Disclaimer: I do not own this maze of bone and flesh and word and wit. But I do swear, that if I dare, I'll make something of it.

A/N: Because I recently found a most excellent fic "Kill the Cliché," by M. George, featuring pscyh!major!Calvin, best!friend!Hobbes, and transfer!student!Susie and it sparked my creative juices something fierce.

When Calvin announced, as a high school senior, that he was going to college to become a psychologist, his parents didn't know whether to be amused or terrified.

On the one hand, the idea of Calvin even being able to pass a psych class was laughable. On the other, the idea of Calvin going to college and taking a psych class was terrifying.

They tried to dissuade him.

"Calvin, honey," his mom tried, "don't you think psychology is, well, sort of… out of your league?"

"How do you mean, Mom?" her son said back, absentmindedly. Helplessly, his mother looked to his father, who cleared his throat.

"She means, son, that you are eighteen years old, about to graduate high school, and you are currently playing checkers with a stuffed tiger."

Calvin exchanged a longsuffering glance with Hobbes, who jumped three of Calvin's red checkers and said, "King me."

"Drat," Calvin mumbled, kinging the black checker and then looking back to his parents.

"I like psychology," he said simply. "And I'm perfectly capable of becoming a psychologist, despite your apparent opinion that I'm too stupid for it."

As his parents tripped over themselves trying to reassure him that they thought no such thing, that he was certainly intelligent enough to do anything he put his mind to, Calvin sat back and contemplated the checker board.

"Two out of three?" he offered Hobbes, glumly. The tiger sneered.

"Not on your life! You'll just cheat next time."

"True," Calvin nodded, not the least bit ashamed.

And Calvin's parents fell silent, because he was talking to that tiger again like it was actually listening, and this was exactly the reason why Calvin as a psychologist was terrifying on so many levels.

000

Susie Derkins tried to tell Calvin that there was no way he'd be accepted into any school, other than community college (which, Susie claimed, was only because they had to take you, at community college), but it was a halfhearted jab, and they both knew it. No one who was as stupid as Susie insisted Calvin was could have built an alternate energy source out of duct tape and paperclips (and dirt and something about isotopes, Susie wasn't really listening, too busy staring in awe at the ultimate scientific achievement taking place in Calvin's backyard) in sophomore year.

Then again, Susie considered, he might actually be stupid after all, because after he had dragged her out to ooh and ahhh over his work, he immediately set to dismantling the entire thing, claiming he needed the parts to build a spaceship for him and his stuffed tiger to fly around Mars in.

Still, she supposed, there had to be some kind of intelligence there, even if it was of the barely alive, flickering light bulb sort.

He got into Harvard. She told herself she was surprised.

He chose to go to NYU instead. This did not surprise her at all.

000

Calvin was eighteen years old the second time he read a psychology book. It took him one hour and he knew what all of the words meant.

He was sitting in the student counselor's office at NYU, waiting for his appointment. The counselor was late, and Calvin was bored, so he picked up the book and started reading.

This book was about adults, instead of children, which Calvin found rather gratifying. He probably would have been insulted if it had been about children –this was college after all. He still thought it was funny though.

"You," said Hobbes, "are no more mature than you were twelve years ago. How are you supposed to pass Psychology 101 if you keep cracking up laughing every time you open the text book?"

Calvin sighed. "That is a problem, isn't it? I suppose I'll just have to train myself out of it. You'll have to help me. Stand over me with a fish while I'm reading, and if I even start to giggle, smack me on the head with it."

"Oh, sure," said Hobbes, gloomily. "That'll help."

The counselor came in and said, "Hello, Calvin. I apologize for my tardiness. I was talking to the dean about something."

"No problem," said Calvin. "I was just reading this book." He held up the psychology text and got a patronizing smile in return.

"Ah, yes. I don't suppose you understood any of it, though."

Calvin shrugged. "Made sense to me. Something about how teenagers and adults often manifest their emotional instability as a psychotic delusion, which allows them to function in real life?"

