She beamed, felt the negative bar of their budding friendship flip sides and grow positive. Rue turned to continue her tour of the place, unbothered by his gaze and peered down the corridors to a row of doors. She counted eight cells.
She had seven Alphas to deal with. What a cluster fuck.
"To be honest," she scratched the side of her nose, "it seems that the school made a mistake. I don't think I'm supposed to be here, so you'll probably get rid of me in a week."
"You're definitely the first guide in the building," Kieran muttered, scratching his temple with a scoff and a roll of his eyes, not bothering to tell her which was her room. But he didn't have to because she caught sight of the flicker of a hologram that displayed the number—#08 "Can I even call you a guide?" he spat out the words as if that were an insult.
"I don't know," she answered cheerfully, pulling her bag higher as she moved towards her room. She noticed now that each door was an archway, flanked by the illusion of the outdoors. And currently, the display was depicting the quiet emptiness of a flat endless salt, treacherously plain and hideously boring. "I don't even know what that means."
"You don't—" his brows furrowed; his lips pulled gasp turning hilariously comical, the dance of his light revealed his shock. She pressed her palm to the door, and words danced with the acknowledgement of her name. Bingo. "What do you mean you don't know?"
"I love it when you dig into my wounds and draw out my suffering," she pulled open the door, and winced at more dreadful white furniture. "That's right, I'm here for school? To learn? I'm just a doctor, Ki. Haven't decided on my specialisation."
She shortened his name and didn't give a fuck when his eyes grew wider and cuter. He was pretty damn adorable with those curls now that he wasn't naked and fucking. And God, she decided now she preferred him submissive and obedient, laughing with that beautiful smile. Her mouth sagged with a grimace; she could not fuck her roommate.
"If anyone passes out in this room over a Rut," she decided to tell him. "I can potentially save your naked ass."
"With what?" he let out a laugh and it spilt, dangerously pretty as it made her heart twist and her chest burn. But it held an underlying taunt, and she could hear him calling her stupid with just the way his tongue rolled over the words. "You don't even know what you're meant for."
She chose to ignore him in his hot and cold state, checking out her room. It had four walls, was so small it could be a closet. The space so unlike the common room that it was painful to be within the space. Rue groaned, stretched her arms and already her fingers grazed both ends. She dropped her arms before Kieran could continue his taunt, felt the need to do a split just to see if her feet could touch both the door and the fourth and final wall.
There was no bathroom—which was a disappointment—but there was a single bed propped against the wall, and a window with thin rails that revealed the grey, dreary walls of another building in the vicinity. She now understood why they only stayed in the dormitory to sleep and the reasons for its pricing.
"So you don't know?" he asked, seeming amused now that he'd accepted her idiocy. "You really, really don't know? You're just that sheltered?"
"I do know, was just fucking around with your ass—No I don't know," she gave him the side eye, "happy now?"
"Like seriously?" he continued pushing, smile brightening his eyes until stars were glittering from within. He genuinely enjoyed her demise, and the buffoon was glowing with happiness. He began to laugh. "You don't even know the basics of you know…Existing? How fucking weak is your family?"
"Well fuck you too," she raised a brow, but she wasn't that serious, didn't give a damn about what others thought of her. A bully couldn't hurt her if she didn't care. "Why does it matter anyway?"
She turned and glanced at the ring of blue clamped to the ceiling that served as her only light source. Rue was sure she wouldn't be getting any sun from her window based on the way light scattered onto the opposite building in strips of orange.
The floor was white stone, polished gravel with a touch of warmth brought from the grey of a single square mat at the centre. The mattress? At the maximum level of firmness, zipped up in rubber instead of clean sheets because Alphas couldn't be trusted with fabric.
Kieran was dying, hiding snorts behind his palm, breathing heavily when he stopped himself to lean against the wall. "Why does it matter?" he parroted her words in a voice that lilted and crooned. Then his cheery little voice dipped into an annoying song. "You're so fucked. You're so fucking fucked."
"I'll actually take your words into consideration," she rolled her eyes, shot him a smirk. "I'm glad you're concerned for my well-being. Looks like we're going to be best friends." His lips twitched at her words, and she felt his scowl return as if she had just reminded him of his purpose in life.
"I'm just pointing out facts."
"Yeah, thanks a lot baby," she purred, voice coiled like a viper, her eyes twisted swiftly to him, noted the stare that only grew wider as she spoke. The control that her Omega had on an Alpha was power in situations like this. "So sweet to your new roommate." She smirked when his breath caught, when tension sizzled, and then turned to continue her assessment of her new home.
