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The papers fluttered down around him, the redhead throwing himself back onto the floor with an aggravated groan, hands flung out.
Gem rolled her eyes at her twin brother, who had begun to roll around and make noises not unlike a newly hatched baby bird shrieking for food or murder, whichever happened first. “It’s just an essay, fWhip, it’s not even that long. This,” and she gestured to the mess of papers and notes surrounding the two of them, “is not necessary.”
“You don’t understand, Gem,” fWhip whined, sitting back up to glare at her. “It has to be perfect. Half the school still thinks technopathy isn’t a real school of magic, anything I write about it has to smash their faces in or they’re never going to shut up.” Looking away with a look that almost bordered on a pout, he muttered, “Sausage would get it.”
“Sausage doesn’t know the difference between redstone and red concrete,” Gem replied, stifling the urge to laugh at the outraged look on fWhip’s face. She coughed and looked away casually, moving some papers around. “Why don’t you just study with him instead?”
fWhip snorted. “You won’t believe what he’s doing.”
“I swear to the gods, if he’s joined another cult–”
The grin on fWhip’s face inspired a flicker of terror behind Gem’s joking amusement. She sat up. “Did he?”
He shook his head. “Worse!”
“Worse than a cult?” Gem blinked, scanning her mind over the many, many things Sausage had done over the years, from hiring a construction crew to build an entire house for his dog to hitchhiking halfway across the country looking for an ancient relic from a myth without supplies, a map, or any prior experience in hiking beyond running for his life at 5 in the morning when Pearl woke up with a hunger for blood. “Is he wanted by the police again? Missing and presumed dead? Accidentally married to a random guy or lady and trying to escape the engagement? Trying to get hit with lightning to prove a point?”
fWhip scrambled up from where he had been sitting to grip her shoulders intensely, planting his face scant inches from hers, blue eyes staring wide and unblinking into Gem’s own unimpressed green. “He got,” pausing for dramatic effect, “a job.”
For a single, beautiful moment, Gem considered biting her brother.
His face was right there, she could remove his nose before he even realized what was happening…
Perhaps sensing her sudden violent intent, fWhip retreated, putting a few feet between himself and his sister. “You should have seen your face,” he said gleefully.
“Next time you need to bail from a party, I’m letting you suffer,” Gem said balefully. “I thought he was in actual danger, you idiot.”
fWhip shook his head, still grinning. “Nuh uh, you love me too much.”
“I don’t love you,” she retorted. “You are the bane of my life. I don’t even know you. Security, there’s a man in my room!”
“This is my room, actually,” fWhip said, pointing at his bed and ignoring the fact that Gem’s bed was across from it.
“I’m a year ahead of you, senior students get priority on dorms. My room.” Gem shot back, grabbing and crumpling a paper before throwing it at his head. “Where did he even get a job? Who would accept that giant goofball?”
He shrugged. “Apparently the Crystal Cafe lets students work there, you just have to apply through Admissions. I heard from Joel who heard from Scott that Xornoth and Sausage’s therapists teamed up and told admissions to give them a job together to fix their issues or something.”
“That will end well, I’m sure,” Gem said. “So he’s there now?”
fWhip nodded. “Oo, wanna go get a drink? This is boring anyways, I don’t wanna do this anymore.”
Well, why not. “Sure. Get out, I’m gonna change.”
~~~
The bells chimed as they entered the cafe, Sausage looking up from behind the counter with a polite smile that turned into a widespread grin, bouncing up and waving excitedly. “fWhip! Gem!”
“Hi, Sausage,” Gem said with an amused smile as fWhip skipped up to the bar, sliding into a stool and plopping his elbows down, lifting himself up to be eye level with Sausage, who was almost half a foot taller than him on a good day.
She was cruelly ignored, fWhip and Sausage engaging in their staring context rite that for some inexplicable reason counted as a greeting between the two of them. Sausage was lucky there weren’t any other customers in the cafe waiting to make an order, only a blue haired elf and a gnome wearing a mushroom cap in a booth by the window, studying. The gnome kept peeking with wide eyes at Sausage and fWhip, looking between them and Gem with visible confusion. She shook her head at them, shrugging.