Blinking, the counselor admitted that this was exactly right. He then took a moment to completely reevaluate what he had been told about this Calvin.

And then he caught sight of Hobbes.

"Er," he said. The stuffed tiger was staring at him.

"Ahem," he said. "Is that… yours?"

Calvin glanced over to the other chair, where Hobbes was sprawled with a comfortably smug expression on his tiger-face. "Oh, you mean Hobbes?"

"Is that what you call it?" the counselor asked cautiously. Calvin's face darkened, slightly.

"His name," he said carefully, "is Hobbes."

"Alright," said the counselor. "Erm. Do you… always bring Hobbes everywhere?"

"Most everywhere," Calvin said. "He gets bored in school, though, so I usually don't bring him to class."

The counselor was beginning to look uncomfortable. "Calvin," he said hesitantly, "you do realize that Hobbes is… a stuffed animal… right?"

For a moment, Calvin's eyes were impossibly dark, before he smiled an amused little smile and said, graciously, "I realize that you see him that way."

Completely uncomfortable now, the counselor took a deep breath and said, "So… Calvin. You want to major in" –he looked down at his notes and choked a little– "psychology?"

Calvin sat back in his chair, glancing over to the tiger with something like a smug look on his face. "Yes," he said, seemingly relishing the sound of the word as it hissed between his teeth. "Exactly."

This was an entirely disturbing concept, so the counselor dropped the subject and let Calvin go with an uneasy smile.

000

Calvin in psychology class was weird for everybody.

Well. Everybody except for Calvin.

His professor couldn't decide between being irritated and being awestruck. The sheer intelligence in this boy was unbelievable, but the way he insisted that his stuffed tiger wasn't an imaginary friend and never had been was sort of… disconcerting.

Calvin's fellow students all wanted to kill him inside the first week. He was too childish, they said, to be in a university classroom. He was too smart, they said, to be acting the way that he did. He was too annoying, they said, for them to be his friends.

Susie Derkins thought that this was most probably an excuse. After all, she was friends with Calvin, of a sort, and she had been putting up with his annoyingness much longer than any of those stupid preps up at NYU had.

Calvin had a blast in Psych 101. He told his mom, when he called home on the weekends, that it was like a cross between Mrs. Wormwood's class in elementary school and playtime with Hobbes. With a little bit of run-ins with Moe on the side.

"But, Calvin," his mother said, concerned, "you hated class with Mrs. Wormwood. And wasn't Moe that kid who used to bully you all the time?"

"Yes, exactly!" was the enigmatic reply. Confused, but unwilling to rain on the parade Calvin was so clearly having, his mother said, "That's nice dear," and hung up, hoping desperately that her son was not being bullied at college.

When Calvin related the conversation to Hobbes, the tiger laughed heartily at the idea of anyone bullying Calvin at NYU.

"Not only," he said, "do you have me for protection, but you barely associate with anybody as it is! They'd have to hunt you down and sit on you in order to bully you!"

Calvin noticed that Hobbes had basically just said that he had no social life and no friends (other than Hobbes himself) but as this was not particularly concerning for Calvin, he said nothing about it.

Susie Derkins did, but her opinion meant only slightly more than it had back in the days of G.R.O.S.S. Slightly.

"Calvin," she said. "You need a social life. While I'm glad you're taking studying seriously now, you need to get out more. Make some friends. And for goodness' sake, leave that tiger at home!"

Calvin forgave her for this, because at least she never referred to Hobbes as a stuffed animal. She had learned that that lesson a long time ago.

"Susie Derkins," he said, in that way he had taken up lately, of calling her by her full name, all the time, "I do have friends."

Rolling her eyes, she countered, "Hobbes does not count, Calvin."

"Why not?" he asked, taking out a notebook. She started to answer, only to stop, scandalized, the next second.

"Are you writing down what I say?!" she screeched. He looked up, confused.

"Of course not," he said after a moment. "I am multitasking." He held up the notebook. "Homework."

She rolled her eyes again and he grinned. "Come on," he said, "let's 'get out.'"

