Author’s Notes: This story is a sequel to my previous stories The Eldermoor Chronicles: Book One and The Eldermoor Chronicles: Book Two. I hope I didn’t confuse too many people by not following along with the title thing, but for obvious reasons, I couldn’t. If you haven’t read those, I highly recommend you go back and do so before attempting to read this.

All right…so let’s begin with a few notes to my readers: I am not addressing Niall’s summer in England here, but it will probably be mentioned in some sort of spin-off short or set of fics or something. I really wanted to kind of address the whole Donovan thing in a bigger way, so hopefully I’ll have time to come back and fill in the gaps.

Also, the characters in Eldermoor will not be forgotten. They play their own little parts in this series (you’ll grow to see what I mean), though it’s mostly focused on Niall and the new characters. Still, there are periodic updates about the characters you’ve all grown to know and (hopefully) love.

I think that’s about it. Hopefully there was nothing else pressing I needed to say.

Claimer: Though all the characters are based on real people, they all belong to me. The town of Eldermoor, Massachusetts, belongs to me, as does (obviously) Eldermoor Academy. Also, so does Akerton Academy, since I don’t really want to use real settings…because I’m too lazy to air out inconsistencies.

Warnings: This story is rated R and it is YAOI, and may contain any of (though not necessarily limited to) the following: male/male situations, adult content, sexual activities between minors, strong language, underage drinking, and semi-consensual sex. If any of that irks you (which I can’t imagine it does if you’ve gotten this far in the series) run away now. Seriously.

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By: Chantrea Johari

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Niall Parker stood outside his new school, Akerton Academy, staring up at the rather imposing façade and wondering how he had ever found Eldermoor Academy intimidating. This new school was situated in San Francisco, California, which despite what Niall’s parents had said, wasn’t very close to them at all. Glancing around at the other students milling around the campus, Niall could already tell many things, one of them being that this school was a lot more free-form than Eldermoor Academy was.

Unlike Eldermoor, his new school didn’t require uniforms, and dorm rooms would only be assigned to those who didn’t have a roommate to pick. Dorms were not separated by grade level, though the school wasn’t so liberal as to have co-ed dorms—but considering what he saw of the student population, it didn’t seem like it would be much of an issue. All of those things were what Niall had read in the brochure before arriving, but the last, his own observation, had come from looking around at the other members of the student body.

It seemed that half the guys there were either gay—that kind of stereotypical gay that Niall hadn’t really thought really existed—or at least intensely metro-sexual. Niall had heard things, of course, about San Francisco’s liberal acceptance of homosexuality, and he had even visited the city once, but it had seemed nothing like this. There were dozens of students dressed in outfits he never would have imagined, many with various sorts of hair dye and piercings. Niall found himself thinking that Adrian would be right at home here, not that all the students were like that, of course.

Many of the students, in fact, were the perfect definition of preppy, wearing tight jeans and polo shirts with hair dyed in various shades of sun-kissed blond and light brown. It seemed that more of the boys were wearing makeup than the girls, though.

The layout of the school was very different as well. It had much more of a college-like feel to it, mostly separated buildings and large courtyards that were pretty typical to school campuses in California, though knowing how much it rained up north, Niall wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. There seemed to be at least twice as many students as there had been at Eldermoor Academy—of course, Eldermoor had been a very small school.

Niall watched the students mill past him, almost content to just watch them without moving at all. It was such an eclectic mixture of people, doing anything and everything—from having simple conversations to one guy dancing around to music apparently only he could hear. Boys were touching girls, girls were touching other girls, and boys were touching boys. It seemed that Niall had stumbled onto a very touchy-feely group; everyone seemed to be touching everyone else.

There was a large table set up at the center of the quad, in which a few staff members were sitting and taking roommate requests, as well as assigning rooms. Niall had already registered as a new student in the office and had promptly been informed that if he didn’t have anyone he wanted to room with, he would have to wait for the other students to finish getting set up before they assigned roommates to everyone else. As Niall didn’t know anyone at the school, he definitely belonged in that category.

That was what brought him there, standing near the back of the quad with his suitcases sitting next to him, unsure of what to do and having no one to talk with. The bad thing about the school was that it seemed that everyone already had their own little cliques, and Niall was unsure of which he could talk to and actually be well-received. Though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, Niall was secretly hoping that someone would come talk to him, like Owen had on his first day at Eldermoor.

Of course, he hadn’t been standing there for long, so he wasn’t sure what he was expecting. Yet it seemed that the gods were smiling upon him that day, because a few minutes later, someone sat down on the wall behind him, speaking to him.

