Day in the Life: Chapter 3
you get it by now, right? this one is kinda long btw, but it only gets longer from here honestly, now also featuring reaction images bc i don't feel like going through and removing all of them
check out part 1 and 2 somewhere on my page
The most notable thing about sacred heart upon first glance is A) almost hitting a student with the bus. And B) the diner. NEED to go to a diner fr. Those who were on Bus 1 emerge arguing, something about Kayla and Florian cheating, MacK playing wrong and accumulating more wealth than she should’ve, Dean outplayed everyone (exception of the cheaters) and Riley tried and failed to mediate. The group bicker with each other, Max follows quietly, for the first time in his life, content with not being the center of attention.
Those who were on Bus 2 are feeling lighthearted as they step down from their bus, they had a nice ride without wanting each other dead. Well there were a few times, but their overall demeanors suggest that the ride was without many altercations. Grylie Evstin stick close together as they always do. Tori and Kate converse, Astarion sticks close to Tori, side eyeing Rose closely. The group meets up again.
Florian, of course, speaks up first upon scrutinizing Ace, “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Thanks for noticing.” Ace deadpans. Ace is in fact seeing a ghost. They are debating electroshock therapy to get rid of their memories of him.
A tour guide calls for the group of students’ attention. They gather round. Well actually they sit in a big room and get talked at but that was boring and we don’t care about that honestly. None of them are even considering Sacred Heart, especially not after the massacre. Stay tuned for THAT.
Totally not for plot reasons, the whole group stay together for the tour. Rose steps on a lantern fly, she’s surrounded by their corpses, she knows what she must do. The tour guide disregards the beginning of a massacre, no one can stop Rose anyway. The tour guide leads them to Big Red, whispers promises of good luck… by rubbing his head.
“Tori, Tori!! You should rub my head instead of Big Red’s!!! I’m luckier than that… thing!!” Max insists, bowing to offer his head to Tori. Astarion kicks him in the back of the knee and smiles as Max falls.
“Thanks, Astarion.” Tori nods, offering her boyfriend a thumbs up.
The head of the metal man is slowly being worn down by the hands that caress his cool, hard flesh.
The tour continues. The corpses continue to pile up. Rose is using her special abilities to take out lantern flies. Ace is now following in suit putting all their grief and anger and slight trepidation into stomping on lantern flies. Hurray.
The tour guide is trying to recruit the group but let’s be real those guys are NOT listening. Exception of maybe Florian, who is taking notes, however he is kinda disgusted by the lantern flies, but then again there’s an eradication event going on right about now. Rose and Ace are having the time of their lives.
Dean and Riley are near the back, “I don’t think I’m ever going to go to college.” Dean admits quietly, he’s unsure if he’s proud of it or not.
“How come?” Riley asks, tilting her head slightly.
“Hunting things, saving people, you know, the family business.” Dean runs a hand through his hair, he keeps it short, safer on hunts that way. Plus, people say hair holds memories and Dean has seen things he never wants to recall.
“Oh. Right.” She nods awkwardly. She wants to be helpful but that’s something she could never even begin to understand. She wonders if she should ask Astarion, the roles would be reversed but a little bit of insight might be nice if Dean is fighting demons she can’t see.
In reality, she should be asking Rose who is currently doing all the hunting.
“Go Rose!!” Someone cheers. Of course an all-powerful entity like Rose has adoring fans.
Someone was actually just Kayla, who actually hates bugs. She doesn’t care that they’re invasive, doesn’t care about feeling bad for killing bugs in their natural habitat or anything, just really hates bugs. It’s all the same in her mind.
(I don’t actually remember anything that happened outside of the bugs uh.)
The tour guide brings the group to the chapel where Astarion is met with a moment of hesitation. The tour guide insists that Astarion is allowed to come in even if he’s not religious. She has NO clue of the real reason he’s so hesitant. Astarion cautiously steps in.
The tour guide starts monologuing about the chapels and mass times and the temples and mosques and stuff found on campus.
“Does anyone smell something burning?”
Everyone looks to Astarion who is slowly turning red. Within seconds, he becomes ash.
The group is immediately rushed out of the chapel and back to the buses, permanently banned for bringing a “demon” to a place called SACRED Heart.
“Rose, bring him back.” Tori crosses her arms and scolds her mother.
“D’wanna.” Rose crosses her arms and snarks back.
“Bring him back. Right now.” Tori points to the ground.
