Chapter Text
Mark Scout sits down on an old velvet chair outside an office. The walls are high and dark wood everything at GANZ university seems foreboding and ominous. Before he can think to run, a silver haired woman is standing in front of him, caging him into the chair. For a moment she’s intense, but it’s almost worse when she smiles, “Welcome, Mr. Scout.”
“Hello.”
“I’m Ms. Cobel, I’m the head of Student Services and Faculty Oversight, the principal for all intents and purposes.”
“Nice to meet you.” He murmurs.
“Welcolme to the Wintertide Fellowship program at GANZ university!”
“Thank you.”
Cobel seems incensed by his disposition. “If you follow me, we can go through the rest of the rules in my office.” She gestures, he follows nervously, her office is decidedly plain.
“What are the rules?” He sighs, something about Cobel’s office makes him uneasy.
She chuckles at his bluntness. “I suppose there might be too many rules for me to state in some long monologue, so I will just glaze over the broader strokes.”
“Alright.” He’s only been here a half hour and he’s already sick of her.
“You are expected to attend all your classes as well as your meeting with your faculty advisor, laziness will not be tolerated.”
“Yes, sure.”
“You are 18 correct?”
“Yeah.”
“Even then, drugs and alcohol will not be tolerated on the grounds. Any student found in possession of such substances will be subject to intense academic sanctions.”
“Fine.”
Cobel exhales. “Finally, though there is no set dress code at the Wintertide fellowship program, we do require a certain level of effort to be put into apparel.” He picked out his Jaws tee-shirt and his best blue jeans out very intentionally this morning, thank you very much, but he just nods to Ms. Cobel. “I’ll let you decompress in your room for a beat before we officially start the welcome processes.”
“Thank you Ma’am.”
“Ma’am! I think you’ll fit in here.”
He finds his dorm room easy enough, it’s smaller and less fancy than the rest of the school but still bigger than his tiny room at home. He enters the room with Mark Scout and Peter Kilmer emblazoned on a wooden plaque on the table. He’d assumed he would have a roommate but when he looks over to the side of the room designated to Peter Kilmer he finds nothing but the white sheets and blue bedsheets standard to the Wintertide fellowship program. He tries to lay down after he gets settled but his boy won’t let him rest until he finds everything that GANZ hides. Mark would think that he’s in a museum, but this place is better than any museum he’s ever been to. Every square foot of wall is covered in some type of art, usually displaying an old bearded white man or possibly a god, Mark isn’t sure which. Mark sees a big imposing door and his body compels him to open it. The room almost takes his breath away, covering the wall are many extravagant and beautiful paintings in ornate frames. But it’s what stands in the middle that truly makes him believe in the concept of beauty.
She’s there, in the painting hall, spinning around, to classical music. In the corner he can see where she’s kicked her ballet flats off and abandoned her navy blue cardigan.
On a twirl she catches a glimpse of him and shouts out, almost losing her balance.“Oh!”
He flinches too, “I’m sorry!”
“Who are you?”
“Mark.”
“What are you doing here?”
“Exploring, I guess. I just got here.”
“Come here.”
“Why would I do that?”
“So I can talk to you without having to yell.” He slinks towards her, still standing in the middle of the room, as the music swells. He stops in front of her, too close, she’s prettier in front of him and she smells of expensive floral perfume. “Hi.”
“So it’s Mark?”
“Yes. Who are you?”
“Unimportant.”
“Alright.”
“You’re new here, aren’t you?”
“First day.”
“You got the welcome to GANZ talk?”
“Yeah, you’ve got another one for me?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“Waltz with me. I’ll lead.”
“You’ll lead? I’m the man.”
“Do you know how to waltz?”
“Well no…”
“Then I’ll lead.”
“Fine.” She grabs one of his hands and throws it onto her shoulder nonchalantly, but her breath still hitches when he squeezes her shoulder lightly. Her hand grabs his other one and holds it up in position. He wants to think about how soft her hands are and how she smells like roses, but her right hand finds his side and he jerks away from her, trying not to laugh.
She does and it might be the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. “You’re ticklish?”
“A bit. You’re stepping on my foot.”
“Why is your foot there?”
“I don’t know, I thought you were the one who knew how to do this!” It’s awkward how they try to dance if they have to take breaks to laugh together. He tries to dip and spin her, it doesn’t really work but it’s worth it to see her blush.
Eventually their feet slow and stop in the middle of the ballroom; their hands stay firmly planted on each other, neither of them moving. “Does everyone at GANZ get a dance from a pretty girl?” She blushes, that was smooth, he knows it, he’s proud of himself.
“No, just you.”
Mark sucks in a breath, “ What’s your name? Do you have one?”
She hesitates for a second like she’s deciding if she does. Eventually she comes back to him with an answer. “Helly.”
“Helly.” He tries the name through his lips. Helena seems laser focused on him. “Helly, can I kiss you, Helly?”
She nods so fast that she transforms into a cloud of red hair and eagerness. Eventually she stops to meet his gaze and smiles, “yeah Mark, you can kiss me.”
