#also i'm queuing this because its like 2am

[starlightsmusings]

Title:  Life Would be Dull if we Simply Remained Roommates

Pairing: PruCan

Prompt: Classic AU - College/Roommates

Ao3 link

The first time Madeleine met Gillian was during her first class at college, a generic, first year class that had way too many people, that luckily (in her opinion) only met once a week. Maddie didn't dislike the pale girl, but they never really had a conversation. Sure, Gillian talked in class, and she at least seemed to know what she was talking about, but at the end of the day, Maddie just thought of her as another classmate.

Gillian became more of a constant in Maddie's life when the second semester rolled around, and they ended up sharing two classes together--a generic college writing class and a history class. Apparently, Maddie learned, they had the same Major and Minor, History and Art, meaning that they would be sharing a lot of classes in the future. Maddie quickly got used to Gillian emailing her with questions about homework (along with asking plenty of her own), which normally led to brainstorming sessions between the two of them.

A month later, Maddie found she actually liked having Gillian around, and by the time roommate selection for the next year happened, they had both decided that they would probably be the best choice for each other. Maddie didn't really know many people on campus, as besides classes, she didn't socialize much. Her current roommate, who she rarely saw, was transferring to a different school. Gillian, on the other hand, did happen to know a lot of people, but didn't know (or perhaps "liked" as Maddie mused) any of them well enough to room with. Her other friends, Maddie found out one day, had gone to different colleges.

"Franny went to some fancy culinary school in California and Toni went to the local community college. ‘Big family problems’ I guess."

Gillian never elaborated much more on that.

Long nights, and even longer days seemed to pass as they got closer to finals. The projects got bigger, and free time disappeared into a dream they once had. It seemed that finals would never end. But they did, and finally, Maddie and Gillian were done with their first year of college. Maddie was going home to her large family and planning on working at the local bookstore. Gillian, however, had plans to visit family in Germany.

Their summer seemed short-lived when both got emails reminding them when move-in date was, and that classes, unlike when they were freshmen, started the day after they moved in. (Maddie simply was happy to move back away from the hecticness that was her family).

-Is there like any way you wanna decorate the room- Gillian texted Maddie one day.

Maddie paused for a minute, and realized that she hadn’t put a single thought to how their room might look like since summer had started. All of her stuff from her first year was still in a pile in one of the closets, and she vaguely remembered Amy bugging her to go dorm shopping, but they had conflicting schedules so it never ended up happening.

-whatever works. I might just bring stuff from last year- she texted back.

-good. i was hoping you werent gonna wanna be matchy-matchy. u didnt take me as the type. c ya move-in day birdie!-

Maddie was actually surprised when she got to her new room, and didn't see a single trace of Gillian. It wasn't until 4pm, long after her own parents had left, did she even see Gillian. And Gillian being Gillian, definitely made an entrance. Maddie could hear her fumbling down the halls, probably cursing in German about how heavy her bags were (because she was too awesome to only carry one or two at a time) and how far she had to travel, in both driving and from her parking space.

After hearing her attempt at opening the door with much-too-full hands, she took pity and opened the door, only to have Gillian fall into a pile onto the floor.

Peeking up through silver hair, a cheeky grin appeared on Gillian’s face. “Missed me?”

Maddie couldn’t help but smile and offer her hand to her fallen roommate.

“Of course, you huge dork.”

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t English.”

“Unless my Calc book mysteriously changes languages when I’m not looking, it’s in English.”

Maddie glared at her roommate/study partner from across the table as they sat in the common room. “Then explain what the heck question 36 is even asking.”

“It’s asking how fast the length of the rope is changing.”

“You didn’t even look.”

Gillian smirked and held up her Ancient Civilisations textbook. “Already finished, dear birdie.”

“That’s not fair,” Maddie whined. She mustered up what she could only hope was a face Gillian would take pity on. “Teach me?”

Gillian had seemed flustered for a second, and muttered something that Maddie could only partially understand. She was positive she heard the word ‘cute’ somewhere in the mix.

