In All Things
Story by RenoChevre on SoFurry
FYI: I write in a rambling stream of conscious way, please keep that in mind! ;w;
Please tell me any tags I can add to this, I'm bad at defining my stuff. ;x;
Ithkael and Coinan's story. :3
Every really specific and weird story from Ithkael has actually happened to me lmao
Yes, my first fish did get caught that way and I do have two of those iClicker things because of some bookstore ordering mess. Apparently iClickers are now an app, who knew!
Nothing explicit happens but it'll get there. It'll suck at first (this one does have a happy ending, though).
Chapter 5 - In All Things
Chapter 5 - In all things there exists one
"Gods, fuck, why won't you answer?!" the brown bat grumbled under his breath, frustrated with everything that had led up to this point in time.
Here Ithkael was, having a nice day out on the lake fishing. The summer night wasn't as oppressive as they said it would be, the cloud cover actually offering a pleasant cover instead of the black clouds signaling an oncoming thunderstorm, the fish were actually biting for once (seeing as no other assholes had illegally chummed the waters), and there weren't any annoying party goers for once! All in all, it was a peaceful start to the summer and yet...
And yet!
Here he was, trying to get hold of his wayward roommate for what felt like the thousandth time and, just like every single other time he had tried getting hold of that asshole of a vampire bat, Astah just wasn't fucking answering his phone.
Feeling the muscles in his arms tense up, he quickly pocketed his phone lest he be tempted to either A, throw it into the lake or B, crush it in his hands due to having the fury of ten thousand suns trapped inside of him all going super novae at once. Can you imagine the sheer amount of Newtons that he would be applying to that tiny junky piece of microchipped government bugged technology? Unimaginable! Gods!
He's so pissed.
Ithkael took a deep breath as he tried to rationalize everything. His roommate, Astah, had gone MIA about half a moon cycle ago and to say that he was worried was an understatement. Worried and really pissed but that went without saying at this point.
See, it's funny, Astah had to have about a decade on him but yet still allowed a college undergrad about to graduate room with him. He figured either the vampire bat was lonely, which was a good possibility seeing as the other bat hadn't had a boyfriend since last year, or the economy really was that messed up that the albino bat had to outsource one of his two rooms to anyone that would help pay rent. Even if that someone happened to be a debt ridden uni student whose job prospects had dried up two years ago because the goddamn market crash had caused his parents to go back to uni and get their degrees thus pushing him farther out of the employment pool-
He's getting off topic.
Point is that his roommate, the guy that had put him onto the lease and who had been living in that apartment for several years now, wasn't answering his phone and Ithkael has seen neither hide nor hair of the other bat in half a moon cycle. Which is decidedly not good. Thankfully he had enough money put away to pay for the last month's rent in full but he's got no housing allowance, his parents had basically gave him the bird about a year back and his financial aid for college only pays for his classes (he thinks?), not everything else he needs to survive.
Like, you know, food.
He scrubs his paws through his hair, messing it up even further than it already had been, before giving a defeated sigh and slumping further down into his busted up old camping chair. He looks down at his barrel of dead fish mournfully, "Oh, spirit of the dead fish that I caught by its eyeball and watched bleed out in the bucket, we're really in it now..."
Gods, how is he going to tell his grandpa that the only reason he's been able to eat these past few days is because he payed for Ithkael's fishing permit this year...?
Maybe.... You know, just maybe... Maybe he should just walk off into the woods and become some hermit or crazy mountain man. Sometimes, only sometimes because he's really never honest with himself if he's being at all truthful, he thinks it would be neat to be eaten or some such. You know, slide down somebody's wet, warm, slimy maw and then get swallowed. And since this is fantasy, he would obviously not be getting masticated or digested in any form. What would peristalsis feel like...?
Wait, no, teeth hurty. No thanks. He'll just stick to fantasy!
Ithkael shakes his head as he stands up and starts packing up his fishing equipment. He had already gutted the fish earlier (the only exception was eyeball catch back when he was 9 and who he let die first by bleeding out in the bucket because he's a literal baby and couldn't mercy kill the poor fish because looking at it made him start tearing up in both sympathy pain and a yawning void of hopeless sadness which is all just to say that for that one he waited until after it died before gutting it) so it was just a matter of putting the lid on his bucket.
Oh no, wait, he had a crawfish trap to real in.
Quickly pulling it in, he saw quite a few of the little mud bugs swimming about in the shallows before he yanked it to dry land. Crawfish were so cute in this odd way. Why, he remembers throwing fire crackers down into crawfish holes when he was a wee lad visiting his dad after his parents divorced with the oldest of his younger brothers.
Fun times. Wild summer. He and his siblings had caught one that summer as well, put it on the trampoline, and then pretended it was a sacrifice to a some unknown deity to dance around before they put it back on the ground. He wonders, if the crawfish could talk, what it thought about and would say on 4 bats of various ages and sizes basically using it as a focal point in some arcane ritual. Probably nothing good.
Carefully he extracts the little crawdads and places them in their own bucket. Let them duke it out in there before he starves them out by placing them in tap water to flush out their systems for a few days. Granted he's not going to have a usable tub for a while but he can just shower at the uni's gym in the meantime.
He then looks over at his now capped fish bucket and gives a thought to the little feisty crawfish in there who he's named Leroy. That little guy is staying. For a tiny animal no bigger than his thumb, Leroy put up such a tough fight to steal his bait that, well, he's hoping the little guy's gumption and spirit will rub off on him.
Mud bugs secured, Ithkael resumes packing up his fishing equipment and makes the ponderous journey back to his truck. Thankfully there's nobody around nearby so he doesn't feel like he needs to take only one trip (and probably trip and die, knowing how his luck works out). So he does it in two.
Look, okay, a guy's got to keep up some semblance of an image!
....
Ithkael cringes at his stupid ego. He doesn't know why he's even trying because the only other person on the lake with him is some old dude on the literal other side of the water, it's not like that guy actually cares what the brown bat is getting up to.
He shakes his head to rid himself of the embarrassment, takes one last good look to make sure everything is tied down securely (lest he be bereft of dinner because he used up all his money this month paying the full price on the apartment-!) before he hops into the cab of his truck. He's not going to go anywhere for a while, though, he's still too wound up.
Just... Where is Astah...? In the year that he's been a roommate with the guy, not once has the other bat been late with his payments or been gone for more than a few nights in a row. He became even more of a shut in when his old long term boyfriend basically dumped him. Probably for a good reason, the vampire bat was up to some shady business he's sure, but that's besides the point.
Ithkael nervously starts chewing on his claws. He can't do this another month, he just can't...
With a sigh, he grabs his phone and texts his best friend.
Ithkael: hey
Venbi: ???
Ithkael: got a dilemma you free rn
Venbi: ye
Venbi: whats the prob? ???
Does he text her his problem or...? It would probably be really rude, he thinks, to discuss this over text. That and he's having to actually text his friend instead of messaging her over a chat client. He'd rather not deal with a character limit for this, especially with how spotty his old junked up phone can be with actually sending or receiving texts.
Ithkael: mind if I call?
Ithkael: its complicated
It takes Venbi a while to respond, which doesn't at all send him into an anxiety spiral. At all. Nope. He's totally cool-
Venbi: yeah, of course
He's never hit that dial button faster in his life and he's counting the time when he saw his ex's name pop up on his phone when he was drunk that led to making very poor decisions that concluded with an even worse morning after. It was a whole thing, okay?
It rings 2 and a half times before he hears her pick up, "Thank you for calling Pizza Hat, what can I get you?"
He snorts with little amusement, "Ha ha, that never gets old, especially since this is the fifth time you've answered the phone like that-!"
