21. What Have You Got Against Windows
Briar and Bastian finish the last three dorms on the third floor working in tandem.
Briar hates the presumption when they’re standing by the cart and Bastian extends a bruised hand without looking, expecting that Briar will know exactly what he’s asking for .
. . but Briar does know what he’s asking for, and they want to get this day over with, so they just hand over the spray or the cloth or the duster and stay silent.
They move around each other automatically, trading places when something’s too high for Briar to reach or too heavy for Bastian to lift. It’s like remembering the steps to a dance you knew by heart a decade ago, etched deep into your muscles, dormant until the first strains of music start to play.
The clouds have cleared outside for once, so they dip in and out of window-shaped sunbeams as they work, disturbing so much dust that Bastian looks like he’s kneeling in a gold and glittering snow globe as he stoops to clean the floor by a scholar’s desk.
His hair glows like it’s overexposed, lit up bright and pearlescent, the strands that aren’t tied back falling in his eyes as he cleans, biting his lip with concentration.
Briar tries not to look at him too much. It makes their skin feel weird. Prickly.
Bastian is looking at them, though. A lot.
Briar’s sweaty even though they’re opening the window of every dorm they enter, and they keep having to sweep their hair back and away from their face.
Their T-shirt has gone all soft and clinging, wilting in the heat.
They feel hot and grubby compared to Bastian in his somehow still-crisp dress shirt.
He’s rolled it up to his elbows, exposing long expanses of neon vein.
It becomes apparent that the scholars who inhabit the last dorm on the left have been throwing their rubbish up on top of the heavy oak bookcase rather than putting it in the easily accessible bin.
Briar can’t reach the top to clear it out.
Bastian can’t either, but his arms are longer, and he tries a few times to no avail.
Before Briar can tell him not to be an idiot, he uses the lower shelves as a stepladder to boost himself up, and the inevitable happens: the bookcase, freestanding and unsecured, starts to tilt forwards.
Empty crisp packets, books, photo frames and a couple of stray Funko Pops begin raining down on Bastian as he drops down and tries to brace against the weight.
‘Shit,’ Briar says, dropping everything they’re holding to help, arms straining, swearing again as a heavy hardback falls on their foot. Their face is so close to Bastian’s that they can feel his breath on their cheek.
The bookcase comes to a creaking halt, and between them they manage to push it back into place.
‘That was stupid,’ Briar tells Bastian, stepping away. He’s breathing heavily, blood beading on his hand where he’s been nicked by something sharp. He puts it to his mouth and sucks.
‘Thanks.’
‘Well, it was.’
‘Jesus, I meant thank you for helping.’
‘Oh,’ Briar says, confused. ‘Right.’
‘I mean, you did try to beat the shit out of me the other night,’ Bastian continues, starting to sift through the stuff that’s fallen, separating rubbish from personal effects. ‘So I thought you might just let it crush me.’
Briar closes their eyes momentarily, exasperated. How are they supposed to even pretend to make peace with any of this? ‘You were going to hurt me. It was self-defence.’ Sort of. Mostly. After that first punch, anyway.
‘Ha,’ Bastian says. ‘Sure.’
‘As if you didn’t deserve it.’
‘Look, I understand that you don’t like me,’ Bastian says, dropping things one by one into the bin bag.
‘But I don’t understand why it makes you so angry.
You want nothing to do with me, yet we seem to be in some constant, one-sided argument.
You’d rather not be around me, yet you keep seeking me out. ’
‘Well, maybe I’m just really fucking disappointed in you,’ Briar shoots back. ‘Not that it matters. We’re ancient history, I’m over it.’
‘You’re over it,’ Bastian says. ‘Of course. These are the words and actions of somebody entirely unbothered.’
‘I am.’ Briar punctuates this by grabbing a crumpled can and chucking it into the bin. ‘And I’m not seeking you out.’
‘Okay.’
Briar grabs the cart and drags it from the room, and refuses Bastian’s help getting it up the stairs, even though it means they bang it against their shin in the exact same spot multiple times.
On the fourth floor, Briar looks at the long row of identical doors on either side and feels slightly desperate in their desire to run away.
Instead, they open the first door and get started, ignoring Bastian as he does the same.
A few minutes later, Briar feels him leave.
The tension drops from their shoulders as they straighten up.
The longer he stays away, the easier it is to relax into the work.
He’s probably not coming back. Briar even starts humming under their breath, and then they turn around and realise with a jolt of shock, that Bastian is still there, silently sweeping up a small mess with a dustpan and brush.