“Hey. You roommate-less too?” a voice asked. Niall turned around abruptly to come face to face with a boy that made him blink a couple of times in surprise. His hair was dyed a vivid purple with black streaks in it, and his eyes were the same vibrant amethyst, which made Niall hope that they were, in fact, colored contacts. He was wearing a black and blue checkered jacket with plain blue sleeves, a pink shirt with a design on it that Niall couldn’t quite see all of, and a pair of black pants rolled up just enough to reveal black and white checkered stockings. His shoes were slight platforms in white.

Niall noticed after a moment that the boy was looking at him expectantly, remembering that he had been asked a question. As the boy took a drag from the cigarette he was holding, Niall finally answered. “Yeah, I guess. I’m new,” Niall explained to the other boy. “You?”

The boy shrugged, exhaling a long plume of smoke. “Yep. No roommate. Only I’ve been here for years, so I really don’t have any excuse,” he said, and Niall could detect both general nonchalance and a little bit of bitterness in his voice. There was also something about his tone that absolutely screamed flamboyance, so it wouldn’t have surprised Niall to find that the other boy was gay. He leaned forward, extending the hand that wasn’t holding his cigarette to Niall. “I’m Seth Abrahms,” he introduced.

Niall took his hand and shook it. “Niall Parker,” he replied.

Seth nodded, as if taking that in before patting the wall next to him. “Come have a seat,” Seth invited genially, taking another long drag of his cigarette before continuing. “We have awhile to wait before they start actually assigning roommates.”

Niall just stood there for a second, contemplating the offer, before picking up his bags and lugging them closer to the wall, sitting next to Seth. The boy was a bit startling at first, but he seemed to be nice enough, and he’d been the first person who had even spoken to Niall since he’d arrived, so Niall couldn’t make himself be anything but thankful.

“Thanks,” Niall said, putting down his bags as he sat down. Seth motioned with his hand, a clear gesture that said, ‘it was nothing’ before tilting his head at Niall’s guitar case.

“You play?” he asked, even though the question seemed a bit redundant.

Niall nodded. “You?” he asked again.

“Bass,” Seth told him, eyes running along the neck of the guitar case as if he could determine something about the actual instrument just by looking at the case. “I can’t really bring it to the dorms, though, considering. I have two acoustic guitars, though, like yours, but those pretty much stay at home.”

Niall nodded, as if to let the other boy know that he had heard. He looked around Seth, trying to find the other boy’s luggage, but the area around him was empty save for a small backpack sitting on the wall next to him. “Where’s your stuff?” Niall asked, still craning his neck around, as if that would somehow help him to find something that so obviously wasn’t there.

Seth blew another trail of smoke between his lips. “Home,” he told Niall. “My parents live in the city. I’m planning on driving over to pick it up later. Where are you from?”

“L.A.,” Niall said simply, eyeing the other boy with some muted interest, as if he was studying some rare type of animal. He couldn’t deny that there was something fascinating about the other boy; the way that his clothes didn’t match but somehow looked perfect on him, the way his artificial purple pupils seemed to bore through Niall, the way that he smoked with such obvious nonchalance that it made him look undeniably sexy. “You can drive?”

Seth nodded, crushing his cigarette out on the stone beside him before dropping it. “Although driving in San Francisco really is more trouble than it’s worth. I turned sixteen in February—I’m a junior. You’re what? A sophomore?”

Niall nodded. “Yeah. How’d you know?”

Seth shrugged again. “Lucky guess,” he replied dismissively.

Niall raised an eyebrow but didn’t question it. “So why is it that you don’t have a roommate, then?” Niall asked as Seth’s unnatural eyes scanned the crowd. “If you’ve been here for years?”

“My last roommate graduated last year. My best friend goes to school here too, but he’s had the same roommate since he got here, and he doesn’t want to change,” Seth bit out, and Niall could sense a bit of bitterness in his voice. Seth’s gaze was fixed off in the distance, on the tables where roommate signups were happening. “They’re over there.” Seth pointed with one long-fingered hand—which Niall now saw had fingernails painted in sparkly blue polish—at two boys standing at the table. One had curly blond hair and the other buzzed dark hair. They were about the same height, but that was about all Niall could tell about them from the distance.

“The blond one is Drew, my best friend,” Seth said with a nod in his direction. The blond boy was dressed rather normally compared to Seth, in faded blue jeans and a striped polo shirt that looked undeniably preppy. “The other guy is Tim, his roommate.”