The line goes quiet for a moment and just as he's about to apologize for raising his voice, Venbi talks again, "Wow... Just wow, mate, this has got to be something really serious. Usually you at least give me a bit of buildup before your type-A ass starts growling at me. So... Spill," she takes a moment before continuing, "If this is about your weird roommate..."
Ithkael sighs, "It's about my weird roommate."
Venbi groans over the line. Privately he thinks he'd like to hear it under different circumstances but he'll be taking that to his grave, "Look, 'Kael, you're going to have to break the lease because you can't-"
"I can't afford to do this another month, I know, 'Bi. Trust me, I know..."
The both sit in silence for a while before he sighs and speaks up, "Look, can I... Can I room with you and your girlfriend for a little bit? I... I think I'm going to have to apply for student housing this coming year because..."
He could imagine her wince as she replied, "Because there's still no listings within your price range, yeah... I know, we've been keeping up with it on our end as well. Just... Just let me talk to Evie, alright? I'll try and smooth things over with her so you're not sleeping in your truck in the parking lot. No idea why you two just can't get along, I keep on telling you two that you'd both get on like a house on fire and yet you two keep on defying me!"
Ithkael gave a nervous cough. Yeah, he knows why Evie hates him, it's because he's been in love with his best friend since they were bratty little highschoolers. However, as luck would have it, Venbi was a lesbian and he had the unfortunate reality of being in love with someone that wouldn't ever love him back the way he wanted them to. Did it hurt? A whole hell of a lot. But look, he's selfish and he just wants somebody who actually cares about his loser ass in his life. He'll get over her. Someday. Problem was is that Evie clocked onto his hopeless and worthless pining and doesn't quite like that fact. At all! Which is fine and all but gods, he's not going to be a dick, alright? He knows his relationship with his best friend is strictly platonic and always will be. He's accepted that (now if only his heart would get the memo that'd be swell) but Venbi's girlfriend still thinks he's nothing more than a snake in the grass.
Anyway...
"Yeah... Wonder why... It really is a mystery..."
She snorted, "I keep on trying to tell her that you've only dated men."
Ithkael cringed. Yeah, he's only dated other guys because every girl he's been interested in... Well, you can imagine. Sometimes they'll give him a chance but he doesn't blame the ladies that dumped him for his hangups.
He shakes his head as he tried to get Venbi off the current topic, "A-anyway! So yeah, I just need a place to crash while I get in touch with housing and work out a deal on that end..."
Venbi snorts in amusement, "We could always get you a pop-up and you can camp out in the parking lot like a little homeless guy."
He laughs, "Trust me, I've thought about it! It's why I liked being able to room with Astah, you know? I mean, weirdness aside. Personally I think the guy's more eccentric oddities would be solved either if he got another partner or... Well, you know, lots of therapy."
"Yeah, well, he'll have to get in line because I'm pretty sure everyone else needs tons of therapy. Especially these days."
Ithkael hummed with a laugh, "True that, too bad we're all poor fucks barely able to feed ourselves let alone think of our futures past tomorrow."
Venbi laughed, "Gods, yes, it's so awful out here... Anyway, let me get going so I can work on getting Evie to come around. You go do what you got to, alright? Keep me updated if there's a fine for closing out the lease and moving your shit," she pauses a bit before continuing in a more worried tone, "Be safe, okay? We'll figure something out, promise."
"Y-yeah... Thanks. See you later, 'Bi."
"Bye, 'Kael, be seeing you."
And with that the line went dead and he was left once again to his thoughts, alone, in his truck.
He glared at the birds singing their songs with nary a care in the world beyond where their next stolen meal was coming from. What he wouldn't give to be a bird right now...
Thankfully Venbi had managed to win over her girlfriend and Ithkael was able to crash on their couch for the rest of the summer. Not so thankfully, turns out his apartment complex didn't like the fact that he was breaking the lease and no amount of trying to explain that Astah had just disappeared a moon cycle ago would sway the front desk ladies. Never mind the fact that since his little disappearing act, Astah had actually been put onto a missing person's list.
Spooky!
Now see, while he couldn't sway the front desk ladies, he swayed the maintenance guys but those bats were cool. He liked the maintenance guys, never had an issue with them.
He's getting off track. Point is that he had to pay a fine he really couldn't afford right then so when he talked to his best friend about it, she had actually payed it off. Which he is very much eternally grateful for but the brown bat didn't have a way to pay her back for another moon cycle so he's taken to keeping their apartment spotless. Which Evie cannot complain about seeing as he's taking on all the chores so she's taken to just silently fuming at him. Which, honestly? Absolutely tickles him.
Now, however, he had to finally get in touch with student housing even though he'd really rather not to... He has to but gods he does not want to do another year of living on campus. He escaped! It was glorious! Now that horrific void is sucking him back in and all he really wants to do is buy a camper and live out the trailer instead of dealing with the dorms again...
But, he also knows that is something he can't do. Not these days, anyway. So, like all things in his life that go wrong, housing it is.
Money, unfortunately, really does make the world go around. He hopes they find a better economic system because this constant suffering for no reason? Needs to go the way of the temnospodyls... Which might not be too apt of a metaphor seeing as he actually liked that extinct order of tetrapods.
He looks up at the ceiling of the apartment from the couch he was currently lounging on and lamenting his poor lot in life, idly imagining the various faces and creatures he can see in the bumps, ridges and cracks that permeate it. You know, avoiding the fact that he really needs to call the housing office... Would they take a walk in? Maybe... Probably...
It's worth a shot, anyway, worst thing that could happen is he encounters some piece of paper taped in a weird location that makes him feel like an idiot for not seeing that says, "Hey, call this number to get a hold of housing!" Complete with smiley face, of course, to give the illusion of friendliness. Nothing friendly about a department that can't keep staff and lets the washers and dryers die out.
Gods... He's going to have to deal with campus laundry again... He might actually expire from the stress of it all. He can see himself going into cardiac arrest because he absolutely remembers the sheer amount of bullshit that the other dorm rats put him through those first two mandatory years of campus housing. Maybe, if he's feeling extra petty one day, he'll take one of those assholes's clothes and dump them into a mud puddle for wasting his whole day due to their sheer idiocy-
He takes a few deep breaths to calm himself down after doing a fantastic job of working himself up. No use expiring from cardiac arrest when he's not even actively dealing with the problem causing his stress in the first place.
He runs an anxious paw over his muzzle before a face pops up into his line of sight.
Evie gives him the most unimpressed look he's yet seen on her to date. Honestly? Quite the feat.
"You going to get your fat ass off the couch today or do I have to suffer watching you mope around avoiding your problems again," she says while leaning over the back of the couch.
Ithkael simply flips her off before rolling over and burying his face into the back of the couch like the petulant child he actually is in the hopes she'll leave.
Evie, however, defies this obvious sign of dismissal and instead smacks his shoulder hard. "Get up, doofus, I'm tired of watching you waste away from anxiety. I'd rather not have to clean out your corpse."
He grunts in annoyance but relents, rolling onto his stomach before pushing himself up to sit on his knees on the couch. Good news about that is now he's out of her hitting range. Bad news is that now he has her full undivided attention. He glares at the other bat with a pout.
She just rolls her eyes at him, "Gods, your impossible..." she sighs with frustration, running a paw through her hair, "Look. Every time I look over here you get more and more miserable and, frankly? I'm tired of it, your rancid vibes are bringing down the mood of my living room and I'll like to exorcise it. Cleanse the air if you will."
He raises an eyebrow at that as he tilted his head incredulously, "Are you seriously comparing me to a demon here?"
Evie just gives him a flat look, "What do you think?"
