Scene Two: Dane gets Oriented.

Dane had only been outside the county four times, and two of those had been for fieldtrips to the state capitol. He'd never been outside the actual state. And now this— over twenty-four hours on a Greyhound bus, across states, and while sitting next to a rotund grandmotherly figure with the flu for more than half of it. The only nice part, or the only part that wasn't quite as hellish as the rest of it, was he had a window seat and at night when they were out of the cities, he could see stars. That only happened once but it was beautiful enough to be worth it.

By then he had also been feeling feverish for hours, despite the fact the sick woman had left two stops before. So Dane slid down in his seat with his face against the blessed cold window and tried to sleep, telling himself that this was the only way to get there and get there fast, since planes were out of the question.

And definitely get there fast. For some reason that was important, to get there fast.

Since the Board had changed his roommates on him, Dane no longer had any idea who he would be sharing his living space with. His mind had invented a pink, poofy sort of individual who probably liked pastels and rearranging furniture and he dreaded the moment when they would first lay eyes on each other. The dialogue he was practicing for that moment in his mind was awkward and dry. "So you're gay, then? Hey, me too! What are the odds, eh? Oh... one in ten? Wowzers!"

He arrived late in the day and in the flurry of paperwork would later remember little of the process of moving in besides a feeling of smugness at being one of the few freshmen without parents trailing after them. His RA's were named Yvonne and Scott, because floor seven was coed, but he didn't remember specifically meeting them. By that time everyone was beginning to look the same.

He must have met Yvonne and Scott at some point, however, because the first thing he remembered clearly was standing outside his room, number 712, with a key and looking at the outside of the door and taking a deep breath. It was closed, but that didn't mean his roommate wasn't on the other side. Other residents of floor seven had their doors open as they arrived and a few who knew each other or had already met would visit other rooms occasionally. Nervous-anxious parents moved among them from time to time like… well, nervous-anxious parents.

The door was locked— a good sign— and as he fumbled to get his key in place, a huge paw of a hand found his shoulder. He jumped, turning to face a well-built young man in an NHL shirt.

"Oh, hello," said Dane. He had to lean back to take in the entirety of him. The eyes first, of course— his eyes were like polished onyx, with a pleasant shine to them— but from the freakish height to the buzz-cut black hair and the muscles, something just wasn't clicking. "Are you…?" He made a gesture with his hands to get the other to finish the sentence for him.

"Roommate?" said the guy. "Yeah. Name's Nigan." Nigan's surname seemed to string on for minutes and sounded vaguely Polynesian. "How's it going?"

"Swimmingly," he lied, but with a big smile on his face. "Nice to meet you, Nigan. Are you gay?"

Slowly, Nigan laughed. "Do you mean am I happy?"

"No, are you attracted to men."

It didn't even faze him. "Nope, sorry bud. You're… Micah, right?" When Dane did not respond immediately, Nigan dug out a scrap of paper out of the back pocket of his shorts. "Right? Micah Singh?"

"No," said Dane after a beat. He glanced at the door to his room. "Dane Stanton. What room are you, Nigan?"

"713."

"Hmm." Dane pointed to the room opposite in the hallway, which had a small 713 plate over the door. "That 713, maybe?" Dane ventured.

Nigan laughed and Dane's shoulder received another pounding. "Yep, that'd be it. Thanks, Dane. I was thinking you didn't look much like a Singh."

And there was no way in hell you were my roommate, thought Dane. But upon reflection, it probably wasn't too farfetched to imagine there might be a Wayne Gretzky fanboy club out there somewhere. And upon even further reflection, Dane probably would have rather had the furniture-rearranger.

Dane unlocked his door and stepped in, letting his backpack fall off his shoulder to prop open the door as he relocated his duffel bag inside to the middle of the floor. Now he just had to wait for the willowy flower-child to prance in and he'd be set.

The room was a surprise. Despite the room standing empty besides the furniture, naked like a skeleton, all was forgiven for the window. It took up nearly the entire far wall and seemed to greet Dane like a fair maiden to a returning conquering hero as he stood in the doorway. The very top branches of a tree grazed the bottom edge of the window, buildings across the wide street and parking lot blocked the view of the water, but he could see strips of it through the buildings. Dane couldn't remember if it was a lake or river, which was more than a little sad in itself, but the it was clear and blue and he stood at the window watching as a rowing crew raced in and out of view from between the tops of buildings.

Despite himself, Dane smiled. At least Miranda Offenbach managed to get something right.

Muffled but potentially violent sounds reached Dane's ears. He turned away from the window and caught Nigan's glance from inside room 713, across the hall, as he too heard the commotion and paused in the middle of testing the mattresses.

Dane came to the door and almost ran into another boy as he was turning into the room. They both froze as to not run into each other and, out of habit, Dane had been about to apologize. But he stopped.