Her pillow was more like a brick, shaped in a solid square and no doubt as hard as wood. She grimaced, perhaps soldiers were always supposed to stay on the edge. Rue felt along the walls for a closet and her fingerprint was registered on the space right behind the door. Her wardrobe sprung free, catching on the door. It stank of wet wood and the beginnings of mould growth.
"Like it?" Kieran hummed, trying to break out of his stupor. He was still there, leaning against the doorframe, enjoying her disgust and just poking his nose into her business. "Used to be a storeroom. We'd dump our things here but had to clean it out just for you." Its purpose explained the size.
"I hate it," she answered, fingered the rubber bed, and gave him the joy he experienced with her suffering. "But it does have its potential, could make it cosy, I guess."
Rue turned off the invisible force field at the windows, hoping for a breeze in the stuffy interior, but nothing came. She was already feeling the lack of air circulation in the relatively humid closed-off space.
"You know," Kieran hummed as she dropped her bag on the floor, "as a guide, you fuck Alphas that are unable to express the remains of their energy. Overpowered espers go into a rampage, a guide will drink it all up. Calms them down."
"Gorgeous lies," she rolled her eyes. Her opinion of him quickly falling down the drain. Rue believed that she didn't have to beat him off with a stick with his blatant display of straight heterosexual copulation. It seemed that he was also interested in her ass, like all the bisexual aliens were in her life.
"Why do you think there's more than one Alpha in a pack? They fuck," he answered with a low laugh, eyes that only grew darker. The smile on his lips spread, a tongue to the corner of his lip. "Omegas are fun, but they don't have that efficiency, nor do they have the strength. At most, they're just D-class guides. Weaklings."
"Please," she rolled her eyes at the personal jab, it stung but his information was completely foreign. She took it as utter bullshit. "I've met Alphas with five Omegas. Alphas need Omegas. It's in my textbooks."
"The strong ones don't need Omegas, they're beyond those biological animalistic needs," he scoffed, a rude tongue pressed to the corner of his cheek. "The Alphas you've met didn't require a second Alpha because they were too weak. It's only a problem when the esper is too strong when there's too much power in his body that he can't expel. When that happens, Ruts are no longer just about copulation and Omegas become an unnecessary whiny nuisance."
"And you must be an esper," she called back but he didn't answer, continuing on with his lecture as if she gave a damn about his stories.
"Balance of the second gender is no longer required when those weaker than us can't take the energy we must release." His explanation was oddly cool, but she did not believe him. He was probably pulling on her leg, fucking around just because he could. "Omegas and Betas will die guiding an overpowered esper, only Alphas survive the exchange." Then his lips pulled, made a low sound in his throat. "I guess some Alphas die too."
"Interesting way of telling me that you're fucking," she shot him a glare. "And killing everyone." His expression grew pinched at her words, a smile falling as he affixed a cruel smile. He hissed out his reply, curls fluttering with the unseen wind.
"Scared?"
"You wish," she answered, "keep talking, boy."
"You're a guide, sunshine," he murmured, then pulled himself off the doorframe. "But I'd never take you to bed." He sniffed, a hand through his hair, the sun glittering across his flesh. Her lips twitched at his words slightly offended by the way he'd said it as if she were trash.
"Gonna tell me that I'm weak? Fucking F-class? Lower than an Omega?" Her grin stretched. "My scent sucks?"
"Why would you ask?" his eyes snapped to hers, and there was a strange curiosity in them.
"No! Fuck no. You and I would never work out. You're a creepy bastard, no fucking way," she grimaced, forcing a shiver. "I don't swing that way."
"Don't know how that's going to work with your degree…"
"I don't swing your way," she snapped.
"To answer your question, you do stink like wet semen," he shook his head, sounding strange for a beat. And Rue blinked, eyes growing wide at how accurate his scent of smell was. "Don't know why wanted you here with us." He slipped out of the room, growing weird again. "Come on, I'll show you the bathroom. But that's the only thing I'm showing you because I don't want you banging on my door at night." The snap returned and the hissy barking dog was back.
"I'm not a dumbass I won't do that," she rolled her eyes. But he led her towards door number 3, sliding a hand against the wall at the edge of his room. The illusion peeled free revealing a metal knob that was far too close to the scanner that led to his room. "Fuck." He was right, amid sleep-addled thinking and the dim of the night she might dig her hands on his door and try to open it instead.
"Yeah, I don't want to see you at night," he sneered. "If I do, you're dead."
"I won't, goddamn you."
He pushed it open, and she stepped into the space her eyes widening a fraction.