He grunts in response with a glare.
She shakes her head. "Whatever! My point is that you're obviously not getting anywhere just sitting here moping about. Get a move on! Get on with your life! Stop laying about on the couch wallowing in your anxiety!" She then holds up a hand, stopping him before he can retort, "Which, I know is a difficult thing to ask, I'm not stupid, but... Thinking about it obviously isn't helping so..."
She then walks around the couch and stands in front of him, staring him down.
"What are you..." he gets out before Evie lunges at him and starts digging through his jean pockets. "H-hey-!"
The other bat pulls back quickly with a triumphant smile on her face as she holds his phone in one paw while holding his face back at an odd angle with the other. She gives him a cheeky grin before she unlocks it with one paw (how-) and then presses a few things before shoving it back into his hands. Before he can react, Evie has made her escape further into the apartment. Just as he's about to get up and chase after her, he hears a voice start speaking from the phone in his hand.
"MSU Housing office, how may I help you?"
He stares down in shock and fear at the phone in his hand.
"Hello...?"
He gives a nervous cough before bringing the phone up to his ear and responding, "Uh... H-hi! I'm uh... Calling about uh... Vacancies? In the dorms, I mean." He winces at how utterly awkward and unrehearsed this all is.
Thankfully the other bat at the end of the line didn't seem to care (or was just a kind soul who was happy to ignore his loser ass) as they then went on, "Oh, of course! Are you a new student?"
"N-no! No, I'm actually a returning student..."
And so on did the conversation go, the bat at the other end of the line walking him through the same procedures that he remembered when he did the whole thing online that first time. The second time he just submitted a form to keep his same room for the returning year so that one doesn't count. By the end of the call, Ithkael had secured his place on campus and he wasn't risking either getting his best friend and her girlfriend kicked out of their apartment complex due to him couch surfing or having to live out of his truck for who knows how long. There was one caveat though...
He had a roommate this time.
Joy.
Chapter 6 - In All Things
Chapter 6 - For the strings that tie
Coinan was pretty excited, all things considered! He had graduated high school last spring, had a summer filled with travel (and quite a bit of bed hopping at those travel locations if he's honest), and was ready to tackle this new phase of his life with the gusto it deserved. Sure, high school may have been one of the more... Frustrating challenges of his young 19 years of life but if he's being quite honest, that's mostly due to the fact that the other guys in his class were absolute morons who didn't know how to count past the number five and who were more content to wax poetic about the new fast food item for months on end.
He's quite certain that the next time he hears the words "mini" and "delta" in the same sentence uttered within a kilometer of himself he's going to murder whomever it was that had the misfortune of uttering them.
Also, all those guys had absolutely abysmal fashion sense and no appreciation for the more delicate things in life. Which is so hilarious because they were more than happy for him to suck their nasty unwashed dicks that smelled heavily of BO and cum but the heavens forbid that the long-eared bat wear a skirt one day.
Hypocrites.
Whatever! He's bringing himself down by focusing on those losers he's left in the past. Well... Most. He knows of one other guy who chose this college but that particular dumbass was on a sports scholarship. Usually he'd give those guys a pass because he's met some pretty smart football players before and sometimes that's the only option people have to get into college. Same with the military. That guy, though? That absolute moron? There was quite literally nothing up there, that dude's minuscule thought pan didn't even have a crumb to rattle around. Nothing but airy cavernous space between those ears.
Admittedly handsome ears but, again, there's really no point when there's nothing actually between the two of them. Also, the guy's dick was tiny and fat and that bat had absolutely no idea how to use the damn thing. It was the worst two minutes of his life if he's being honest.
So, the point!
The point is that he's quite excited to try get on with this new chapter of his life. His parents had signed him up for that introductory course for freshman to ease them into the college life, so he's been moved into his dorm room for about 2 weeks now before the actual start of the semester. He's gotten... A bit used to it, honestly, it's no different then his room back home.
In other words, he has had a glorious two weeks of not having a roommate and boy has it been absolutely freeing. Yeah, sure, it was pretty stupid of him to get used to the feeling but... Well, you know, two weeks with no supervision but his own? Liberating. He actually felt like he was thriving for once.
That, however, was soon to end because today was the day he was going to meet his roommate for the first time. Granted, yes, he's talked to the other bat a little bit in these two weeks leading up to the start of the fall semester but that was all done over a chat client! Actually talking to his guy in person is a whole different beast he's going to have to tackle.
Coinan isn't quite sure what he should be expecting here. The other bat seemed like a decent enough sort but... Well, to speak about the elephant in the room here, the other bat, Ithkael, his new roommate? That bat was expecting to graduate come the end of the spring semester last year. As in, the guy is going to be a few years older than him and a lot more used to the college campus life than himself. It's a bit daunting if he's being honest here and makes him feel just that much more insecure about life.
Which he really shouldn't be but hey, emotions were irrational on the best of days! And today was not the best of days! In fact, today was going to be the absolute worst of days because he swears that housing set him up with the absolute worst match they could. Ithkael wasn't at all forthcoming about why a college senior slated to graduate at the end of the spring semester would choose to room in the dorms on campus rather than out in the world somewhere. It can't be that expensive, can it? Maybe. He's not sure, he's never had to think about rent and finances before this point in his life, okay, cut him some slack.
So, okay, say that the other bat couldn't afford rent in some apartment. Well... Why doesn't he just take on a roommate or something? You have to physically sign a lease, don't you? Seems simple enough. Get a roommate, halve the rent between the two of you, and there you go!
So, okay, maybe he's oversimplifying the whole situation of the other bat. He has, after all, very little information on the other guy beyond what the other bat (didn't) say about himself and what the other bat (barely) put on those roommate forms that housing uses to match people up. If the other guy was more forthcoming about his life than maybe, just maybe, Coinan wouldn't be freaking out and expecting some axe murderer or absolute weirdo to be rooming with him.
Why, did you know that the other bat refused to accept a video call over the chat client? Seriously! It was as if the other guy was trying to be as difficult to work with as possible! Just... What was the other guy's problem? Why wouldn't he, at the very least here, just send him a selfie or something? He'll take the crunchiest .Jpeg out there if it meant that he could at least put a face to the name. The most personal information that Coinan knew about this so-called Ithkael (if that even really was the other bats name) was that he was about 23 years old, was a masculine identity, and that he may or may not have been a brown bat.
That's it! That's all he knows about the personal details! That's really fuck all to know about a guy he's going to potentially be sleeping in the same room next to for 2 semesters. He knows more about the dorm building's HVAC unit than he does the other bat, which is to say, barely fucking anything. He can't tell if this is some ploy from the other bat to... He's not sure, be a dick to him for no discernible reason?
Wait... Could Ithkael be homophobic or something? Now that's a terrifying thought. He's not sure how he feels about the potential to be roomed with a guy that hates his guts for simply liking other men in a sexual and romantic sense. That would explain why the other bat wouldn't send him a selfie or really even talk about himself. He didn't... Come off as condescending and nasty when he disclosed his orientation (new phase in life, new more out and authentically him, he thinks) but there's really only so much you can glean through text. Housing wouldn't put him with a person that actually had an issue with gays, right?
...Right?