He’s done this before, his ex-girlfriend named Gemma and another girl named Alexa at the graduation party, but this time feels different, too close to perfect, the girl in his arms too close to an angel, he’s suddenly scared shitless. He tries and epically fails to keep her hand from shaking as he cups her cheek and leans into her. He’ll always remember how his lips hesitated in front of hers before they made contact and how out of the corner of his eye he saw another figure, bursting their little bubbles of waltzes and tickles.
“Mr. Scout ?” She’s wiggled out of his arms in an instant and is gone from the room in another, carrying her shoes and sweater. If there wasn’t another person in the room, Mark would swear that she was a figment of his imagination.
“Mr. Scout?”
He turns to the voice, he’s taller than him but his age, yet the other boy still addresses him formally. “Yeah? Don’t tell—“
“What you do in your free time doesn’t concern me. I’m Mr. Milchick. Ms. Cobel has requested your presence in the great hall. In business attire, if you please.
“Sure.”
“Thank you.” Milchick turns on her heels and leaves.
He has to run back to his room and dig through his suit case for the nicest clothes he packed and rush to the great hall. And it deserves to be called that, the ornate gold framing showcases murals of Keir and his descendants, Mark suddenly feels unworthy to even be in the room.
Cobel enters the room with Milchick following close behind her, camera in hand making their way to him, caging Mark against the wall like a wild animal. Just as they are about to pounce, the door opens again and both of the figures turn to her. It’s Helly though her new heels and dress make her look older. She strides over to Cobel, kissing her on the cheek twice, smiling.
“Mark Scout, may I introduce you to Helena Eagan?”
He’s about to open his mouth but Helena flashes him a glare from behind the other woman’s back, so he just looks at her and smiles, “Miss Eagan?” Eagan, Eagan, Eagan. She’s an Eagan. She didn’t tell him, he didn’t want to know. She owns this school, she's the reason he’s even here. He’s just her charity case. Cobel positions them like her dolls for her publicity photos, parading the poor kid around to prove that Lumon cares.
In one, she’s holding out a folder, literally giving him a hand out, he manages a small smile, hers is bigger but no less fake. He gets to shake her hand and both of them flinch at the familiar yet forbidden feeling. When he’s finally dismissed, his jaw hurts from smiling and his heart aches from the revelation. He has to lay in his dorm bed until his head stops spinning. When he’s finally come back to earth he gets up and goes for a walk through the grounds. He sees her red hair before anything else, sitting on a bench staring at her feet. He’s walking towards her before he knows it, he’s not totally sure what he’s gonna say when he reaches her but her smile when she sees him coming makes his brain go into overdrive.
“Hi, Mark.”
“Miss Eagan. God, why do all of you address each other so formally?”
“It’s to show respect.”
“I suppose I should've said that to you, Helena.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Hey you never thought to say ‘Hey Mark, I’m an Eagan, you might want to get on your knees and suck my non-existent dick.”
“What?” She nearly screams. “That’s not what I was doing. I was having a grand old time and you broke in!”
“Oh I’m sorry, I forgot you own this whole place, I’ll be sure to knock before I enter your ballroom.”
“God you’re an asshole! How did you even get here?”
“You needed someone to parade around and pretend you like poor people!”
“I would never have picked you!”
“Then make me leave.” She pauses, clearly thinking it over. He knows that she could, that one word from her to Cobel and he’s back to the middle of nowhere with his little sister and his mother’s disappointed face, he’s the one who’s supposed to get out.
Apparently Her Royal Highness is feeling merciful because she turns on her heels and makes her way to the grand doorway, with a simple “fuck you Mark.”
He doesn’t eat that night with everyone else, he can subsist on the snacks he smuggled in until he figures out what to do with the whole Helena Eagan problem. The next morning, he finally ventures out to do some more searching although Mark thinks that he could spend his entire life on this campus and still not break the surface of the intricacies of GANZ. He’s in the library walking through the seemingly endless rows of books ranging from comics to large leather bound collections. He turns into a row, too focused on the books to see her sitting at the end against the wall sitting with her legs tucked under her, leafing through a book, ballet flats strewn across the carpet. He ducks away before he thinks she can see him. He can hear her gasp and then grumble.
“Mark?”
“Yeah?”
“What do you want now?”
He sighs, the collar of his new shirt itches around his neck and he has to stop from scratching it in front of her. “Helena. I’m sorry. I was an asshole. I shouldn’t have said those things.”
“No, you shouldn’t have. But thank you for apologizing anyway. Why are you apologizing? Worried you won’t make any other friends here?”
“Woah Helena, slow down. We’re friends now?”
“You’d be lucky to be. I keep my circle small.”
“That’s a nice way to say you have no friends.”
“Oh fuck off, Mark.”
“I mean I guess I’ll let you hang around me, if you need.”
“You’ve been at this school for like 4 hours? Maybe wait until you actually attend one class before you act like Mr. Popularity.”
“You want to be with me while I take over this school?” He extends his palm out to where she sits.
“You are possibly the corniest man I’ve ever met.” But she still puts her hand in his and lets him pull her to her feet.
“Friends?”
“Sure, Mark.”
“What are we?”
“Friends. Unless I change my mind.”
“Friends.”