Sausage broke eye contact first, turning to smile at Gem with his usual bashful cheer. “How are you? Are you guys here for drinks, or to hang out? My shift’s done in twenty minutes or so, I think.”
“I’ll take a drink,” fWhip said, wriggling down from the counter and peering upwards at the menu. “Ooo, sunflower caramel mocha– does that have actual sunflower in it or is it just the name?”
“Name,” Gem replied absently, also reading the menu. “They’re doing a fundraiser for those sunflower fields a few miles out of campus, to preserve some rat species that live there.” To Sausage she said, “How fast can you make a vanilla espresso?”
He was already bustling to the machines, throwing a grin back over his shoulder. “My record is 75 seconds! fWhippy?”
“The sunflower mocha,” he decided. “With extra sugar and caramel?”
The espresso machine began to chug, Sausage moving on to do the mocha with a wink at fWhip. “Anything for my best buddy!”
The door rang behind them, another person entering the cafe. Gem twisted to look at who was entering, the tall dirty blonde having ducked to make it through the doorway. “Pearl!”
“Oh, y’all are already here! I was gonna go find you after I got Saus out of here,” Pearl said cheerfully, bumping shoulders with Gem and flicking fWhip’s ear lightly. “You guys wanna go see the rats? They’re so cute, you have no idea, I’ve got a mate in animal magics and they promised to let us past the quarantine to see them.”
“Maybe we can find fWhip’s soulmate,” Gem said dryly. “You know, since he’s so ferret-y.”
Sausage came back from where he’d been preparing the drinks in time to see fWhip lunge at Gem, only kept from reaching her by Pearl grabbing him. He had the wherewithal to put down the drinks before he started wailing dramatically. “Murder! Attempted murder, there’s an assault, help!”
“Oh my gods, Sausage, shut up,” fWhip said, smacking at Pearl’s arm. “Put me down, I wasn’t actually gonna bite her!”
Gem looked down her nose at her feral brother, shaking her head. “Don’t put him down Pearl, he’s lying.”
fWhip stuck his tongue out at her. “I’m going to put mayonnaise under your pillow tonight.”
“Don’t you dare, I’ll kill you–”
“Rats!” Sausage said brightly, moving out from behind the counter and standing between the twins before they could try to attack each other again. “Pearl, what was that about the cute rats?”
She exchanged an amused look with Sausage. “We can sneak into the fields and look at the cute babies if we go now, my buddy is waiting to let us in.”
She shook fWhip a little in her arms. “Truce? I gotta put you down now, mate.”
Gem peered around Sausage, squinting at fWhip. “Truce.”
fWhip nodded, kicking his feet until Pearl let him go. He grabbed his drink, took a sip of it, and then popped the lid off to chug it.
Sausage winced. “You’re not supposed to shotgun that, fWhippy.”
“Maybe he’ll have a heart attack,” Gem said hopefully, also sipping at her vanilla espresso. “Thanks for the coffee, Sausage. How much do we owe?”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, I covered it already!” Sausage said, smiling down at Gem. “Come on, let’s go see the fur babies, come on come on–”
He didn’t give her a chance to protest, bustling everyone out of the cafe before ducking back in to clock out belatedly. Xornoth would cover him, once it got back from its smoke break and making out with Joey, their other coworker and its boyfriend.
Hurrying back outside, he rejoined the others, sliding into the passenger seat while Gem and fWhip argued about who would sit in the front. Pearl got in the driver's seat and honked at them, making them both jump identically.
Shoving Gem’s arm halfheartedly, fWhip climbed in, Gem getting in and climbing over him to get to the other seat.
The drive wasn’t long, and in less than an hour they were sitting surrounded by sunflowers, a multitude of meerkats of some sort moving around them and getting scooped up and pet. fWhip tried to steal one on their way out.
They may or may not have had to leg it into the woods to avoid getting caught by security, but they didn’t get caught, and that's what mattered, as far as fWhip was concerned.
The events of the year past were long gone, and while things were not as they once were, the new normal had settled in and everything was once again peaceful at their quiet university.