They do say that more than half of all communication is nonverbal so he's obviously missing some nuance here. Maybe. The other bat did tell him he was cute when he sent a selfie to Ithkael but was that just the other guy being polite? Maybe he actually was being condescending and saying he looked cute in a mocking way! Okay, so, he knows he's not exactly the slimmest guy out there (he'd rather not talk about his weight, it's a sore spot) but he's not... He's not repulsive, is he? Guys abroad let him into their beds so that has to count for something right? Maybe he's just cute overseas and not here... That would make all those stupid asshole jocks from high school right! Shit! The last thing he needs is to make 5th period Brathion correct in anything, fucking asshole moron-
The long-eared bat takes a deep breath, recognizing that he's going into an anxiety spiral and tries his best to dispel the pent up anxious energy that he's worked up over the past... Barely even 5 minutes. Or maybe the clock on his tablet is wrong. Could a clock that's constantly connected to the internet be wrong? Which, well, getting his electronics all connected to the school's wi-fi system had been An Event (TM) that he would rather not recount. Having some asshole nerd in the IT hole below the campus library judge his laptop desktop had been a special kind hell he'd rather not recount. Let's just say that he had some very interesting fantasies of dominating that prick that he angrily typed out into his word processor that night. His online buddies liked it, thought it was hot, so there's something to be said about terrible experiences being turned into wish fulfillment porn.
Maybe.
Coinan groans and scrubs a hand down his face. It does him no good worrying about it seeing as he's never even met his roommate. Which, speaking of, when is that guy going to show up anyway? He doesn't got all day to wait around to meet this potential health hazard, and yes, he knows he doesn't have to be here but... He's really curious. All morning he's listened to people move into the dorms, watching them wheel trolleys loaded up with boxes and miscellaneous bullshit through the hallways. A few of the guys looked cute, you know, in that classical attractive way but nobody really stood out to him.
More importantly, no other guy he saw moving into this side of the co-ed dorm's hallway had been a brown bat so it's not like his missing roommate was just helping a buddy or brother move in. Nope! Guy was just MIA! Gods, is this what he's going to be feeling when that first exam of his college career pops up? Nothing but sheer anxiety? Ugh, miserable.
He flops backwards onto the bed before there's a succession of 4 knocks on his door before it's flung open and a dolly (not a trolley, what) rolls into the room that's being pushed by a brown bat. He's assuming this is Ithkael.
The guy looks... Like nothing he expected. For one, he's staring at a total nerd, like, there's just no getting around the fact that the brown bat is a nerd. It's in the other bat's posture and mannerisms. Ithkael is... Nothing really to look at if he's being honest (or petty, can't rule that one out). The bat wears a red flannel over shirt over top a black t-shirt with some nerdy anime graphic on it, and scuffed up jeans that have seen much better days. Why, if it weren't for the other bat talking, he'd rudely assume Ithkael was some redneck or something. Nothing against them, he thinks the aesthetic is hot, but he's already built up the other bat into some nebulous villain figure that he's willing to stoop and be exceptionally petty and rude to all the good people down south.
He winces, is he really going to be one of those awful pretentious hipster guys that looks down their noses at everything? Is he really doing a, "Look at that bitch eating her crackers!" thing right now...?
He returns back to observing his new roommate and notices that... The other bat has been talking on his phone this whole time and Coinan didn't even notice. Ah. Well. Before he can think on this further, Ithkael notices him and gives him a tentative wave with an awkward smile before the other bat places all of his boxes onto his bed and unceremoniously leaves, dragging the dolly behind him and not once getting off the phone.
Just like that, just completely absconds the room. Skedaddles. The other bat was in the room for less than 5 minutes total. Unconsciously, Coinan raises his arm to sniff himself. Nope. Hasn't sweated through his deodorant yet so it couldn't have been that. So... He can either think well of the other bat or... Just continue being a petty bitch.
He's going with petty.
Coinan waits a few moments longer, the long-eared bat listening to see if the brown bat returns, before he gently tosses his tablet onto his bed covers and gets up to carefully inspect the other bat's belongings. The boxes don't appear taped so he assumes that the other bat had lived close enough to campus before signing up to live in the dorms or else why would he not bother to tape up his boxes? Especially the bottoms! He looks around and rocks a bit on his heels before he puts paw to box flap.
Is he going to snoop in the other bat's things? Of course he is!
Coinan gently eases the box open, careful to not rip or strain the cardboard and takes a peak inside. Clothing and bedding. Boring! He refolds the flaps and moves on to the next one. The next box is even more boring, it's just various school supplies wrapped up in more bedding for cushioning. He goes through the remaining three boxes and is appalled that he has found absolutely nothing interesting about the other bad other than the fact the guy had multiple red flannel over shirts all in varying degrees of wear and tear. Where's the books? Posters? The non-school related ephemera? He was left utterly bereft here!
He still knows absolutely nothing about his roommate other than the fact that Ithkael was about 23 years old, was actually a brown bat as advertised, was slated to graduate at the end of the spring semester next year, and apparently dressed like a redneck. That's... Very little to go off of. Maybe the other bat was going to bring more boxes up but... It's been almost an hour and the guy still hasn't come back to the room. Just left his boring boxes filled with his boring things on his boring blank half of the room. It's... A rather disconcerting feeling he's left with here.
Oh wait, he did learn something new about the guy, he learned that his roommate was a nerd. It's not much but it's something, he supposes, at least it's something a lot more mundane and manageable than if he had been roomed with some athlete or art major.
Wait... Was Ithkael an art major? There were no textbooks in the other bat's boxes, new or old, so it's not like he could go off those... He's pretty sure he read it on the other bat's roommate forms but he's not sure where he put that sheet of paper so he can't really double check. He also, maybe, just really didn't care in the long run as that form was full of nothing but 1 to 5 word answers to all the questions listed out on the questionnaire so... Can you really blame him.
With a huff filled with frustration and a weird empty feeling he can't quite explain, Coinan returns to his tablet to play a few more rounds of this game before he heads out and explores the campus.
After all, it has to be a much different experience when there's a bunch more people inhabiting it, yeah? Maybe. He thinks so anyway, as it makes sense. Wandering around his high school's hallways between classes was a much different beast than during passing periods or the few breaks the school system gave them. The campus shouldn't be too different to that experience...
Why is he feeling so nervous all of a sudden?! He had no problem going out and mingling when he was travelling overseas so why is he hesitating now?!
Coinan slaps his cheeks a few times before he forcefully quits the game he was playing and gets up to head out of the room. He grabs his keys and wallet, shoves his phone into his pocket, and just as he's about to open the door, his roommate steps inside, braining him with the damn thing. He takes a few steps back and rubs at the sore spot forming on his forehead from where he had a literal door slammed open on him (is he being dramatic about this? yes). This is, apparently, enough to get the wayward attention of his erstwhile absentee roommate and the other bat starts waving his hands a bit frantically as he enters the room.
"Shit! Shit, dude, I didn't know you were there, gods, are you okay?! I'm so fucking sorry-!" Ithkael says in a panic with a voice he was absolutely not expecting to come out of the other bat's muzzle. The guy in front of him, now that he's standing anyway, was a good 10-15 centimeters shorter than him. Hearing how low the other bat's voice actually was gave him mental whiplash. This was apparently the wrong move because now the other bat was gently leading him to sit down, under some false impression that Coinan had a concussion or something. Probably.
"Fuck, man, I'm fine!" he said with a bit more force than he meant to, smacking away the other bat's hovering paws. He's had a bit of a day due to the bat currently standing in front of him and he's just... Really overwhelmed by it all.
Ithkael raises his hands in surrender and backs off, "Alright, alright... Sorry..." The brown bat then ducks his head before he goes over and starts rifling through his boxes of boring things.
Whatever.
Coinan leaves the room in a bit of a dramatic huff. He's got to just... Get away from this room. He's now got a roommate when for two weeks he just had himself and the idea of a roommate, classes are officially starting after the move in period, and... He's just really overwhelmed, alright? Things are changing rapidly right after he got settled and he's not sure how to deal with that.