Dane could not have been in a more perfect position to see this guy's eyes if he'd planned it, but it took him several seconds to comprehend. His eyes were green. Bright green eyes. Like a clover field with a darker, fresh-earth-and-moss colored ring around the outside. Like fresh, crisp emeralds and mint apples.

He blinked away the synesthesia attack. "Sorry," he said, annoyed even a trickle of the episode had gotten away from him. "Your eyes are nice." He was still staring, but he wasn't concerned as much that he appeared to be acting neurotic. His interest had taken on a clinical tinge, and he felt more like a scientist observing a rare specimen than a freak stalker.

The eyes— green eyes, he continued to notice in awe. Very green eyes— widened and he stared at Dane for a long second, looking as surprised to hear the words as Dane had felt when he said them.

The poor person blinked. "Oh. Thank you. You do, too. I've always liked dark eyes and wow, you're really dressed up, aren't you?" This had obviously been as much on his mind as his eyes had been on Dane's. They stepped away and looked each other up and down. The other boy had a green shirt with some band name on it that Dane had never heard of.

Dane wasn't sure how to respond. "Yes," he said finally. "I am. Thank you. Are you gay, by chance?" He glanced at the other, waiting for a reaction. Why hadn't he worried about it when he asked Nigan?

The green eyes became sharp for a second. "I'm Gavin," he said, with emphasis, "and I also happen to be gay."

There was a pause.

"Right. Yes. Well, you have the right room, then, roommate," said Dane wearily and stepped out of the way to let Gavin pass. "I'm Dane, your... roommate."

Another pause.

"Nice to meet you," said Gavin, although he didn't sound too sure of it. He let the scruffy backpack he had been clutching to his chest slide to the floor. He gave a low whistle. "Hey, check out the view."

Dane pushed himself away from the doorway to get a better look at Gavin while he was distracted. "Yeah," he said suddenly. "It's really nice, isn't it? I noticed that, too." There was something about him that made it impossible to fit him into the cookie-cutter idea Dane had been expecting. If he had to put his finger on that something, it would have been--everything. His hair was normal brown, maybe a little shaggy, maybe he hadn't combed it that morning. He wore loose, comfortable-looking jeans (Dane couldn't remember the last time he had worn jeans… maybe in ninth grade). On Gavin's feet were a pair of grey Converse sneakers so worn they looked like they'd been made for him. It was always possible he liked rearranging furniture, of course, but...

"Are you always so subtle when looking people over?" Gavin asked and Dane snapped out of it, flicking his eyes to a random corner of the room before looking his new roommate in the eye.

Dane coughed. "Sorry, what?"

"Okay. I guess we'll have to work on that." Gavin gave a small laugh. He wasn't as obvious, but he was snatching glances at Dane as well. "Did you, um, have a preference for beds?"

"No, not really. I was leaning more towards the one on the right."

"That one giving you good vibes?" Gavin hauled his backpack onto the bed on the left. "Alright. I'll just nab this one, then."

There was a knock on the open door. Yvonne, the older girl RA with long honey-colored hair swung her face inside. A tall, muscular boy about the same age followed after her, but unless Dane's memory was seriously failing him, it wasn't Scott.

"Hi," Yvonne said. "Everything all right with you guys? I was told there might have been some confusion about rooms. Sorry we didn't catch that sooner."

"Everything's fine," said Gavin. "We figured it out."

"Is it?" said the man, stepping into the room and walking over to Gavin. Dane tracked his face: his eyes were warm, golden chocolate brown, flecked with granite. "You mean you— Gavie, my little Gavie— haven't found a way to completely make an idiot of yourself and it's been almost an hour and ten minutes since we've arrived on campus?" He laughed good-naturedly but Gavin didn't seem so enthused.

"Could you possibly make this any more difficult?" Gavin muttered through a strained smile and raised eyebrow. "Go on, Lance. Give it a go. I really don't think you can."

Dane watched in hazy interest as Lance backed up and put his arm around the RA. He was obviously very aware of the audience he had in the room. "I'll be popping in occasionally to check up on you, Gav. Know why? Me and Yvonne," he said in an actor's exaggeratedly loud voice. "We go way back. Don't we, babe?"

"We sure do. In a nonsexual way." She sighed and looked at Gavin. "Ah, little brothers. I wish I had one. They grow up so fast, don't they?"

"I know. A freshman, already. Isn't he adorable?" Lance wiped away a nonexistent tear.

A pinch of red appeared on Gavin's cheeks. "Are you done? Seriously. Don't you have somewhere else to be? Some small mammals to terrorize?"

