be infected by the waves of joy Chloe was pushing off her, so she takes another sip and sighs. “Okay, I’ll play your game, Charming. My favourite animal is a Tiger, my favourite book is The Wizard of Oz, and my dream holiday spot is preferably somewhere with a large tree. Are my fun three facts sufficient, teach?”
“You didn’t tell me your favourite colour.” Chloe pouts. “And Wizard of Oz? That’s so cute.”
Red dips her head to hide her blush, tearing at the sleeve of her cup.
“Uh, black.” She looks at Chloe, who’s still looking at her with that particular, all seeing way. “Your turn.”
“My favourite animal is an otter, my favourite book is the Three Musketeers, my dream holiday spot is someplace off the island where my parents honeymoon’ed, and my favourite colour… is Red.”
The warning bell rings. Red thinks it’s actually the sound of the warning signs of a pulmonary embolism.
“Gotta get to gym! See ya!”
Red watches her go, her head dizzy with want and chest filled with need.
Later in her dorm, she stands with her hands on the bathroom sink, her fingers curling around the cold ceramic. She stares herself down in the mirror.. ”I… like Chloe.” She says to herself. And nothing changes, except her pulse racketing at the thought of her friend.
She said it again, and strained her ears for the sound of property prices falling across the neighborhood or disappointed ancestors spinning in their graves, but all was stillness, save the rumble of distant traffic. It seemed that the world at large was entirely indifferent to her decision.
“Well, Chloe likes you too.” She hears from behind her.
She nearly jumps out of her skin, turning to see Chloe leaning against the ddoorjamb with a soft smile.
“Uh, princess, I thought you had practice?”
“Well I have a theory. That you carry some kind of Wonderland magic with you that I’ve now been exposed to, and get withdrawals.”
Red turned quickly, fighting off an almost crazed smile as she slipped out of the bathroom and disappeared into her closet.
“And also, practice was cancelled but that’s not nearly as fun a reason.”
“Well you know me, all fun all the time.”
Red says and returns with one of her black oversized hoodies, slipping onto her bed.
“Red.” Chloe didn’t need to roll her eyes when she said Red’s name like that. “Are we going to talk about what was just said in the bathroom?”
Red opens up her sketchbook, horrified at just how many pages are filled up with the likeness of her roommate. She finds an empty page and starts to sketch her anxiety out. A large cliff, with a tiny little Brad-looking figure dangling over the open maw of a dragon.
“Okay, fine, I’ll admit we’re friends.” Red says like it’s a heavy undertaking, but her smile still plays at her lips. She glances up at Chloe, who sighs as she crosses the room.
“You know, you never told me your birthday.”
“Didn’t I?”
Chloe hums. “Must have slipped your mind, given it’s today.”
Chloe is an ocean of strength, and Red feels like only a wave—loose and liquid and crashing. Falling, more likely. She glances up at her with a smile. “I’m not big into celebrating. At home Maddox would give me a little handmade gift and a cake, I never wanted the big balls my mother wanted to plan.” She shrugs simply.
“Right, Miss Hearts,” Chloe grinned, sitting across from her and taking the sketchbook off of her lap. “My gift for you,”
“You didn’t have to-“
“Hush, you. Take it.”
She handed over a small box wrapped in red paper and tied in string with a perfectly fashioned bow. Red raised an eyebrow as she carefully unwrapped the gift, holding the small jewelry box in her hands, the thing too delicate to look right in her callous hands and her badly set knuckles from one too many guard fights.
Tentatively, she opened it, scared of what she’d see. A glimmer of gold, and Red was already confused. A necklace with the word ‘yours’ engraved in careful font.
“This is beautiful.. Did you… climb up the tree again?”
Chloe frowns, glancing down at the necklace like there would be some kind of clue there. “No, why?”
“What does this… mean?”
Chloe shifts around the bed so she kneeling behind Red, taking the necklace from her trembling fingers to fasten it around her neck. Red inhales shakily when Chloe’s fingers brush against her skin.
“It means you could dance with me. You could have me. You could need me.”
Chloe rests her hands on Red’s shoulders, who turns her head to meet her imploring gaze. She feels it everywhere- like wet electricity all down her skin. Chloe is patient, smiling and seeing. She moves wayward red waves, tucking them behind Red’s ear and lingering with her hand on her cheek.
At that moment, Red is pretty sure Bridget and Ella must be on the other side of the wall listening in because a slow song starts, one that she recalls waking up to Chloe twirling around the room to.
She lets herself sink into the smell of vanilla, and the pastoral eyes gazing at her with so much warmth. She sinks, and twists around fully to be able to pull Chloe closer until t their lips meet in a tentative kiss.
Red cradles Chloe’s face like she’s the most precious thing on earth, and Chloe kisses her like she had been born with the intent to. Her lips are so soft, and Red would now in fact go down the rabbit hole just so she could repaint the portraits of her ancestors in the prettiest shades of blue.
Chloe pulls back first, giggling when Red tries to follow her path for more. She kisses the crown of Red’s head, wrapping her in a hug. “Happy birthday, princess.”
Red pouts against her chest, arms wrapped around her waist. “Thievery of my nickname is a treasonous act, you know.”
Chloe hums, squeezing the other girl. “You like Chloe, you wouldn’t hurt her.”
“Maybe not, but the evil heir to Wonderland’s throne might.”
“That’s so offensive, Chloe just got you a necklace.”
“Red wonders why we’re talking in the third person.”
Chloe laughs, and Red swoons. “How about for the rest of your birthday, we go find the best tree in Auradon to sit on?”
“Really? You mean that?” She asks like it’s the most important question she’d ever heard. Chloe can’t help but kiss her again.
“Of course, come on, your ladyship.” And she launches off the bed, offering a hand with a galiant bow towards Red who takes it with a fond eye roll, lacing their fingers.
“Still not a good nickname, princess.”
“Damn it.”