Half Baked

Chapter 1

"What?"

Al twisted his neck back to see a fellow college student standing in the common area entrance. The student he'd seen every so often had that same annoyed look on his face, but this time it was more frustrated than anything.

"Do you ever sleep?" The frustrated student asked. "You're always here watching the TV and lying on the couch like you own it." His body was stiff as if he was trying to hold back an outrage he'd played through his head dozens of times for the past week. "You're not the only student on this floor. The rest of us would like a quiet place to study late at night."

Al's mouth opened, and he nodded. "Yeah, you know there's a library just down the street. Right? They haven't moved it?"

He huffed as anger filled his eyes. "No, they haven't moved the library, and I'm surprised! I'm surprised that we still have a place to…cultivate knowledge while meatheads like you go here! You don't do anything exc—"

A dorm door labeled 419 creaked open beside Arthur, interrupting his rant. "Hey. Ezra Pound, cool it. It's like fucking 1 in the morning. I know extra special college kids like you have to stay up until like fucking 4 but you don't have to be an asshole about it. Chill."

A grin played on Al's lips as he heard his roommate chew out the frustrated student. Thank God Al had a dorm room right next to the common area so he could watch TV while Matt studied or slept.

The dorm door closed, leaving the frustrated student significantly less frustrated and mostly embarrassed. "It's Arthur," he muttered his comeback.

"Nah, Ezra fits you," Al called back to him as he changed the channel. "Literary elitist from the 1900s. Sounds about right. You got the accent down and everything."

Al heard nothing from Arthur except the pad of his thumb tapping against a phone screen. "Ezra Pound was an American."

"Yeah. Just testin' ya. Guess you're not an English major; you would've known without having to Google it."

Arthur went quiet again.

Al watched as the channels flipped through house-hunting, ghost-hunting, pranking, artifact-hunting, and finally stopped on kittens returning from a commercial break with a narrator explaining their behavior.

Al lifted his right arm from the couch's back to make room for Arthur. "What's wrong with your dorm? Is your studying too loud for your roommate?"

Arthur's book creaked as he squeezed it before his slippers scuffed against the carpet. He sat against the arm of the couch, trying to force at least a foot of space between himself and Al. Arthur tucked some blond hair behind an ear and sighed. "Alfred frequently hangs a sock over the doorknob after I leave for dinner."

Kittens of all patterns and colors twisted on the TV as playtime sapped up their energy. Al rested his right arm over the couch's back again.

"I end up grabbing a textbook, a notebook, and a pencil so I can take notes while reading chapters—after I eat, of course. So I'm down there for an hour at the least. And when I come back…" Arthur huffed and curled in tighter. "Well… I just tell him to use his bed and not mine for it. Selfish prick. Just because he's here with a football scholarship, he thinks he can do whoever and whatever he wants."

"So that's why you hate meatheads like me."

Arthur's face pinched with the hot sting of shame. When he spoke, his voice became hesitant to shelter his pride, "You're…not a meathead. Sorry."

"Mhm. I'm sorry, too, but if you think it's best that I'm not a meathead…"

"What?" Arthur lifted an eyebrow and glanced at Al. "You're reaching. That joke is reaching way too far."

Al let out a breath of a laugh before quickly settling back down. "Yeah. I get less funny the higher the moon goes."

They sat in silence as the kittens faded to a taco commercial.

"… You know, the moon's rising doesn't really correlate with the transition between day and night," Arthur murmured. "If you look closely, you can see it during the day. Its schedule is different from the Earth's rotations."

Al kept his eyes on the slow-motion shots of tacos and burritos spinning under a filter that'd make a soap opera editor jealous.

"Just a fun fact from the astronomy department." Arthur's eyes passed between the television and Al.

Al's only response to outside stimulus was his eyes widening ever so slightly when he heard the long, long lists of side-effects the new advertised medicine had.

