Chapter 14: Symbiosis

On Thursday, Eric could no longer afford to pretend to be too hurt to leave the house anymore, so he met up with Serena and Tony to finally have a look at some colleges. He didn’t really want to, of course. Not in that “I don’t want to go to college” kind of way but in the “I want all of this to be taken care of without my input” kind of way. There were three in the city proper, they were all having open doors this week, and Lauren had made it clear in no uncertain terms that waiting until the last day would result in severe talkings-to and possibly even a disapproving glare — a fate worse than death. 

I like the city! Amaranth had been excited. She loved the noise, the people, the smells. She was experiencing the world for the first time, and everything was new and fresh. So what’s the point of this college? It sounds very stressful. Eric tried to explain by thinking the answer, which was harder than he’d originally imagined. Structuring his thoughts into comprehensible sentences was something he hadn’t had to do this way before. Explaining to Amy the idea of tertiary education, and how it was kind of necessary to get a well paying job and that those were necessary to afford things like a house and insurance. When Amaranth piped up with an Insurance against what? Eric didn’t really have an answer. Colleges were important, he eventually settled on, because they could teach you things that would be a lot harder to figure out on your own. Humans couldn’t just share memories, after all. 

The first had been a dud. All three of them had known within minutes of walking onto the campus that the place had been far too rich for them. Some of the students wore jackets with leather elbow-pads. Tony had put it succinctly. “I’ve never had the urge to bully anyone before…” The haircuts alone could have launched a conservative campaign. 

The second one was more promising, though. Among other things, it was the one where Tony was going, so Eric was more than a little motivated to see if he’d fit in here. The thought of all three of them studying at the same college was tempting. It would mean meeting up for lunch, hanging out together to cram for tests, and making mistakes possibly involving alcohol together.

The campus wasn’t glamorous. Several buildings had seen better days, and Eric was pretty sure the old observatory was not up to code. On the other hand, the dome was a part of the cityscape and nobody would dream of taking it down. And their journalism courses were comprehensive, to say the least, to the point where Eric worried it would be too much.

“Worst case scenario,” Serena said, “we sit around you and give you coffee and hugs until you’re done with your work. And then we’ll go outside and take pictures for you or whatever it is you nerds do.”

“Don’t you want to do statistics?” Tony said. He was showing them around the campus. 

“Yeah,” Serena said. “But like… cool statistics for normal people.” The main college building was a turn-of-the-19th-century monstrosity that had clearly once been intended to be the pride of the city but now looked completely out of place, dwarfed as it was by modern architecture across the street. “This is nice,” Serena said as they walked up the steps. “I like the gargoyles, really makes me feel like I’m going to be murdered by a musical-singing ghost wearing a cape.”

I wish I could be a gargoyle. Sit on a tall building, let rain fall on my head and make funny faces at the people below. Sounds like a Blast, to be honest. If you could be any kind of brickwork, what would it be? Eric tried not to laugh at Amy’s rambles.

“I think they’re neat,” Tony said. “Really adds to the vibes.”

“Vibes is a quality-neutral term,” Eric said. “If the vibes are absolute clown shoes, the gargoyles just add clown shoes. Nobody needs that many shoes.”

“Or clowns,” Serena added. She squeezed Eric’s nose. He honked diligently. 

Honk honk, Amaranth agreed.

“You’re both nerds,” Tony said. “Buildings like this have character! Sure, that character is your deceased great-great-uncle who you’re pretty sure remembered the civil war, but it’s still character.” The main hall was more modern than the exterior, having made it all the way to the early 70’s before giving up. “Okay, you two go look around,” he added. “I have to go talk to my course supervisor about some things. There’s got to be some faculty around who are eager as hell to give you a tour or something.” He gave them both a fist bump and hurried off in a light jog. They watched him go. 

“That,” Serena said, “is a level of having-your-shit-together I can only aspire to. Armstrong, you’re a freak. Oh hey, a teacher!” Eric was about to ask how she knew the person she was looking at was a teacher, when he spotted the man crossing the landing and immediately stopped. 

The older gentleman wore a tweed jacket that was fraying at the edges. He didn’t look like he was balding as much as he looked like a weathered hilltop with a few shrubberies still holding on for dear life in a storm. A pair of tiny spectacles balanced on the tip of his nose like a bad metaphor, and the man was carrying a stack of papers like he was about to walk into the UN in a disaster movie to tell them the world was ending before being laughed out of the room. He seems nice, Amaranth said. Eric could feel her smile in his head.

“Excuse me, sir?” Eric said, taking a few steps up the stairs towards him. “Are you with the faculty?” It was a silly question, the man looked like he had been part of the original furnishings, but sometimes you had to be polite. The old man gave a warm smile and pushed his glasses further up his nose, immediately sliding all the way back down. They had a long way to go. 

“Yes!” He said, then cleared his throat. “I mean, uh, yes, young man. I’m with the Astronomy department.” He looked expectantly at Eric for a moment, and then seemed to come to a realization about social convention, tucked the papers under one arm and extended a hand. “I’m Professor Suttler.” 

Eric shook it. “Eric,” he said. “McCoy. This is Serena Sessions. I’m not sure if—“

“Could you give us a tour of your department, Professor?” Serena asked. Eric looked at her, trying not to let his confusion show. The old man looked delighted. 

“I would love to!” He said and immediately went up the stairs as he started talking, assuming the two kids would follow. “The astronomy department was actually one of the first that was established. Did you know that the observatory is one of the oldest in the country? Much of the building was constructed around it. It’s been refurbished a few times, of course. If you sign up this year — you are planning on signing up, I hope? — then you will be the last ones to use the old telescope. The entire dome is being rebuilt this year. The mechanism doesn’t open and close like it used to, but it’s still very ‘cool’, I think!”