Being out on campus when it was more lively and not just the other college freshman roaming around was... It was a lot different. Everything was moving quite fast, there were people everywhere and the noise alone was something else. It was as if the college campus when from winter touristy spot straight into the peak times of summer. Coinan really isn't sure how he feels about that if he's being honest. On one hand, it's nice to hear and see the hustle and bustle of the campus grounds finally come back to life (if he's comparing it to the tour he went on back before graduation) but it's also rather overwhelming and made him feel infinitesimally small in the grand scheme of things. Like if he stopped moving than it just wouldn't matter.
He's not sure he actually likes that exceptionally isolating feeling if he's being honest.
Seeing as he didn't have a car, he just made due with walking around the campus for a while. It wasn't that sprawling and, luckily, this area of campus wasn't jammed right up into the bluffs so the terrain was relatively level. He's sort of glad that he specified this co-ed dorm as his choice rather than the shared apartments and dorm because those poor sods? They were up in the bluffs. Like, RIP to the out of shape bats but, boy, he's sure that the guys' calves will look really hot with all that inadvertent hiking they'll have to be doing all semester.
He's getting off track.
Back to the present, he's already walked his general schedule for classes and knows the overall routes he can take to shorten his time from one end of campus to the next (because they really can't have things make sense on where they stick all the disciplines now can they, like, why is chemistry in one building colloquially known as the science building but then biology is on the other side of campus in a building everyone calls the science-engineering building? and to make matters worse, engineering was all the way up 4 flights of stairs at the top of a hill and that's where half the math classes were but the other half were in the science building!)
Coinan wanders around campus for a while, letting the movement of his feet quiet his mind as he, literally, walks off that burning anxiety deep in his gut. However, nothing lasts and he can't stay outside forever, so with leaden feet, he trudges back to his dorm to face his roommate. If the other bat even is there. He kind of really hope the other bat isn't there.
He tries to prolong how long he's out but eventually his feet lead him back to the dorm. Back through the key card locked doors. Back through the weird hallway on the first floor that passes by the mailboxes and a few random rooms that have always confused them because he cannot for the life of him figure out where these people's bathroom is. Back up the 3 flights of stairs to the top floor, through the door of the last doorway of the stairwell (at least these stairs made sense, apparently there are stairs in the building that houses half of the liberal arts classes has several stairwells that don't go all the way to the top floor where the psychology labs are located). Back facing the same door that's to be his room for the next two semesters, room 324.
He looked at the little nameplates that held their names on the door, Coinan on top and Ithkael on the bottom.
With a sight, he put key into lock and opened the door.
And... No such luck to come back to an empty room. There was his roommate, that nerd of a brown bat, sitting at his desk and tapping away on a tablet. Did the other bat not own a laptop? That was a bit worrisome. Coinan isn't sure he would want to be left to the whims of the library computers and printers, plus, typing on a tablet was a huge pain. The typos alone.
The other bat looked over his shoulder at him, though, and gave a tentative wave that he returned before proceeding to ignore him once again. Well, alright... He can work with that. Classes started up in a few days, anyway, and if his roommate was more apt to just ignore his existence than he's sure he could deal with it fine.
It has been several days since that life changing move in day that his new roommate decided to grace Coinan with his nerdy presence and things were decidedly not fine. In fact, they were so far from fine that he's sure he's about to have an aneurysm from how "Not Fine" things are right now.
So, first night, right? Ithkael had done a great job ignoring him and just pretending that Coinan didn't exist. Which was great, really! It meant that he didn't have to pretend to be nice or anything to the other bat. He also just figured that the other guy was horrifically shy or something so he wasn't going to push the older bat more than he needed to. Things were going great, the brown bat was putting his sheets on the bed, pulling out school supplies and filling up his desk drawers. Neat. Tidy. No complaints, really! He was super worried he'd be given a roommate that was a total slob.
Nothing against total slobs, his best friend in high school was one (is that bat even still his best friend anymore? now there's an existential question to dread) but he really didn't want to live in a room that turned into a total garbage dump. The smell alone...
Anyway, it was going fine. The other bat kept to his side of the room, barely made a sound and just generally kept to himself. In fact, the most that the other bat had actually said to him was when they would agree to lights out on. They settling on 2230 but Coinan was happy to know that if either of them had to stay up later for whatever reason than it would be fine so long as they kept the overhead light off and just used their desk lights. His new roommate could sleep with some light on, that's great.
So, both of them go to bed, Ithkael actually being polite and saying goodnight which... He was really thinking poorly of his roommate, okay, he expected the other bat to be a total douche.
So, it's all going well and then, wouldn't you know it? Ithkael snored. Now, it wouldn't be so bad, honestly, but the guy snored like a freight train with loose squeaky wheels going way over legal speeds on the tracks. Which is just a really fancy way of saying that he could hear the bat through his earplugs and, when you're a long-eared bat? Those earplugs have to be really good to filter out all the little noises you can hear. So to say that he didn't get much sleep that night was an understatement of the century.
He may have woken up quite late and very bitchy seeing as when he finally could fall asleep, it was stupidly early in the morning. Or, to be less pedantic about things, really fucking late.
So, day one was off to a fabulous start!
It got even worse (or would be really good if he didn't already think poorly of his roommate) because, turns out, Ithkael had a habit of... Being naked. It wasn't anything sexual, not at all, it was that kind of casual nakedness one gets when used to having one's privacy constantly challenged and violated. Now, see, this would usually be fine, Coinan isn't a stranger to ogling other guy's packages and his roommate had quite a nice one if super furry (seriously, does the guy know the definition of trimming because he's never seen a harrier sheath on a bat before, can his dick even breathe under all that pubic fur?), but the problem is, is that Coinan is an only child. He's never had to deal with the mortifying ordeal of accidentally being seen naked by siblings or even having someone else sleeping in his room. So this was way out of his usual depths, as in, this was benthic levels of ocean bottom depths, he had past the abyssal plain at this point and was now deep in the trenches, happily swimming in the hadapelagic zone.
So he was really quite shocked and super embarrassed about seeing his roommate in full frontal nudity, the other bat's pink tip of his shaft peaking out of his sheath, and just casually pulling out a pair of underwear and slipping them on without even a hint of modesty or shame. It made him feel very out... And also a little horny but he's sure that was a defense mechanism to help him cope with the sheer shock of what happened.
So, he's just going to have to get used to that fun little detail.
Upside? He doesn't really have to worry about accidentally flashing the other bat and having it be a thing. So that was both a shock and a relief. Did Ithkael ever do sports back in high school or did the other bat have siblings? Questions he isn't sure he can ask or if he even wants to know about.
Those things aside, as he believes he could eventually get used to them, those weren't really the big problems. No, it was the fact that the other bat was constantly listening to music. Just... Constantly. Earbuds always in and noise always going. Okay, granted that sometimes it was a video or audio book but still. It was just constant noise.
Did Coinan mention that he was a long-eared bat? Yeah. This was absolute torture because the noise. Never. Stopped. He very much wanted to die or, in his more dark fantasies, take his desk chair and bash the other bat's skull in and watch his brain pulp under his hands like jelly. Now, anybody who has had to wear earplugs for any extended period of time knows that after a while, they hurt. A lot. So it's not like he could wear them 24/7. He's even asked Ithkael to turn it down and, granted, the other bat looks beyond sorry and does turn the volume down to where Coinan isn't wanting to murder something but, inevitably because proper sound mixing is a lost art these days, the brown bat will move on to a different album or a different video or a different book and will have to turn it up because he can't hear it. Which, fine, he's actually turning it up to a respectable level that doesn't bother Coinan but the other bat will forget to turn it back down when he moves onto the next album or video or book! It was an ouroboros of noise.