“Ah,” Niall replied noncommittally, not sure what to say. They watched in silence as the two boys got their room keys from the desk and began walking in the direction of the dorms. Seth watched them closely as they disappeared into one of the buildings.

“Hmm…they’re in the Sypher Dorm,” Seth noted to himself. After a moment, he turned away, looking back at Niall. “So, what are you? Gay? Straight? Bisexual? Pansexual? Asexual?”

Niall stared at the boy in disbelief for a second, not used to being addressed so directly with such a question. “Gay,” he replied immediately, too shocked by the question to notice the ease with which he had answered. A year before, he never would have been comfortable just admitting his sexuality, but a lot had changed in a year, and San Francisco was a very different place than Eldermoor, Massachusetts. Seth seemed to be able to tell how taken aback he was by the question, and he laughed.

“You’ll fit right in here, then,” Seth replied jovially. “‘Biggest gay community in the country’, and all that.”

It took a few seconds of utter surprise before Niall could make himself speak again. “What about you?” he inquired.

This time, Seth just laughed harder. “Sweetie, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m as fucking gay as they come,” Seth said, purposely over-emphasizing the slight lisp of his voice to make it sound like one of the stereotypes that Niall was so used to seeing on television. “After all, I am wearing makeup and sparkly blue nail polish. How could I not be gay?”

Niall stared at Seth blankly, and Seth sighed. “I’m joking, hun,” he told Niall. Niall nodded absently, eyes still locked on the people filtering past, still slightly disbelieving. After a long moment of silence, Seth’s voice came to Niall’s ears yet again, drawing his attention back.

“Hey Niall,” Seth said suddenly, and Niall turned to look at the other boy, sitting next to him on the wall. Seth suddenly looked nervous for a second before speaking again. “This might sound kind of…strange…but since neither of us have roommates, do you want to room with me?”

Niall raised an eyebrow at the boy sitting next to him, mulling it over for a minute. Finally, he nodded. “Sure,” he replied amiably. After all, it was either room with Seth, who he now sort of knew, or end up getting paired with someone random whom he had never met before, and could plausibly be cruel. Seth seemed extremely relieved that Niall had said yes.

“All right,” Seth said with a smile. “I guess we should…uh…go sign up together and get our room keys and everything, huh?”

Niall nodded, looking forlornly at all the luggage he’d have to carry over to the table. Seth noticed and grabbed his guitar case for him, as well as one of his small bags. “Come on,” Seth urged gently. “There’s no reason that you should have to carry all this shit when I don’t any thing to carry but this.” He motioned to the small backpack that he’d already thrown over his shoulder.

Niall smiled, grabbing his other bags and making his way to the front table behind Seth, who he was a bit dismayed to note was a great deal taller than he was when standing. And on top of everything else, Seth was wearing shoes with platforms. Niall had no doubt, however, that if he’d seen Seth walk, he never would have had to ask the other boy if he was gay. At that thought, Niall laughed quietly to himself and trailed behind Seth, watching the other boy’s hips sway flamboyantly.

They stopped in front of the table and Seth smiled genially at the woman sitting behind it. She smiled back at him and laughed. “Well, well, Seth, I see that you’ve managed to snag another roommate already,” the woman teased.

Seth mock-glared at her before pulling Niall closer to the table. “This is Niall. He’s new,” he told the woman, slinging a casual arm around Niall’s shoulders. “Niall, this is Miss Kelly. She’s one of the counselors.”

She smiled kindly at Niall. “You seem like a nice boy,” said Miss Kelly, a woman in her mid-thirties with glasses and brown hair tied back in a bun. “See if you can keep Seth out of trouble, why don’t you? He spends a bit too much time in my office.” She directed a slight glare at Seth.

Niall swallowed hard, wondering what he had just gotten himself into by agreeing to be Seth’s roommate.

“I thought I was just a good kid who’s a bit confused,” Seth said with good-natured sarcasm.

“You are, Seth. Just try to avoid any public nudity this year.”

Seth pouted when he looked back at her. “But what fun is that?” he demanded petulantly. “You’re so mean to me sometimes.”

She smiled. “It’s my job,” she said jokingly, looking down at the papers and things before her. Niall watched the exchange in silence, completely convinced that he’d be having an interesting year that year. “Now, let’s see where we can put you this year….hmm…” She studied the papers before her until her finger landed on something. “Ah…I’ve got something in the Thatcher Dorm here. What do you say?”