Arthur felt Al's interest plummet, and his stomach stirred with the need to prove himself astonishing. "You know time travel is conceivably possible. Uncontrollable. Dangerous. Theoretical. But maybe possible."

"Did the stars tell you that?"

"Wh… No, that's astrology."

Al glanced to Arthur with a sly smile and a lifted brow.

"…Joke. Right."

Al nodded, and his gaze fell back on the television. A merely sketched out cartoon character hopped on screen to quickly relay the dangers of smoking. Al felt his taste buds beg for the pack of cigarettes he had stashed away in his pillowcase. In the best effort to distract himself (and to avoid Matt's annoyance upon being interrupted a second time), Al started up the conversation again, "Are you always there when he wakes up?"

"Hm?" Arthur had allowed himself to be lulled into the white noise of commercials.

"You and your roommate. Whenever he wakes up after a sex night, are you in bed?"

Al heard Arthur huff. He nodded, but was thoroughly displeased with the anger he felt when he thought of his roommate booting him from his own room at every possible opportunity.

Al pulled his arms from the couch's back and spread out his blanket over Arthur's legs as well as his own. "Then we'll give him a scare. The common area doesn't close, so we can stay out here for the night."

"Won't you want to go back to your dorm?"

Al shrugged and thumbed at the door that had opened previously. "I'm right in there with Matt. If he's worried, he can just open the door. 'Sides. I sleep on this couch all the time. According to you, I own it."

Arthur gave Al a sheepish smile. "…I really am sorry for yelling at you."

"I know. I'm just giving you a hard time. Not 'cause I hate you or anything," Al assured him. His thumb brushed against the back of Arthur's neck. "But I mean if you're all broken up about it, you could help me out with astronomy. Or something. 'Course I'd have to give you my number so you can send me all my test answers."

"Mm, am I being bullied into being your cheat sheet?"

"Yup. This is bullying. Hand over your phone or the TV's going off."

Arthur clicked his tongue and with a brief roll of his eyes, he pulled out his phone. "Number?"

Al laughed softly and then rattled off his number. Arthur's thumb fled around his touchscreen as he entered it in. "And the name's Al Jones."

"No, it isn't."

"Uh, yeah, it is."

"No, that's too close to Alfred's. I'll get you two mixed up." Arthur muttered as he erased the name he'd typed in. "How do you feel about 'prick' or 'Poe?' Or 'Nostradamus?'"

"Holy shit. No. How about Dark Demon Lord Al: Ruler of the Sexy? Totally not cringy and will last forever."

Arthur's thumb tapped away at his phone as he held back snickers.

"Wait, what're you writing? Hey. He— No, don't you shake your head—" Al switched his position and began climbing over Arthur to try and read the phone which Arthur kept holding farther and farther away. "Hey— Arthur, don't you fucking have me as Dark Demon Lord Al: Ruler of the Sexy in your phone! Holy fuck—"

Half of Arthur's body strained over the side of the couch as he held his phone out as far as he could. "No, Al!" He allowed himself to laugh at the thought of keeping his new acquaintance in his phone under his chosen title. "Matt! Matt, help! Al's heavy!"

The dorm door labeled 419 swung open in front of them. Both Al and Arthur froze. Matt eyed Arthur's phone before snatching it out of Arthur's hand. The room sucked Matt and Arthur's phone back inside, and the door shut with the 'click' of a lock.

Arthur's throat croaked as he realized his phone had essentially been stolen.

"Guess it's bed time," Al hummed, unbothered. He reached over Arthur and clicked the common area's light off. He settled back onto his side of the couch and yanked the blanket up to his shoulders, giving Arthur only a few feet of blanket. "You'll get your phone back, and I'll get my room key tomorrow morning."

The kittens appeared on the television again, and Arthur watched them trip and scramble over each other as Al settled quickly into slumber. Al didn't seem to be the most polite friend Arthur could've made, but he seemed honest enough—and much less likely to hang a sock on the dorm door with Arthur trapped outside.