Coinan felt like the Grinch at this point. He's sure he looked like the Grinch at this point. At least he didn't smell like the Grinch but the semester is still young, he might just stop showering out of sheer insanity. He thinks of that old gay artist and that one panel comic he really liked, except in this case, no, being a bitchy queen wasn't the best thing to be in life. He's transforming into a bitchy queen because his patience was being chiseled off by his nerdy roommate who can't go two seconds without constant noise streaming into his stupid ears!
So. Much like the Grinch he was transforming into, Coinan hatched a plan. A really awful plan. Now, he can't lean into it too much because he wants to prove that he can excel well in college so he's not going to let himself fail his classes if he can help it.
Is he being petty? Yes. Does he care? No.
So, the plan is this, annoy the shit out of his annoying roommate so that he, hopefully, gets the other bat to move out of the room and leaves him alone. If he's lucky? He'll get a double room all to himself for the rest of the semester.
Classes start tomorrow and he's already sick and tired of his stupid roommate.
He literally just wants to the noise to end.
Chapter 7 - In All Things
Chapter 7 - A triple bogey without a spare
Ithkael was adjusting back to having to be in a college dorm again viewing this initial full day as a trial for how things are going to go once classes start up next week. It wasn't so bad as he did live with Astah who, and he's being very honest here, was a nightmare of a roommate to live with. Not due to anything personality wise with the guy, they were friends at the end of the day, it was more...
The guy was a total slob and had a bad habit of just... Leaving out used condoms out in the main room of the apartment after a night out with the boyfriend... And then ex-boyfriend... And then just regular old friends with benefits... He doesn't get their relationship, honestly, the two of them were still crazy for one another last he saw and it was only a matter of time before friends with benefits turns back into boyfriends, renewing the cycle. It's like the water cycle only with cum.
Anyway, his point was that it was a common enough occurrence to see an hours old spunk filled condom just not-so-innocently moldering there on the carpet of their main room next to the couch. Sometimes they metastasize and would spread out to other reaches of the main room before metastasizing further around the front of the apartment because no surface was sacred. Was Astah aware that semen left to dry on a rag can become a surface for fungi to grow?
As if the constant threat of black mold in a coastal environment wasn't bad enough-!
He was livid when he had to clean up the apartment all by his lonesome seeing as the rent was due and he had negative 400 bits in his bank account (negative eleventy william bits if he's being honest, there was just no money left to be had, William hoovered it all up). Obviously that was going to pay the rent! Right... Because payment processors and landlords are all benevolent and accommodating people at their core and truly deeply care about the people that rely upon their services and reside underneath their roofs. They weren't at all faceless greedy bastards and corporations that would rather suck people dry (and not even in the fun way) and leave them starving on the streets for the cardinal sin of not having a job and losing a roommate.
And while he's painting a picture of something that's entirely fictional, society also has absolutely no issues and everyone loves one another and there's no such thing as poverty! Just rainbows and cupcakes all the way down!
What was he talking about again...?
He shakes his head to clear out the wool that had gathered up there. Or mayhaps dandelion puff would be a better descriptor. Which idiom does he want to use for this...?
He's getting off track again.
So, anyway, he's adjusting just fine to being in the dorm environment again. Sure it's been a few years since he was forced to live on campus, and sure he had a single room his first two years, but the general experience remained much the same as it did with Astah and the vampire bat's apartment: establish the ground rules of not being overtly messy, a respectable time for lights out with the understanding that it's polite to inform the person you're living with if you're expecting to be getting in late, keeping the noise to a respectable level... You know, the simple stuff. Stuff people do when they live with other people, familial or otherwise.
Ithkael keeps his side of the room clean and presentable for the most part. Yes, he knows it's going to get a more lived in look as the semester progresses and he has to focus on his classes more, but that just means that his bed stays unmade some days or his desk gets covered in papers and books. Nothing really to complain about. No problem!
Leroy, his little crawdad buddy he caught that fateful night he finally recognized he was going to have to live on university grounds again, is currently having the time of his crawdad life living it up with Venbi and Evie in a little freshwater tank in their main room. It's not that he doesn't trust his roommate to not end up being a callous asshole, or anything... No, wait, that's exactly what he thinks.
His gods awful luck tells him it would be so.
He learned his lesson from living with Astah: keep his shit off the floors and in his area lest it get trashed all to hell or mysteriously "misplaced" and end up in the other bat's possession under mysterious circumstances.
Guess who found that one monster catching game cartridge in Astah's bio-hazard of a room? Yeah. Turns out the vampire bat "borrowed" it and then forgot all about it seeing as it was buried under a miscellaneous pile of detritus.
Seriously, he's surprised Astah didn't expire from a mold infection in the guy's scum room. The floor was a noxious mixture of beer cans, beer cans used as an ashtray (even though their room was non-smoking), old food containers full of the eponymous black mold cousins, that one pot he thought got lost but had, instead, decided to molder in Astah's room... You know, it's funny, he has no idea how the vampire bat got so much dick considering how disgusting the man's habits were. Guess it's true what they say, the greasy bad-boy gets all the tail.
Or maybe it's because Ithkael is an awkward loser who fumbles every single woman he comes across and can barely talk to guys. He's sure his ex was only taking pity on him... Or maybe it was the fact that he was desperate dweeb and would put out in some misguided attempt to keep the guy around. That was probably it.
Anyway! Back to the man of the hour, mainly, his roommate. Coinan seemed a little prissy and stuck-up but he's not going to hold it against the guy. People come in all shapes and sizes and his new roommate could be a whole hell of a lot worse. There are a few things he can't help, such as the annoying issue with his music volume apparently (he's not the one that decided some files should be a mouse quiet 2 decibels and others the annoying shouting advertisement level of 15 decibels! blame the people that don't know the first thing of equalizing their sounds to a standard!), the fact he snores (that one he honestly is really sorry for because his deviated septum makes his snoring loud but he remembers telling his roommate to just shove him awake when he snores that loudly if the guy needed to) or the fact that, apparently, his roommate was a blushing virgin with regards to nudity.
Seriously.
He's never met a guy that got so embarrassed and almost incensed at seeing a guy's naked package as his roommate. He doesn't get it! He's pretty sure the other bat has a sheath and balls! And even if it was a packer, those are still anatomically correct! What makes it so embarrassing when it's on a different person?
Some people and their weird hangups about nudity.
The other bat also doesn't seem that interested in getting to know him...? Maybe? Ithkael is absolutely terrible at reading people and the other bat just comes off as annoyed or angry at him all the time so best that he just keep to himself, right? Seems like the better option. Keep to himself and keep the conflict low. They're here to learn and get their degrees at the end of the day and that's a lot easier to do when they're not at one another's throats.
However, other than those random things that he doesn't feel are too bad in the grand scheme of things, he thinks he has everything well in hand for this upcoming semester... Or year. Depends on how things shake up if they decide to stay as roommates or petition for a room change.
Gods, he hopes that this semester doesn't devolve into needing a room change, that would royally suck. For one, that just means that he'll get stuck with another new roommate to get used to after finally getting used to the first one. For two? Well. It's mostly just the first thing, really, he just does not want to have to get used to a new roommate.
Why are people so stressful?
The few days before classes officially start pass by relatively normally as far as he's concerned. There's last minute textbook buys from the overpriced bookstore on campus, there's putting in orders for NOT having to buy those overpriced textbooks from better sellers over the web... There's the realization that this one class that's required for your ability to graduate only offers one version of a textbook because the damn professor's name is on it and they want a kickback from sales so you're forced to buy the "special new" edition because you just know that said professor is going to put a trick question on an exam meant to stump people that didn't get the brand new edition that only has 1 page changed in the material because that's the page the professor penned and you had better answer it right or else there goes half your exam grade-
If you're wondering, yes, he has been burned before back in a lower level class, why do you ask?