Seth shrugged. “You couldn’t give me one closer to Drew?” he prodded. “He’s in Sypher.”

The counselor shook her head. “You’ve come a bit late in the game, Seth. Sypher is already full, and so are most of the others. I don’t suppose you want Youngman instead?”

Seth shook his head emphatically. “No, that’s okay. We’ll go with Thatcher.”

Miss Kelly smiled in triumph, writing their names down on a piece of paper and pulling out two keys, one for each of them. “You two are in room thirty-six, Thatcher Dorm.” Seth nodded and thanked her, taking both of their keys and leading Niall down the path toward the dorms. Niall stepped up beside Seth, careful not to bump the luggage he was holding against his guitar case, which Seth was still carrying.

“Why didn’t you want to be in the Youngman dorm?” Niall asked after a second, falling into step with Seth.

Seth shrugged. “It’s right next to the soccer field. It’s kind of loud, and people have a tendency to kick soccer balls right at the wall, which is really annoying. The other dorms are already taken because they’re closer to classes. People don’t want to have to walk. We’re the dorm that’s the farthest out.”

Niall groaned, looking down at the suitcases in his hands. He looked forlornly at the Sypher Dorm, the one he had seen Seth’s friend disappear into, and the one that was the least walk. Finally, he sighed to himself, following Seth down the path. When it came to a fork, Seth led him to the left, and at the very end of that path, they found the Thatcher Dorm.

The two walked into the dorm building and Niall followed Seth down the hall. Halfway down, a tall boy with dark skin and hair passed them, smiling at Seth. “Hey Seth. Have a nice summer?” the boy asked him. Seth smiled brightly and told him yes, that his family had gone on vacation and he had had a great time. When the boy walked away a minute later, Seth’s face fell and he rolled his eyes. Niall raised an eyebrow at him.

“He’s fucking annoying, and an asshole,” Seth explained. “But some people you just have to learn to tolerate.”

With that, Seth led Niall down the hallway again, Niall following closely. “Who is he?” Niall asked after a second when Seth abruptly stopped, realizing that they had reached their room. Seth put Niall’s guitar case down as he placed their key in the lock, opening the door to the dorm room. He walked inside, holding the door open with his foot so Niall could get his other suitcases in.

“His name is James,” Seth explained, setting the bags he was carrying on the floor. “He’s Drew’s ex-boyfriend from…a long time ago. He’s kind of…well, he’s a fucking slut to tell you the truth.”

Niall raised an eyebrow at the other boy, putting his things down and closing the door behind him. “Pent-up aggression?” he suggested teasingly.

Seth shrugged. “I just don’t like it when people hurt my friends; that’s all,” he explained, sitting down on one of the beds. “This one’s mine,” he proclaimed, his tone leaving no room for argument. Niall shrugged, uncaring, as he came to sit on the other bed, surveying the room. It was much like his room at Eldermoor Academy had been, except for the fact that it was a little bit bigger and the door to what appeared to be the bathroom was on the opposite side. The dressers and desk were arranged differently in the room, of course, but it essentially had the same items.

“So, how does this compare to your dorm at your old school? Or did you used to go to public school?” Seth asked, lounging back on his bed and folding his arms behind his head.

Niall shrugged. “It’s kind of the same,” he told the other boy, looking around the room. “Well, they set up the dorms differently at my old school—by grade and such—but really, it’s the same. This school is a lot bigger than my old one, too. Oh, and we wore uniforms at my old school.”

Seth looked down at the outfit he was wearing, and for a minute, Niall tried to imagine the radical boy in the conservative suits they had to wear at Eldermoor Academy. He couldn’t. As it was, he’d have had a difficult time imagining Adrian in those uniforms if he’d first seem him in street clothes.

“That sucks. I’m glad I didn’t go there.”

Niall shrugged, looking down at his hands and thinking about his time at Eldermoor. He thought mostly about the people he had met, and about Luke, who he hadn’t spoken with since the day before he left Eldermoor. “It wasn’t that bad,” Niall mumbled, twining his fingers together in his lap, suddenly beginning to feel depressed at the memory of all the things he’d lost.

Seth looked at him. “Hmm…if you say so,” he said whimsically, looking thoughtful about something. Finally, he stood up walking over to Niall. “So what do you say I give you the grand tour of the school and introduce you to some people? Then I need to go over to my house and pick up my stuff. You can come with if you want, but I kind of doubt you do.”

“Uh…okay,” Niall agreed, standing up and letting Seth lead him out the door by the arm, wondering what sharing a room with this rather outlandish boy would be like.