Second (History Plays, Book 1)

3: but yet it is no pain to speak men fair

Gaveston

"Hi, sorry," a small boy opens the door to Dover house, as Izzy waits with me, holding my bags. We couldn't get my keycard to work, almost definitely because we were both doing it wrong.
"It's okay, I blame your father, where is he?" Izzy asks.
"I don't know; he left, nice to meet you, I'm Edward Windsor, call me Teddy," the boy says, a bit unsure. He has soft dark brown hair and innocent copper eyes. He has a round, freckled face and button nose. He's definitely a bit smaller than me, and he's wearing a baggy t-shirt and loose sweats.
"Piers, Gaveston," I say, smiling at him. He smiles back. "I'm your new roommate."
"Yeah, thanks Izzy," Teddy says.
"See you at dinner," she says, smiling at him.
"This is um—Dover house—that's the first floor commons, each floor has a common room and the house master's room is connected to it, Coach Marlowe is on our floor," he says, leading me to a set of stone stairs, "Usually the house masters watch TV in there or help us study in the evenings, well, Coach Marlowe does hockey practice most evenings so he's not in, which means we can be a bit louder."
"Cool," I say.
"On the weekends and holidays—if you're a holiday stayer—I am—they do like activities like games or movie marathons and stuff, the school does something big one weekend a month or so, like a public skate or a party or whatever," Teddy explains, showing me all the way up to the third floor, "Don't ask me to explain the numbering, I don't know—but we're 524, um, usually the lower classmen are lower floors but Edward's my friend so he and I get to room together."
"That's nice um—I promise to be quiet," I say, as I lug my stuff up the last flight of stairs. I'm a bit panting after all this, but Teddy doesn't seem to notice.
"See, that's our common room—like I said, Coach Marlowe is our house master, he's cool— he's always smoking though so the windows are open, don't rat on him, we do like him, but we don't tell him that, he's nice though, like he might care about us," Teddy says, leading to the other end of the hall, "That's the laundry, Coach drew up a schedule because we were being ridiculous, so our room gets Sunday afternoons. Hope that's okay."
"It's—whatever," I say. I don't have laundry detergent, but I guess I'll figure that out. I didn't think about laundry.
"There's a shoppette on the first floor, you can get laundry packets and medicine and stuff it's like a vending machine—I'll show you when we go to dinner, but for anything major you can go to— there's a main shop in the main hall with like school pride stuff and basic toiletries, most of us order stuff or wait. Once a month or so they run a bus into town."
"Cool," I may need new clothes.
"This is us—Ed?" He knocks on a slightly open door.
I step in. Our corner room is empty. Two beds are against one wall, then a third under a sloping ceiling. The beds are all on platforms underneath which they have drawers for storage. The walls are grey and the ceiling is dark blue. Teddy appears to be set up on the farthest bed. And then the bed nearest the door has a black backpack on it, and a set of headphones, and a couple of hockey sticks and tape lie there like he was taping them up and got distracted. Edward. He's got an extra comforter and two more pillows with neutral patterns.
My bed has one pillow and a thin blue comforter. Nothing else. Teddy's bed is heaped with cuddly blankets as well. I didn't know to bring any. I guess I can ask my mom to send me something.
On the walls the boys have movie posters, stylized though, all neatly hung up. They've kept them off of my side of the room, which is bare. Teddy has a couple of fencing pictures as well, and I notice several hand drawn sketches, though I don't know who did them. The floor is light hardwood, but Teddy has a rug by the base of his bed as does Edward. They also have a big high pile rug in the middle of the, room, jammed in a bit, with bean bags and pillows and things piled around it messily. There's a door to a tiny bathroom door on the far wall beneath the pitched roof.
"We hang our stuff in these boxes, there's one for you—um, I usually shower while Edward's at hockey but I know you fence like me—"
"I'll be fine. I'm probably gonna go to hockey," I'll go to hockey. I'll fucking stare at him. Freak him the fuck out. Ruin my fucking life? And break my heart? Well, I'm going mildly upset him before he can ruin it again. "I think I'll watch."
"Oh. Cool," Teddy says, sitting down on his bed, "Just—whatever, I usually listen to music on my headphones, though on Saturdays or Sunday afternoons we'll sometimes play stuff on speakers while we study—the hall is pretty friendly too like we all hang out sometimes, it's mostly Admirals here so, you know. We're chill."
"Nice," I say, as I drop my bags by my bed. I've got a lot to sort out. Classes start tomorrow. I was nostalgic and wanted to be at home as long as possible, but now I wish I'd moved in on Friday. The boys are mostly set up, Edward has a lamp over his bed and Teddy has lights strung on the wall with his pictures, they also have a couple of hampers for dirty clothes, and a book shelf half set up.
"I"m sure Edward will be back soon—we'll show you to dinner," he says, quickly.
"Izzy informed me I wasn't properly dressed for dinner," I say, smiling a little. I like this quiet boy. He's kind, I think. And he seems a bit sad. Though he has stuff on his side of the room it's all generic, not as high quality as Edward's, which smacks of his parent's money.
"Izzy means well, don't let her scare you," Teddy says, "She's my mum."
"She said," I say, wondering where that joke originated. I tug off my shirt, tossing the two from Mortimer on the bed. One is pink, the other soft grey. Both are name brand, I guess, by the odd little emblem, though I don't know what brand. I guess it's better than what I had?
The door creaks. We both turn to look.
Edward is standing in the doorway, magnificent as ever. His gold brown curls fall onto his flushed forehead, brilliant soft blue eyes training immediately on me. He has a sharp jaw, and the start of strong cheekbones, and an unforgiving stare. Always taller than me, puberty has done him no ills, he's easily over six feet, even in his soft running shoes. His hand trembles on the door. And he looks me up and down one more time, before turning on his heel and walking away.
"I'm sure he just forgot something," Teddy says, as we watch him depart.
"He looked at me and then walked away," I laugh, picking up the grey shirt to put on.
"I mean—"
"We played hockey together for a summer," for a glorious, sweet summer. "I'm not his favorite person."
"Why?" He asks, frowning.
"Ask him," I'd like to hear what he says. No, I wouldn't. I know what he'll say.
"Edward doesn't hate anyone—he's nice to literally everyone," he frowns.
"I'm not his style," I say, dryly, "It's fine. He doesn't have to like me. I'll be quiet, the two of you won't even know I'm here."