When Briar tackles the windowsill, covered once again in a clutch of half-full mugs, they’re so sure Bastian has left that they keep trying to catch his reflection in the glass.
He’s gone this time, Briar’s positive - but when they go to put the mugs on the desk, there he is, a human jump scare, peering at the open notebook on one of the beds.
‘Stop doing that,’ Briar says sharply, picking up a rag, and Bastian straightens up.
‘It’s not a diary,’ he says dismissively.
‘Not that. The other thing.’
‘What other thing?’
There’s that well of anger again, safety cover removed.
‘You’re using the fucking Work on me. Don’t.
I don’t want you in my fucking head.’ Bastian cuts his eyes to the floor, colour flaring in his cheeks.
‘I know I’m not a scholar and you’ve rewired your conscience to let you do horrible shit because that’s just how it works here, but I’m still a person. ’
‘Oh, please. Don’t be so dramatic. I’m doing you a favour.’
There’s a high-pitched noise from over by the window that sets Briar’s teeth on edge. ‘Did I fucking ask?’
‘You’re just being—’
Briar throws the rag back onto the cart. The shrill noise increases in volume. Maybe it’s just in Briar’s head. ‘Don’t tell me what I’m being. Don’t think you know what I want better than I do. You don’t know me.’
The sound is definitely real, now. It’s almost deafening. Briar glances over at the window just in time to see a crack forming in the glass, zig-zagging its way down the pane like a bolt of lightning. Spontaneous. Untouched.
Realisation dawns.
‘It was you,’ they say, rounding on Bastian. ‘You broke the window? At the party?’
Bastian exhales shakily through his nose, closing his eyes like he’s under immense pressure. When he speaks, his voice grates. ‘Not on purpose.’
‘How? You’re not supposed to be able to do that.’
‘I . . . don’t know.’
‘I nearly lost an eye.’
‘I said it wasn’t on purpose,’ Bastian snaps. His bruised knuckles have turned a bloodless grey where he’s clenching his fists. There’s more noise from the window - an ominous, glassy creaking. Briar has learned their lesson; they back away, towards the safer end of the room.
Bastian doesn’t move.
‘Seb. Bastian. Get out of the way.’
The only movement is the quick rise and fall of his shoulders as he breathes. The sound of the glass straining against its frame is unbearable, a ringing shriek that goes on and on.
‘Bastian, calm down.’
Briar doesn’t particularly care about preserving the structure of this dorm, but the cut on their forehead is throbbing with the memory of their last encounter with a broken window. If it blows now, it’ll shred Bastian to pieces.
‘Don’t tell me to calm down,’ he says, teeth gritted.
‘I’m sick of your sanctimonious bullshit.
I remember how much you wanted to come here - do you really think you’d have been any different?
If you’d got in and I hadn’t, you’d be standing exactly where I am, and you’d be no fucking saint.
In fact, you’d be worse. You’re not better than me, just because—’
Briar touches him without thinking. It’s that muscle memory again; Bastian’s breaking down, and the only thing to do is to hold him.
That’s the way it’s always been. They put a hand on his arm, gentle but firm, and Bastian’s breath hitches.
The window is still ringing, on and on and on, so Briar pulls Bastian properly into their arms.
Bastian lets out a punched-out sound like all the air has been driven from his lungs.
Anybody else might think he’s about to cry, but Briar knows better.
Bastian doesn’t cry, because his dad told him not to, and it was one of the only things Mr Wolfe demanded of his son that Bastian could actually give him.
His body is so tense that when he lets go, it feels like a collapse; he sags into Briar, the window goes silent, and then they’re just standing there in the middle of the room, embracing, Bastian’s face tucked into the crook of Briar’s neck.
It’s not real, Briar tells themself. That’s the only reason they slide their arms around Bastian’s shoulders instead of moving away. When Bastian’s breathing finally slows, they break apart.
It should be awkward. It isn’t.
‘Sorry.’ Bastian is very red. He steps away, slips the band from his hair and meticulously re-ties it, capturing the strands that have escaped.
‘It’s okay.’
‘I really hate that you’re here.’ That sticks in Briar’s chest like it’s barbed.
‘Thanks.’
‘No, I don’t mean . . .’ Bastian’s hand jerks upwards, like he’s thinking about touching Briar again. ‘Not because of you. Because . . .’
Briar waits, but no explanation is forthcoming. Bastian shakes his head. So they finish the room in silence, go to the next one, divvy up the tasks without speaking.