The Coming of the End

The coming of the end.

There were a lot of reasons why going out tonight would be a bad idea but Alex had never been lucky when it came to the rota shifts and, after being vomitted on by two different girls last night, he was set to work the Halloween Foam party, too. Which didn't, on the face of it, sound too bad but the event was the last one on the Fresher's timetable and he knew all the students were hoping for a big blowout which meant too much alcohol, exposed flesh and a very high probability that at least one item of clothing would not be coming home with him.

"I hate being a Fresher's rep," he announced, "this is not worth six pounds an hour."

Natasha laughed, "You love it, really, I know you like looking after the Freshers and, besides, free entry into all the venues is a pretty good deal on top of the pay."

"Freshers are stupid."

"And you and I were in their shoes just last year," she said, stepping back as she finished with his makeup, "okay, one perfect looking vampire ready for a big night out. We should take a few pictures before you sweat it off."

He bore through it because, if he'd learnt only one thing living with her last year, it was that Natasha loved documenting everything for people to see. They'd lived in the same block last year and met when she came over to use their oven and, since their flats were arranged so close, they'd gotten pretty cosy even though she was an engineer and he was a med student. It'd made sense to share a flat in second year and it was nice to have someone else who was working as a rep and suffering through the same thing.

"What are the odds that someone throws up on me again?" he asked.

"Pretty high," she admitted, "you're a guy, you seem to attract the vomit a lot more than I do."

"Yeah, I noticed that, too," he wrinkled his nose, "at least this is the last time, I don't think I could hande it another time."

"Agreed."

The venue was on campus which was convenient because their house was only a five minute walk away and, by now, all the students knew how to get there so they didn't have to walk them down or look after any lost kids. Because, for all that Alex bitched and whined about it, he had to have a caring side as a Med student and he'd found that he liked knowing that he'd got someone home safely more than he liked getting wasted. He'd walked a few of them back to halls, some of them more than once, and he wasn't even surprised when Jackson found him at two in the morning.

"Where have you been all night?" he asked, "I was looking for you earlier."

"I didn't go on the dancefloor, we just stayed by the bar and sat outside on the benches," Alex shrugged, "I guess I just wasn't feeling it tonight and, besides, it was far too hot to be dressed as a vampire in there."

"Poor choice, you should've been a zombie like me."

Jackson had never been the kind of self-conscious that some of the other students were, proudly declaring to Alex on the first night that he had a six pack and then lifting up his shirt to show him--and Alex had been impressed since it was true, he'd even counted and touched them at Jackson's insistence--so the ripped shirt and jeans combination worked well on him. Or, rather, he made it work with just the right amount of careless confidence.

"I don't think I could make the zombie costume work for me. Anyway, I'm assigned to Connaught and we had the theme of creatures of the night which, while not original, at least makes it easy for me to spot who I'm supposed to be looking after."

"Or you could ditch them all and come home with me."

He laughed, "No, you're not drunk enough for me to take you back, I've seen you in a worst state before."

"But we're doing afterdrinks at one of the flats and I think you ought to come over and make sure no one dies of alcohol poisoning, I mean, that's your job, isn't it?"

"No, my job is to take care of my halls and, last time I checked, you were actually a part of Monte."

"But Alex," he whined, tugging at his sleeve, "none of the Monte reps are as cool as you. You should come over and drink with us, the guys in our halls really like you and they thought it was so cool when you won that danceoff."

"I got roped into breakdance society for three months in my first year, I was pretty good at it until it began to clash with my study groups." He pulled a face and then, since he knew he was going to give in anyway, said. "Alright, I'll go to Monte with you guys but, if I get called back, I have to leave."

Jackson beamed at him, "Great, come on, the guys are waiting!"

Alex sighed in a put upon manner but he got up and followed Jackson out of the club where, like he promised, his friends were waiting. They were all supposed to be zombies, because their theme had been the coming of the end and he could kind of see it in their costumes, if not their face paint anymore. He recognised a few of them but, since they weren't his freshers, he couldn't say he knew them all that well--they knew him, though, and they cheered his name when he appeared--so, for the most part, he hung at the back, making sure they all stayed together on the twenty minute walk. Jackson joined him there, hands in his pockets and looking like he was regretting his thin shirt.

"Here," Alex said, taking off his coat and draping it over his shoulders, "you should wear this, it wouldn't do for you to get a cold now."

"Aww, so you do care."

"I'm a medic, I care about everyone, regardless of the stupid halls rivalry."

He hummed, looking decisively cheery as he tugged the coat around himself, "This is really warm, I want to keep it forever."