Gillian had wanted to strut right out of the classroom and flip her teacher from hell the bird as she did once she had taken a look at the test.

She cursed her ego that many had claimed was ‘too big.’ She wasn’t going to let a silly test get the best of her. She was Gillian freaking Beilschmidt. She could totally handle a little philosophy test.

She briefly glanced at the blonde sitting next to her, and wanted to groan in frustration when she realized that Maddie was already on the second page, writing what was practically paragraphs for each question.

Alright, maybe if she just started answering questions she knew the answers to, the rest would come back to her.

Or maybe she would just see if Maddie was willing to tutor her for future tests. (Maddie ended up laughing and muttering something about ‘payback’).

The next year they decided that they would try splitting a quad with two of their classmates--a quiet Japanese biology major and a very bubbly Finnish girl who was in a pre-vet program. It worked out well for the most part. They each had their own (much smaller) room, and there was a small common area that they would all gather in, to either watch a movie or try and help each other on homework.

There were definitely certain incidents that happened (Gillian had made a point to clean out their small fridge every week after a certain one), but everything remained fairly normal throughout the year.

Well, mostly.

It wasn’t a crush.

Well, according to her ‘manuals-for-everything’ sister it was a crush. But life and manuals were two separate things. There were plenty of things that worked well in manuals and rule books that never worked in real life. (She couldn’t think of any right now, but they were bound to exist).

Sure, she always thought that the blonde (that she totally did not have a crush on, thank you very much) was cute. But you would have to be blind to not think she was cute, with her long loose curls, and oversized sweaters, and glasses that seemed almost too big. And the way her eyes would light up anytime you mentioned anything history related, or told her that the cafeteria was having pancakes for dinner (which she would always say how it wasn’t as good as hers, and mention how one day she would have to make some to prove it). Or how she would bring her hands up to cover her face when she was flattered or embarrassed. Or how she was definitely Not Functional until she had some large, preferably iced, caffeinated drink with an inhuman amount of sugar.

Okay, so maybe not everyone would notice those, but she was still cute.

Very cute.

And adorable. Funny. Smart. And pretty darn awesome.

Gillian let that register in her mind.She thought that Birdie (cute, adorable, witty Birdie) was awesome.

She couldn’t remember the last time she called anyone but herself ‘awesome.’

Well, shit. Maybe it is a crush.

How long was it until she could go back? 3 days, 16 hours, and 27 minutes.

Two of her siblings and her father were yelling at the TV about what she could only assume was a game. Her mother and her youngest brother were in the kitchen, supposedly making some form of dessert for the dinner tomorrow. She could barely hear music from one of her sister’s rooms. And Amy was trying to keep her attention by talking her ear off about her own adventures at her college.

“So anyways, me and this girl, we decide, hey, why not try to see how much stuff we could get away with in class. There’s one teacher, and like, a million of us.”

3 days, 16 hours, and…..25 minutes.

“Maddie? Ya there?”

She blinked a few times, and realized that her sister had been waving her hands in her face.

“Oh. Sorry.” Her hands instinctively went to move one of her curls out of her face. “I must still be tired from the flight.”

“Or you’re just missing your girlfriend,” Amy muttered.

“Amy!” Maddie could feel the blush already form on her cheeks. I knew I shouldn’t have told her! She looked around briefly, and thanked her lucky stars that most of her family was still absorbed in the game. “I told you, we aren’t dating!”

“You just wish you were.”

Maddie had no response to that. She had come to terms long ago that her feelings for Gillian were less than platonic, and had only accidentally let it slip to her sister a couple of days prior when she had been too tired to filter her thoughts from exiting her mouth. It hadn’t taken long after that for her sister to make her spill her feelings that she had been bottling up for at least the past six months.

“Look,” her sister started in between bites. “The worst that happens is that she doesn’t talk to you anymore, and while it would suck at first, it would just mean she obviously isn’t good enough for you. But from the sounds of it, I don’t think you’ll have that problem.”

Maddie could only hope her sister was right.