Which is bringing him to his current predicament.
Not the one where he was yelled at by his roommate for having his music too loud once again this morning which had him tucking his tail between his legs and leaving the room in a bit of a hurry because he can see when a meltdown is coming on. If you're wondering, that little "super power" is due to his parents... But that's besides the point! Nothing wrong with him at all, he promises! Nor is it the one where his best friend in all the world gave him one of her old laptops that had been wiped to borrow for this last year of college so that he wasn't stuck constantly on his tablet...
He had to pawn his old laptop (wiped, duh, nobody needs to see what kind of porn he looks at come on now) for food money about a month back so...
No, his current predicament is these damn clicker things.
He has multiple classes this semester that he needs these very specific 50 bit clicker things because they'll constitute part of his in class grade. Something about quizzes in the classroom where everyone can see who pressed what button... Gods, that's going to be a nightmare to deal with, glad he only has to use these things for his final year in college. The less he has to deal with the anxiety of knowing if he clicked the right answer and then the horrifying ordeal of just knowing, somehow, that somebody in the class knows he made the wrong choice might actually give him heart failure.
He's already 90% of the way there so why exacerbate the inevitable heart attack from anxiety, right? Right.
He can imagine his tombstone now, "Here lies not-so-beloved son, Ithkael, who suffered from heart failure because the professor decided to put his grade up on the projector for all of the class to see and mock him for."
Yes, he knows he's catrastrophizing but he can't help it! If there's one thing in life that he actually honestly cares about beyond his degree, its his stupid grades because he was constantly told growing up that anything below a 92 was failing.
And he sure did internalize that little unhealthy mindset, boy howdy! He remembers getting getting yelled at for having a B and grounded for getting a C in a subject... And then when he'd ask for help he'd get blown off and-
He has been staring stupidly at the clerk this whole time. He knows this because the guy behind the counter is waving a paw in front of his face.
"Yo... Dude, you still in there?" the bat inquires in a concerned fashion.
"Oh uh..." he says very intelligently because he's a super intelligent guy, "When uh... You... When did you say that the shipment for the uhm... The clicky things was going to uh-"
"Probably in a month," the bat interrupts him, sarcastic smile upon his muzzle, "I can put you down for one of those... It's not a pre-order but it functions the same."
"I uh... Y-Yeah, could you..." he says as he fumbles getting his wallet out because he's smooth and not awkward at ALL. He should really say no but he stared at the guy behind the counter for who knows how long like the loser he is and now he feels really really bad.
And so he gives his information to the guy behind the counter, the bat charges his debit card (even MORE money, gods, it just never ends) and Ithkael makes a really cool and not at all hasty retreat from the campus bookstore.
Because he's cool. Like a cucumber.
He fucking needs one of those clicker things right now because professors don't bloody care if you have your materials or not-!
He rings up Venbi and prays that she picks up as he stands like a lump near the fountain by the bookstore entrance. It's a nice calming fountain... Why doesn't he feel calm-!
"V-Venbi!" he shouts down the line like a madman, "I desperately need you to order some stupid clicky thing from the internet because I can't afford the damn thing anymore because they were all sold out and I spaced when the guy behind the counter asked and I felt bad so I prepaid for one when the shipment comes in and-"
"Whoa! Whoa, slow down, Ithkael," she tells him, voice soothing, "Take a deep breath for me, okay? In and out. Come on big guy, I know you can do this for me."
He tries. All it does is make him cough but he supposes that's good enough.
"Alright. Okay, so you need some... Clicker thing for classes?" she asks. He can hear the sound of typing in the background so he suspects he caught her when she was working... As if he didn't feel bad enough already-
Stop. Stop spiraling, Ithkael, come on now.
"Er... Yeah. It's this little rectangle thingy with buttons on it, can't for the life of me remember what the name was..."
It's silent for a few minutes save for the typing coming over the line before his phone dings with a photo text message that reads, "This?" and it's a phone picture of the product listing online for the exact clicky thing he needs.
"Y-Yeah, yeah, that's it," he confirms after glaring at the photo. He swears, when he's done with classes, he's going to throw those things into a volcano. Clickers must go into the fire...
Some more typing before, "Okay, I ordered it for you," she confirms and he can feel years of his life return to his body, "Should be here in the next few days."
"You're a gods damned life saver, Venbi, I swear."
"What are friends for, right? Now, are you coming over later or what?"
"Wouldn't miss it."
He hangs up and pockets his phone before sitting there and dissociating for a bit. Okay. One crisis averted... If that clicker thing is here by the end of the week he shouldn't miss out on any random in class quizzes his professors foist upon him.
Things aren't actually exploding in his face! Thank fuck-! He certainly is tempting fate by thinking that because things can certainly get a whole lot worse but he's being positive, okay? Manifesting those good vibrations and all that spiritual mumbo-jumbo.
....
Now he wants to listen to some disco music. Dammit.
Things are kind of exploding in his face.
Not his classes, no, although they did threaten to seeing as the clicker thing that Venbi ordered for him came in the day after the first day he was required to use it. Was it humiliating? Yes. However, and this one shocked him by quite a bit, the professor actually didn't count that day in the grade total because, turns out, only around half the class had been able to register their clicker things. You know, the first semester these things are actually being implemented by the whole campus.
So, score one for the people that got screwed over by the bookstore and online shopping! For once-!
Said bookstore had emailed him and said it would take around 3 more weeks for the stupid shipment to come in anyway so... At the end of the day, he's just going to have 2 clicky things. Not too bad, honestly. All he has to do is not lose the spare and he's golden.
He's still going to throw them into some boiling hot lava for the absolute audacity, though.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand!
Things are really starting to sour between himself and Coinan. By magnitudes.
At first he thought his roommate was going to be an okay enough guy. Bit prissy and the like but not... Not this!
It starts off small in the beginning few weeks.
First it's the smells. Not, like, old shoe smells or rotten food smells (thank the gods he doesn't have Astah 2.0), no... It's the powerful smell of a high school hallway. That special adolescent smell of way too much nasty smelling body spray trying to cover up the fact the bat spraying the stuff had gone nose blind (somehow) to that particular smell they're spraying. In other words, the whole room smells like a mix between way too much artificial spice and, oddly, the really sweet artificial strawberry bubblegum candyfloss smell.
He didn't even know they made that still. Bubblegum strawberry candyfloss whatever was Venbi's favourite girly girl perfume back in junior high. That was almost a decade ago by now, don't those things go out of fashion super fast...?
Then... Then it's the sense that somebody is touching. His. Stuff.
His stuff-! It's awful!
Oh, nothing is missing but he knows... Everything is always a few centimeters moved from where it originally was and it's... Gods! It's so infuriating! Stop touching his stuff! Is nothing sacred anymore? He doesn't touch Coinan's things! He remembers leaving a game up in AFK, you know, the boring level grinding thing where you just queue up a bunch of actions and let the computer take 5 william years to go through them all because exp gains in MMOs get ludicrous after a while...? Yeah. Something that he knew would take 30-45 minutes for all the commands to play out. He stepped out of the dorm room to take a leak (and maybe, you know, since it was so quiet and alone in the bathroom, take care of the clog in his pipes if you get his meaning), the whole thing only taking, at most, 7 minutes. If that.
Look, he's not going to prolong getting himself off in a semi-public space, okay, he has at least a tiny bit of decorum. Just a smidge.