She followed him out of the dorm and into the bright sunlight of the campus courtyard, where kids were playing Frisbee and touch football and just laying on blankets in the sunlight. And Calvin pulled off his t-shirt and Susie pointedly did not look at his bare chest and Hobbes was settled on Calvin's shirt underneath a tree and then Calvin produced a volleyball from out of nowhere and said, "Let's play."

"Oh, good," said Hobbes, from his place beside Calvin's right shoulder. "I've been itching for a good game of Calvinball."

"No," said Susie, "I am not playing this game."

"Yes," said Calvin, "we are."

They played Calvinball, and Susie reluctantly began to enjoy herself, and soon enough all three of them were laughing so hard that Susie didn't even care that all of the other people on the lawn were staring at them.

"This," Calvin said later, as they lay side by side (by side, but Susie didn't know that) on the grass, "is psychology."

And Susie, out of breath and slowly beginning to understand why Calvin always loved his made-up games so much, didn't even question this, but nodded along with Hobbes as Calvin explained.

000

Susie Derkins said, "Calvin is fine, ma'am," to Calvin's mother, who had called her in something of a panic, convinced that Calvin was having an awful time at college. "Really, he's fine. He's doing well in his classes –yes, you heard that right– and he's got Hobbes, you know, so socially… really, he's fine! Yes, I know Hobbes is a stuffed tiger. Yes. Yes, I'll tell him. Alright. Goodbye."

Susie Derkins did not tell Calvin that his mother had called, if only because he looked so very pleased with himself as he waved his Psych 101 midterm in her face and informed her that he'd "broken the curve, whatever that meant."

Hobbes smiled at Calvin with his tiger-smile and said, "Good job, buddy, I knew we could do it."

And Susie pretended not to notice when Calvin gave the tiger a thumbs-up and said, "Thanks, Hobbes."

000

Calvin was eighteen years old and very, very tired, but he'd just completed his first semester at NYU and so he felt that he was justified in collapsing on his old bed in his parent's house and curling up around the tiger that was taking up most of the space.

"Sooooo tired!" he moaned, nuzzling Hobbes' belly. The tiger purred.

"We've got three whole weeks before we have to go back," Hobbes smiled. "It's gonna be great!"

"Yeah…" sighed Calvin, already half asleep.

Calvin's mother peeked into the room half an hour later and couldn't help but smile. Behind her, Calvin's father shook his head in fond exasperation.

Calvin's room looked as though he'd never left. Clothes were strewn everywhere, cardboard boxes took up a solid fourth of the floor space. Psychology books were stacked on the desk, on the floor, and on Calvin's suitcase.

And in the middle of the bed, with blankets twisted all around him, lay Calvin, blond hair tousled every which way and mouth hanging slightly open, a stuffed tiger tucked comfortably under his arm…

"Our son the psych major," his father snickered. "God help those folks at NYU!"

Calvin's mother shushed her husband, but she was smiling just as brightly as she carefully closed the door.

000

Calvin was six years old the first time he ever read a psychology book. It took him five hours and he had to look up two words in the dictionary ("psyche" and "id").

Calvin loved the book. He thought it was very funny. Hobbes thought it was stupid.

This could be because there was a special section of the book about "Imaginary Friends." Calvin read this chapter out loud to Hobbes, with undisguised glee. Hobbes was not amused.

It was a very long book –nearly 700 pages– and it was about children and children's psychology. Calvin's parents had gone and bought the book after Calvin started kindergarten –possibly hoping that it would help them gain some sort of insight into their son's mind.

Hobbes gave it an A for effort.

"When I grow up," Calvin said, "I'm going to be a psychologist."

Hobbes rolled his eyes. "You're never going to grow up, Calvin," he stated with utter certainty.

Calvin, acknowledging that this was true, amended his previous statement.

"When I get older," Calvin said, "I'm going to be a psychologist."

"Sure," said Hobbes. "Sounds like fun. Just none of that crap about imaginary friends, you hear?"

A/N: I'm getting "The Complete Calvin and Hobbes" in from the library any day now. I am so excited.