The movie on the TV has been practically muted once the quiet hours had started. They had been trying to take advantage of the fact that they were some of the lucky few who didn’t have a final on Saturday, and had put on some movie to pass the time. Unfortunately, their quadmates had quickly reminded them that they still did, thus the door to Maddie’s room had been closed and the movie might as well have been off.

Maddie had cursed her luck. At first, they were just going to watch something in the common area, but they had been quickly reminded about the quiet hours for finals, and Gillian had suggested Maddie’s room, knowing that hers had more pillows and blankets, plus she actually had a small TV in her room. They had done that plenty of times before, but that had been long before Maddie’s recent conversation with her sister, and always with the door open and something in the background to distract Maddie from the fact that Gillian was leaning completely up against her.

“Are you even still watching?” Gillian mumbled.

“Uh, well…” To be honest, she had no idea how the characters had even gotten on the submarine, and she was pretty certain at least half the cast was different.

“Good.” Gillian reached one of her hands from under the covers that the two of them had wrapped around themselves and used the remote to turn the movie off.

If Maddie thought it was quiet before, it was dead silent now.

“So…” she started, noticing that GIllian hadn’t bothered to move from where she was sitting. “Are you planning on staying here?”

“I’m comfortable.” Maddie could have sworn she felt Gillian’s muscles tense. “Do you not want me to?”

“No!” That caused both of them to jump slightly. “I mean, I just figured, you might want want to sleep in your own bed.” It wasn’t like they hadn’t passed out on either one of their beds before, but they had always been on their own side, or whatever movie or show they had picked had simply lulled them to sleep.

There was another much too long pause.

“I was actually hoping I could talk to you about something.” Gillian’s voice was quiet, and her long silver hair was blocking Maddie’s view so she couldn’t see what expression was on Gillian’s face. “I think I like someone.”

Maddie never thought it was possible to feel her heart jump and her stomach sink at the same time.

“R-really?”

“Yeah.” Gillian shifted slightly so she was leaning against the wall behind her instead of against Maddie. She twisted her hands together as she was trying to put together her thoughts. “I just don’t know if I should tell them. But if I don’t tell them now, then I have to hope nothing happens over winter break.”

Quickly running through their list of friends, Maddie couldn’t think of anyone who it might be. While Gillian knew a lot of people, there was only a small handful that she would willingly spend time with, especially at college. Well, except herself, a small, hopeful thought plagued the back of her mind.

“What’re they like?”  Maddie could feel her palms getting sweaty. She knew it was a huge gamble, but she knew she had to face her own feelings at some point.

“They….They’re really nice. And cute. Very quiet when you first meet them, but surprisingly sarcastic.”  She was tiptoeing. Trying to avoid anything too specific, but trying to be specific enough to hopefully get her point across. “Really smart when it comes to languages and words. Horrible with math though.”

“So she’s someone you had class with?” Maddie noticed that Gillian was trying her hardest to not look at her.

“A lot of them.”

Gillian froze, knowing full well that that would probably be more than enough to give herself away. Maddie had been in most of her classes due to their shared major, and Gillian had never been quiet about who she didn’t like from her classes. Really, it would only be a matter of time….

“What would you do if she said she liked you back?”

Gillian would register the whiplash later, but for now her attention was focused on the blushing blonde sitting next to her. She knew she should say something, anything, but for once her mouth refused to make a sound.

Apparently Maddie’s body had decided that enough was enough for both of them, and moved to close the distance between them. She didn’t even realize what was happening until she felt her lips briefly touch Gillian’s.

“Wow.”

Neither were sure who said it, or even if it was just one, but it caused both of them to start quietly laughing. At some point, the giggling had mostly stopped, and the two found themselves laying down, an arm wrapped around the other, and fingers intertwined

“We should sleep.”

Maddie didn’t reply, as she was practically asleep on Gillian’s shoulder.

They could sort out the details in the morning, when they were more awake and less giddy. But for now, Gillian thought as she placed a quick kiss on Maddie’s forehead before falling asleep herself, this would be enough.