Yet, he comes back and you know what he sees on his computer? That whole queue wiped. Gone. Kaput.
Oh, he wanted to murder the effeminate bat who was trying to stare holes into the back of his head behind him.
But he's the bigger man here, he's not going to let some bat with the maturity of a 5 year old pup get to him. He's got a few young siblings and cousins, he has that very specific brand of patience.
Doesn't mean it's easy or fun, alright? Because it really is not.
(He does queue up that string of commands again but this time he stays in the room)
And then, now that it's around the start of the first full month of classes in the semester, Coinan does something that really annoys the crap out of him. To others it might not seem so bad but to him? Yeah.
The other bat decides to take over his bed. His bed! His bed. That's his, he sleeps there and relaxes there and has nightly anxiety spirals staring up at the ceiling in... The point is, is that his bed is his sacred space to become nothing more than a useless lump of fur being crushed by the cruel and unusual punishment that their world has decided that was his to bear.
He takes a deep deep breath, slowly lets it out, and mentally counts to 20 inside his head as he tries, desperately, to not outright murder his roommate in a fit of pique. Yes it would be justified but he just knows that the justice system would waggle their finger at him and go, "Why didn't you just talk it out, Ithkael? Maybe communication would have solved the issue?"
Sure, it could, but that's only supposing that there was an open channel to begin with! All of Coinan's channels were nothing but radio static and tv snow! There was none! The receiver is dead to his transmitter! No signal, off the air, the radio tower was bombed... You know. Every single way that a signal could be brought down, that's what he's dealing with.
Okay! Okay. He can do this.
He walks calmly up to his bed, accidentally trips on Coinan's flip-flop, glares at said offending bit of footwear (just wear normal sandals, gods, those don't come with the risk of infection between the toes), and finally makes it to the side of his bed where one very annoying roommate was lounging and playing some random game on his tablet.
Coinan's tablet, not Ithkael's, if that was a question. Ithkael actually knows the meaning of a strong password, thanks... That, and he keeps the book where he writes down all his unique passwords (because, let's face it, who is going to remember their unique passwords to almost 50 different places) in a very special place that the other bat has yet to get his paws in to snoop.
He stares down at the other bat with a blank unnerving stare for a very awkward moment. He can tell it's getting to his roommate by the annoyed eye twitch. "So uh... What's this...?" he finally asks with a wave of his paw.
The bastard ignores him.
Ithkael's own eye twitches.
So he gets uncomfortably close to his roommate's folded long ears and whispers directly into them, "I said, what's all this, then?"
He watches in fascination as Coinan's long ears twitch and the fur on the back of his neck ruffs out a bit. Huh. That's a neat reaction. Maybe he should-
"Lounging, what does it look like?" his roommate finally replies to him, snide as ever, just moments before Ithkael was going to start nibbling on those long ears out of pure spite.
He honestly should just nibble on them to prove a point because what kind of answer is that? That's a cop-out answer if he ever heard one! Seriously, lounging? Lounging. Coinan is trying to convince him that he's just lounging on Ithkael's bed even though it's quite literally his bed and not the other bat's bed that is perfectly suited for so-called "lounging". You know, the bed that's specifically for Coinan to lounge on, the one the other bat had settled on when he moved into this dorm room so many weeks ago. You know, that bed? One that he never had a choice in picking because the person being a smug asshole right in front of his muzzle moved into the dorms a full 2 weeks before classes were even a thought to the rest of campus-
He's only made aware that he was glaring bloody murder at those stupid big ears of his roommate when said roommate waved a paw in front of his face to bring him back down to earth.
"I don't think that's what you're doing," he points out.
Coinan just gives him the most droll of expressions, as if it's Ithkael that's in the wrong here. Or just plain stupid, he wouldn't put it past his roommate to think he's a big fat idiot at this point.
"I don't know what else I could be doing considering I'm laying on a surface made for laying on but am not currently asleep," asshole supreme answers in the smuggest tone ever conceived by all the culture's in the world.
"Yeah, I can see that," he responds in kind, desperately trying not to do something really stupid and violent, "But you know that's not what I meant, dude."
Coinan gives him this annoying little smirk and oh.
Oh.
That's it.
Ithkael grabs his roommate's foot attached to that stupid long leg of his and forcefully pulls the other bat off his bed. Bat tumbles down to the floor, tablet bounces around on the bed, and Ithkael sneers down at his obnoxious as sin roommate.
"Boundaries, mother fucker, have you even heard of them-?!" he hisses out as he glares down at the bat on the floor, "Stay on your side of the fucking room and keep out of my shit! I'm done playing whatever stupid ass game you've got going on here!"
Coinan stares up at him a bit blankly, all emotion wiped from that stupid muzzle of his. Somehow that just makes Ithkael angrier.
"Do you even think I want to be here, in a fucking prison full of bats that haven't heard the meaning of showering or picking up their stupid fucking laundry up when it's done?" He continues, feeling the urge to start pacing, "No! No I don't want to be stuck in a building full of immature assholes that haven't grown up past the age of 9 and expect some mystical mommy figure to come around and do all their stupid fucking chores for them!"
Coinan picks himself up and dusts off his shirt, watching Ithkael pace around in tight circles in the middle of the room. Probably judging him but he doesn't care at this point, he's remembering why he hated the dorms with a burning passion and was so happy when he found somebody he could room with off campus. Was Astah a slob? Sure! But at least the dweeb would pick up after himself when Ithkael said something!
And didn't leave laundry in the fucking washer or dryer-!
"But no! No... The world isn't that easy now is it? No! My roommate flakes on me, I lose the lease to the apartment, I have to go to campus housing because I bloody qualify for a room voucher, and and and then-! Then! They place me in a room with a roommate who apparently has decided to be so selfish as to make life for me miserable as if upper division classes with professors who don't give a shit is easy-!"
He can feel himself shaking from the stress of it all and that's when he hears the door to the room click shut.
Oh.
Coinan left.
....
Oh hey! Score one for Ithkael!
He moves the other bat's tablet over to Coinan's desk (because he's not rude, okay, he's not going to keep some other bat's things out of spite... insert completely understandable but petty thought about his roommate here) before flopping face first down into his own bed in exhaustion.
Ugh... His covers smell like the prissy jackass... Gods, it's going to take so many washings to get that artificial bubblegum candyfloss smell out of them now...
Maybe he should strip his bed and go do that...?
No. No, that is a devil on his shoulder speaking nonsense to him right now, there's no way he's playing laundry roulette when he just knows that there's some other asshole that will happily leave multiple loads of laundry in the washer and dryer for hours on end because they're selfish assholes who don't respect the time and schedules of the rest of the dorm floor.
He's just going to have to deal with the smell covering his covers and pillows...
It's not that bad of a smell, honestly, he just thinks Coinan is a dick.
...
He hopes the other bat is okay...
He really hopes he didn't hurt the guy. He's simply miffed and exhausted, okay, he doesn't actually want to cause harm to his roommate...
Oh great, here comes the anxiety corkscrew concerning him acting out of anger because the other bat pushed his buttons so well these past couple of weeks and now-!
He rolls over onto his back and smacks his cheeks to break himself out of going down the anxiety black hole. Now is not the time and place-! He smacks his cheeks again when the thought just comes back with vengeance before pinching his cheeks as the thought rolls and tumbles through his mind, sticking to the walls like mucus from a sinus infection. Viscous and stubborn-!
Stop that, Ithkael, things are going to be fine!
...
Right?
"Things are going to be fine," he says aloud to the empty room, putting as much conviction into his voice as he's able, "You're catastrophizing and making things worse than they are. So stop being such a dweeb and drop it. Drop it!"
It'll be fine! Just fine.