"Besides you, you mean?" Lance threw up his hands, grinning. "Fine, carry your own stuff up. I don't have to help. But vait, vhat is zis?" He did a double take, as though seeing Dane for the first time, and stepped beside the bed, making a show of looking him over. "Mon seigneur," he said slowly, taking a step backward and bowing, and flourishing with his hand. "Comment beau cette réunion soit. Je ne peux que regretter qu'un monsieur comme vous vive si loin..."

"Excuse me?" said Dane. He wondered if he should respond more, but the urge to take a nap was making it difficult to decide. "I don't speak, um, French."

"Neither does he," muttered Gavin into his hand, as an aside for Dane. "Just wait, he'll run out of things say any moment now. He only knows about ten sentences and mixes and matches them to make new ones."

"Les Gens-du-Sable marchent en file indienne pour dissimuler leur nombres," said Lance pleasantly to Gavin. Yvonne began giggling. Then Lance turned to Dane. "I almost cut myself on your suit on the way in. Lance Boyle"— he luxuriated in the added French accent—"knight in shining armor. Consider me at your service. It is a pleasure to meet a man who knows the value of a good suit."

Dane couldn't stop his gaze from attaching itself to the sight of Lance's sweatpants. "I'll have to take your word on that," he said, and they shook hands. Dane made extra sure to make his grip firm and look him in the eye. "My name is Dane Stanton. Are you really at my service or is that just a catch line?"

"Oh, I am. Within reason," Lance Boyle added smoothly.

"How thoughtful." And weird.

"It would appear that you're rooming with little Gavie Boyle, who by the way you've exchanged less words with than you have with me," said Lance, interrupting his thoughts. "That makes us family."

Is this normal? thought Dane. "Well," he said, and he sighed. The fever flared up inside him. "You should probably help our brother carry his things up."

Lance groaned and Dane caught sight of Gavin and the smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. It matured into a full smirk as Lance headed to the door, mumbling to himself. "That's just wonderful, another saint."

Gavin caught his eye and winked. "Thanks. I owe you one," he said, and ran out to catch his brother.

The second they were gone, Yvonne leaned in and held up her hand for a high-five. Dane eyed her palm and raised his hand questioningly. "What are we doing?"

"Oh, come on!" she laughed, and he fived her. "Sweet deal there with the scholarship!" she said. "Miranda already called so you don't have to worry about a thing. First meeting's the Thursday after classes start, alright?"

"You're in it?"

"Yeah. Didn't you wonder why she had you switched to this hall, this floor?" Yvonne grinned as she talked, but suddenly it seemed to grow sober. "Anyway, I'm sorry if you were expecting a really big, involved club, but we're actually really low-key…"

In his mind, Dane had fallen to his knees and was singing praises. "Oh," he said, in a despondent mumble, "that's okay, I guess. I mean, as long as it is there, right?"

Yvonne nodded. "Yeah, exactly! As long as it's there, yes, thank you. It used to be really involved, but the guy who founded it graduated a few years ago, and now it's more or less just a casual get-together. We talk, study, sometimes do stuff, but it's not… big. I don't know. How well do you know Miranda?" she added abruptly.

Dane understood the tone of her voice. "She's basically my parole officer," he said.

Yvonne sighed. "Oh, okay. Phew. Sorry, do I sound too relieved? She just… I'm not sure… I guess I want to say she seemed to expect a lot of us. Does that sound right?"

"Spot on."

"Yeah, right. Okay. Anyway." Yvonne smiled. "Happy unpacking. See you this afternoon."

Later that evening, after the RA's were done with their short floor meeting in the lounge, about a half a dozen of them went out for pizza. Dane recognized Nigan talking to another boy who must have been the real Micah Singh, and they nodded to each other from across the group. It sucked, but Dane had come to terms with the fact during the floor meeting that, by some wicked twist of fate, all the girls on floor seven were hot. He managed to mostly ignore the intoxicating flowery scents of Sierra, Kaya, and Penelope, the three girls who'd chosen to join their dinner run, as they walked a little ways ahead of him.

Dane ended up walking alongside Gavin, who saved them both from small talk by starting the conversation.

"So," he said, "are you thinking about rushing?"

"What?" Dane asked. He felt a stab of self-loathing for not understanding. He hated not knowing anything.

Gavin laughed, but then stopped. "Are you going to try and get into a fraternity?" he rephrased.

The glimmer of light appeared at the end of Dane's long, lonely, celibate college career tunnel. Damn, why hadn't he thought of that? Of course, the Board had probably sealed all the exits, but there was no harm it trying. "You think they would take me?"

Gavin shrugged. "Why not? I mean, they're not all like Animal House crazy—"

Dane had been holding his breath in, and it came out in a gush, right in the middle of Gavin's sentence. "I'm gay!" he said. It hadn't been that loud, but after he said it everyone in front of them stopped and turned around to look at him. He had never felt so much that he was caught under a spotlight.

"You don't sound like it," said Micah. He had a very faint accent.