Eric matched Serena’s pace. “Astronomy? Really? Isn’t that the silly one?”

“No,” she whispered back. “That’s astrology. You can remember it with a simple mnemonic device: Astronomy has nom nom nom stars. Astrology is all like loog at these horoscopes.”

He nearly fucking died. “That’s insane! You could just swap those!”

“Well then don’t,” Serena said. “Besides! Cool old telescope!”

“I didn’t even know you wanted to do… star stuff.”

“Astrophysics,” Serena said. “And me neither, but hey, it has statistics, right?” They hurried to keep up with the old professor who was surprisingly fast for his age. It was like being led around by an old cat. He was still talking as he led them up several stairs.

“Now, not a lot of people come up here anymore,” he said as he led them to a side door, “but since you asked for a side tour I wanted to show you." The door, Eric suddenly realized, led to the outside of the building. They were high up, easily four or five floors. There was a metal catwalk that led up and around the outside of the observatory. 

It was a hot day. The main building was cool, but the weather outside was of the “your shirt immediately sticking to you”-variety. This high up, however, there was a cool breeze. Eric let it blow across his face for a minute, before following Professor Suttler, already going up the stairs, his words blowing away in the wind. The walkway creaked a little bit. 

“This,” the Professor said, waving up at the dome, “is the observatory! It’s a marvel of engineering, really! Hold on, let me see if I can get the mechanism moving. Stay right here and you’ll see the telescope!” Professor Suttler scuttled around the corner, leaving Eric and Serena to look up at the dome, awkwardly waiting for it to start moving. 

“You really wanna do astrophysics?” Eric asked. “I heard that’s hard as hell.”

“As opposed to statistics, which is famously easy.” Serena turned around and looked out at the campus. “I don’t know. My parents want me to choose something already. A part of me wants to do the backpacking thing through Europe for a year, you know? The downside of that, of course…”

“…is Europe,” Eric said sagely. Serena laughed. The wind was playing with her hair and Eric was stuck between trying to appreciate his pretty friend looking photogenic and trying not to breathe her hair. The dome began to hum as the panels rotated. There was a lot of uncomfortable grinding. Replacing it was clearly the best call.

“No. I mean, well, yes. But I’d miss you, Dodo. You and Tony.” She leaned on the railing. “Astronomy could be f—“ 

There was the groan of metal, and the walkway lurched. Eric grabbed a hold of the railing, and looked at where Serena had been a second ago. He looked down, not even thinking as he threw himself over the edge.

Uh, Eric? Amaranth said. I don’t think you can survive this. Not if we’re not bonded. 

“Then bond!” Eric shouted. 

The feeling was instantaneous, like a shot of adrenaline directly into his spine that went all the way up his spine and rocked his brain with fireworks. He didn’t let himself think about it. He had less than a second before Serena hit the ground. Something accelerated him towards her. No matter. No thinking. 

His arms wrapped around her, the fall turned into a glide, and then back up. He came to a full stop. In mid-air. That was strange, but the fact that Serena was alive and in his arms was what mattered. The metal plating of the walkway crashed into the ground below them. “I’ve got you,” he said. He heard the feminine voice of Amaranth’s transformation come out of his mouth. He hadn’t even noticed her putting the mask on. 

Careful now, Amy said, this is harder than it looks. Eric wondered what she meant as they slowly lowered to the ground. The walkway had done some damage to the tiling outside the observatory building. There was a significant amount of debris around them.

“Are you okay?” He asked as their wings slowly folded around Serena. Wait, hold on, wings? He looked around him. A pair of bright red, downy wings was coming from behind him, wrapping itself around the both of them. 

Serena wasn’t even paying attention to them. He had never seen her look that way at anyone, which was probably the shock. She was breathing heavily, and Eric realized she still had her arms around his neck. She was staring right into his eyes. Eyes he knew would be a bright gold. “Yes,” she whispered. “Thank you.” 

“I— I have to go,” he said back. “Close your eyes.” She did. He quickly took a step back. People were already running towards them. Eric felt the wings folding up and, strangely, inside of him as he ducked behind some debris. “Mask off,” he whispered. Amaranth obliged. 

I did good? She asked. 

“You can fly?!?”

Looks like it! Amy said. Although it’d be more accurate to say that we can fly. Look, I’m sure that if we work together with Penumbra we can find a way to undo the bonding process if you want t—

“No,” Eric said as he stood up and made a show of dusting himself off. “Just no.” He kept his voice down. “We just saved Serena’s life. I couldn’t have done that without you.” He ran around the corner. “Serena?!”

“Eric?” Serena said. “What… what happened?”

“Whoever— whoever that was, she caught me,” he lied. “Did she—“

“She saved me,” Serena said. She looked like she was in a trance. “Wow.” Eric was about to ask if she was okay when he was tackled by Tony. 

“ARE YOU OKAY?!” Tony belted. “I am so sorry I wasn’t there!!” He looked like he was about to cry as he picked Eric up off the ground like he weighed nothing. “I’m so sorry you two, if I’d come with y—“

“Tony,” Eric said, dusting himself off a second time. “It’s okay. We’re okay. This new superhero, she saved us. She saved me.” Tony stared at him for a second, tears in his eyes, gritting his teeth. 

“That’s my job,” he said quietly, then pulled both of them into a hug.

Elamimax

Tony is best boy.

Hey this is your reminder that if you like Redshift, the whole story is actually completely finished and you can read it right now on my Patreon, alongside several other unpublished and even patron-exclusive stories! It costs less than a coffee and it lets me do what I do :)

See y'all in the next one!
Ela