"You can have it, if you want, as long as you make sure to give me my phone, I think it's in the inside pocket and I do actually need that."

"I'll remember," he promised, "and I think I can feel your keys in here, too."

"Those are useful," he agreed, "but Natasha can let me in even if I don't have them since she won't be asleep until it's around four in the morning because she wants to catch up on some TV and, out of halls, your rooms can't be locked."

Jackson looked intrigued, "Really? So that must be good for pranks if you can just walk in and out."

"Yeah, you think that, and then you remember that you have to live with these people for the rest of the year in your house with the unlockable doors. Trust me, it's not a good idea to try prank your housemates."

"And that sounds like the voice of experience."

He grinned, "When I lived in Connaught, we had a flat of fifteen, pranking was definitely a thing."

"I'm in a flat of twenty-one."

"I'll text you a few things to try out, depending on how easygoing your flatmates are, and we can take it from there. One of the best things about our halls is the sheer number of people, I know the flats of four never had as much fun as we did."

"You'll have fun tonight, I promise, the guys get really intense about drinking games."

And, truth be told, that didn't sound too bad. Because, after bodily throwing himself into the first few months of Freshers, he'd learnt that he much preferred predrinking and playing cards to actually going out to the clubs. He didn't hate it and he could see the benefits of not having security knocking on their door for noise complaints but, yeah, a night in a kitchen was enough for him.

"What are we playing?" he asked, picking up a pack of cards from the windowsill and absentmindedly shuffling them, "I'm fairly sure I'm familiar with anything you throw at me."

"Cheat," Jackson suggested, "but the version that involves alcohol."

"Alright, who's playing?"

After fussing around with drinks and moving the tables so that they could all sit around and reach the middle, Alex dealt out seven piles of cards while someone else made sure everyone had a glass in front of them. Alex was pretty pleased to lose all his cards first but that might've been because he'd been sober when the game started while everyone else was, at best, tipsy.

"How did you do that?" Jackson asked, leaning over and almost falling into Alex's lap. "Like, that was really fast!"

"I'm a rep, we're not supposed to drink on nights out, so I had the advantage of actually having my wits about me." He grinned, ruffling his hair, "Your tells are accentuated when you're drunk and you kept on scrunching up your nose when you didn't have the right cards. It was kind of too easy for me to know when you were cheating."

"Damn," he said, grimacing and placing his cards down, "maybe I'm a bit too drunk to play."

"I'll get you back to your room," he said, helping him up onto his feet, "you said you lived in B block, right?"

"Yep, my keys are in my back pocket and the code is probably 3476. Security likes to change it every so often but they tend to give us advance notice."

Alex wasn't keen on Jackson's less than confident answer but he managed to get them inside and up one flight of stairs so he really had no room to complain. And he'd dealt with worse drunks before so he was pleased that, after only a small amount of wheedling, Jackson downed two glasses of water and was persuaded to stand unaided for long enough to brush his teeth.

"You know," he said, looking down at Alex as he untied the laces of his boots, "you and I should go out some time, not to a club or anything but on a date."

"Really? And why would I want to do that?"

"Because you like me and I like you."

Ah, and that was where Jackson's confidence had been hiding. It wasn't a lie, though, because Alex had been drawn to Jackson even though he'd been adamant that he didn't want to be the guy who was hitting on a fresher but there was a certain charisma and energy he exuded that Alex was unable to turn away from. It was pretty attractive, really, and maybe that was why he kept on coming over to Monte halls when he should've been looking after his own students.

"I never said that I liked you."

"You never had to."

And didn't that just ring of the truth?

"We can talk when you're sober." Alex decided, pushing himself up to his feet and rifling in his coat for his keys. "And then maybe we'll revist this."

Alex wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, insecure but he was still hesitant about Jackson because he was one of the few people who could honestly have anyone they wanted and it was odd for him to choose Alex. So he made him wait, a full three months just to convince himself, and by then even Natasha was telling him to put the poor boy out of his misery.

"Hey," he said, taking a seat opposite him in the library, "are your exams over?"

"Yeah, but that just means that we're being getting essays and assignments again," Jeremy said, wrinkling his nose, "it's kind of the worst thing ever."

"So, coffee?"

"Yes! Coffee is necessary."

"Great," he got up, having not bothered to get himself comfortable because he'd known already the direction he wanted this conversation to take, "come on, you're paying."

"Why am I paying? You're the second year here."

"Yeah, but you're the one taking me out on a date."

The look on his face, apprehensive and nervous but, most of all, hopeful was enough for Alex to think he'd made the right decision. And the fact that Jackson, normally so cool and unflappable, nearly tripped over himself with his haste--well, that was just a bonus.

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