Dane glanced at him. "Not that gay," he said after a second's thought. "The other one."

"Oh." said Micah. "Oh. Oh, I see."

Gavin gave Dane a friendly but disbelieving look and broke the silence. "Really?"

"Yeah," Dane said, feeling a little unbalanced. He put his hands on his hips and smiled for the audience. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Why is everybody looking at me, really?"

"He is rather impeccably dressed," said Nigan. "I mean, he has a tie and it isn't even a clip-on."

Gavin frowned at them, but Dane held his hand out. "Yes. See? Thank you."

The girls giggled and, with the silence broken, they continued on down the sidewalk. Gavin appeared to be turning something over in his head and didn't say anything for awhile. When he still hadn't said anything a block later, Dane began to get nervous. This was, of course, what he'd been afraid of from the beginning—that some gay person, more recently the fear that his gay roommate, would know, instinctively, that he wasn't what he said he was. He could bullshit the bureaucrats, but slipping past an actual homosexual was something different altogether. What would he do if Gavin figured it out?

"You're gay, seriously?" said Gavin.

Dane threw his shoulders back. "Actually," he said, "I'm Dane, and I also happen to be gay."

He barely held in his sigh of relief when Gavin smiled and shrugged. "I'm sorry, I was just… Well, I assumed and I'm sorry for that. I had you pegged wrong."

Dane glanced at his roommate, searching for clues. "No way?"

Gavin, shaking his head in embarrassment, just laughed. "I kid you not, the first thing I thought when I saw you was 'straight'. And after that I thought for sure you were some high-strung, Super Christian socially inept home schooled boy. Just… like you had it written on your forehead in big, bold letters." He laughed and Dane pretended to join in.

What he was thinking was, Home schooled? Socially inept? Are you fucking kidding me?

It was hard to gauge how far away he was from hyperventilating. His heart was pounding heavy in his throat. "Wow. You really thought that? Home schooled, huh?"

"Sorry, it was the suit. I just saw it and thought, O-kay, a little eager to please, aren't we? But it's cool, you know? Now that I look more, it's more like you're going clubbing than going to church. Nice but casual. But I never would have thought you were gay."

Dane blinked. "So… you can actually tell if someone's gay or not?" Look kids! See Dane dance in front of bears while drenched in BBQ-sauce...

Gavin laughed, to Dane's surprise. "Obviously not. You can guess, you can make assumptions, but you just saw for yourself how that works out. There's always going to be those couple of people who need you to know but when you get down to it, it's a very personal, private thing and if people don't want you to know, you're probably not going to. It's not like everyone goes around wearing 'I'm a Thisandthat on the Kinsey' T-shirts or anything."

Dane pretended to chuckle again and made a mental note to look up what the heck Gavin was talking about. See Dane run for his life. Run, Dane, run.

"I did just come out, like, a month ago," said Dane slowly. Coming out… did he use that correctly? Something about it sounded wrong. Damn. He was double-guessing himself. That wasn't good. Dane plucked open the blazer and loosened his tie. See Dane run, mauled and bleeding, away from the bear and tripping into piranha-infested waters. "Maybe that's why?" he ventured, thinking longingly of an aspirin. Or a tranquilizer.

Gavin glanced at him quickly— swim, Dane, swim— but his eyes were filled with sympathy, not sudden anger or disbelief. "If you came out that recently, then I am really sorry," he said. "It's hard enough to come out without people giving you the third degree whenever it comes up."

"Oh, yeah, I know. Totally. It's okay. Not a problem. I did kind of yell it out."

"Let's just start over," said his roommate. "Hey. I'm Gavin."

They shook hands. It was becoming easier to breath. Thank God. And easier to talk. Gavin had become in under a minute several times friendlier than he had been since the beginning of the day. From the ease with which they were suddenly flying through conversation, they could have known each other for years. This really was like a members-only club. Once you got past the bouncers, nobody looked twice.

See Dane beat those piranha sonsabitches down with his staggering charm. Go, Dane, go.

As they reached the pizza parlor, Gavin held the door open for him, smiling: "So, what are the top three things I should know about you as a roommate?"

Dane sighed and his stress slipped off him like an oversized, out-of-fashion coat, and suddenly it was like he'd been doing this his whole life. That was when he knew, it was going to work. He was going to get away with it.

"Oh, I don't know," he said carelessly. Socially inept, my ass. "Let me see…"

Double thanks for those of you who had it in their hearts to donate a portion of their lives to review a story of mine, like these amazing peeps: Miho, PerhapsAlaska, magalina, MistressELEMENT, Renzie, ddz008, poomiki, caramel blazers, Carpetbag, Rae, Sychaeus, merrymowmow, Spideria, Hell's first Icicle, and schweini07.

Any mistakes in French are Lance's, not mine :D