Edward

"I can't do it," I burst into Coach Marlowe's office, panting, though not because I'm out of breath, but instead because I temporarily briefly forgot how to actually ah, breath. But the good news is, not only do I now know that Piers Gaveston still has a mole on his left shoulder, but the bad news is, I also know that this knowledge renders me incapable of breathing.
"Did you try?" Coach Marlowe asks, not even looking up from the papers he's sorting.
"Yes, and I can't do it—I did I really tried —you don't know what he did," I say, leaning against the wall.
"What did he do?"
He turned and he looked at me. Cool, milky pale shoulders silhouetted in the afternoon sun, a black mole just on his back shoulder blade where the flesh curves over the bone. Soft grey and yellow hair brushing his forehead, the gentle curve of his jaw as the sun threw shadows of it onto his chest, smooth and just getting lumpy with lean muscles. Another pair of moles on his left ribs. And his eyes, watchful, sure, hooded, mystic green eyes. Almost fixed in a frown and not too wide set. I want to preserve that memory for an age. And take him in my arms and kiss his smooth neck then press my face into the part where his shoulder blade cuts into the fine curve of his back. His hip bones, jutting out just above the hem of his jeans, jaunty and sure, one with a fine scar over it that traces nearly to his navel. The slight curve of his shoulders as he stands, the thick bone of his back jutting out at the nape of his neck. His lips, small and a bit plump, almost ready to pout, without a fleck of hair about or above them.
"Earth to Caernarfon. What happened?" Coach Marlowe snaps his fingers before withdrawing his cigarette from his lips.
"Um—I just can't. I didn't know—do you know what I'm talking about right now?" I ask, putting my hands through my hair.
"No," he shakes his head, looking up from his papers.
"My roommate—new, roommate—you need to move him I can't—he hates me. We used to play hockey together and he doesn't like me," I say.
"He doesn't hate you. And I did enough shuffling of rooms for you and Windsor, no, I'm not doing it again," he says, "What have we said about causing me paperwork?"
"But—"
"But we're lucky that I got Windsor in Dover House, no questions asked, I'm not asking favors from Dean Alleyn to shuffle you again," he says.
I bite my lip. It's true. Last Christmas, Teddy's parents threw him out. Isabella and he were on the same fencing team for the Olympics or whatever. She knew he was good so she asked Coach Marlowe if her parents could help pay the rest if he could come on Scholarship, if only to have somewhere to live. Coach Marlowe agreed, of course, and for his safety we all agreed it was best he room with me. I mean, he's more used to it now, a roommate who isn't me is less of an issue, but even so. I'm well aware we were lucky to get Teddy in and for Coach Marlowe to breeze on past all those official documents that we lacked/forged and just to sign him in under the name and addresses we gave.
"But—" I twist my hands, "Can't you find anywhere else for him? I can't—"
"Look, work it out, talk to the kid. If you two actually can't get along we'll do something, but it's the first day. Neither one of you are unreasonable," he says.
"Okay," I say, defeated. What am I going to do? Sleep in the locker room. No, I can't abandon Teddy like that. "Fine. I just won't talk to him. Fine."
"Okay, so, that's the opposite of what I just said—-"
"Nope, I'm pretty sure I physically can't do it. It's fine. I just won't talk to him."
This is not like fine.
Breathe Edward. Remember to breath. Just breath. That's fine. Breath in and out. If you remember to keep breathing you won't start hyperventilating so that's like a step is it not? Worse things could have happened. I can't think of one, but I'm sure they exist. Just breathe. Something dramatic could happen to end this torment, like the entire school could burn down or one of my close relatives could die so I could have to go home for the semester. You know. Lots of little things to look forward to. Just keep breathing.