“Ughhhhh. Fiiiiiiiiiiiine.” Rose relents and coughs up the few soul fragments she ate off of him earlier. Using the power to create matter, she rebuilds Astarion and replaces his consciousness with one that was his is a universe almost identical to theirs. Like. One where Ace had good taste in men, instead of this one.
Anyways. I dont remember anything about Fairfield, just know, Astarion died in the chapel again. He was rebuilt and replaced, no worries.
THE DOG THE DOG THE DOG. I love you Jonathan 🫶
The gang gets to pet another statue. Good luck!!! Yay!! I don’t remember anything else tbh. I do NOT be remembering. Uh.
Fast forward to dinner at UCONN?!?!?!!!?!?!?
The group, naturally, find a table in the far back.
The moment the tour guide finishes speaking, nyoom. Seconds later Grant Gustin returns to the table with 5 plates of food. Two of them are entirely pasta. He’s carbmaxxing.
“That’s… a lot.” Kate says slowly, looking at plates.
“We’ve seen him eat three rotisserie chickens in one lunch period, this is light work.” Ace replies, getting ready to leave the table with the others. Grant Gustin used his super speed to get his stuff, the others still gotta get their food fr!!!
“We gotta try the pizza, Connecticut is allegedly the pizza capital of the U.S.” Kylie points out, referring to a sign she and Ace saw on the way in.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Kate claims and she would know, she’s a pizza connoisseur.
“Over like… New York… or Chicago?” Riley asks, skeptical.
“That’s what we said.” Ace nods, then glances at… no one on their left, “Right?”
Dean leans over to whisper to whoever is closest, for once, it’s not Riley, “...Is there someone I’m not seeing?”
Kylie responds, “We think they’re hallucinating their dead boyfriend.”
Dean nods, “Oh. It happens. Mine went to super hell to protect me.”
Kylie stops and stares at Dean for a second because what in the fanfic does THAT mean. What even is super hell. Kylie has been on Earth since the beginning and never once heard of super hell, she wonders if it’s like a worse version of the speed force. She honestly figures she doesn’t want to know and just nods. Twin does NOT need to worry about Grant Gustin going to super hell which would likely be her next line of thought. Kylie accepts defeat and walks away to go get dinner, she, like everyone, is wondering if college food sucks,
Riley, being bold for once, takes Dean’s hand and leads him behind Kylie and into the belly of the beast (the college dinner place). There’s not really a lot honestly. Salad, pizza, pasta. That’s like it. There’s cookies and ice cream for dessert but that doesn’t really serve any purpose at this point. There is pepsi though, that’s pretty cool. We like pepsi here. Everyone disperses in favor of eating because Amelia knows a bunch of hangry teenagers is like a recipe for disaster. Well, to be fair, our specific group together is already pretty bad but imagine adding the element of being hangry? Multiple supernatural creatures and eldritch beings and otherwise being hangry in one place? Say goodbye to this timeline.
Anyways. Everyone returns to the table and quickly they realize Connecticut pizza is kinda mid. Not worth calling it the pizza capital of the US. They’re rewriting the ‘welcome to Connecticut' sign for Rose to magically change when Max returns to the table with… Florian but in an ever so slightly different font?
“You guys!! Another French guy and I like this one!!!” Max exclaims, throwing Astarion’s plate (he keeps one for aesthetic, the teachers get worried when he doesn’t at least have a plate even though he doesn’t eat human food) into the trash.
Astarion takes a deep breath and sneers, “You’re so lucky we’re in public.”
Tori places a hand on Astarion’s shoulder, “Max. That’s Florian. We know Florian.” The carbon copy smiles a little wider.
“Yeah no that’s not Florian. Florian doesn’t smile, the muscles in his face that form into a smile have atrophied. That’s a skinwalker right there.” Ace looks the carbon copy up and down.
The group swears they hear the wind whisper, “Didn’t know Connecticut had those. Wouldn’t have kms if I knew that.” They conveniently ignore it.
“That has to be Florian though. We would’ve noticed if there were two of them.” Kate muses, squinting at the carbon copy.
“Yeah. If there were two mean French twinks, not counting Max, we’d totally know. Tori’s twink finding sense would’ve started tingling!” Kayla very helpfully points out.
“Oh come on!” Tori crosses her arms. Astarion wordlessly uncrosses her arms and places her hand back on his shoulder.
“What? It’s true!” Kayla defends her point, “Right, Mack?”
Mack was building an ice cream… concoction with Wyll but she agrees anyway because she’s Mack, “Right!”
Max finally speaks up again to get everyone’s attention, “GUYS–”
The carbon copy cuts him off, “I’m–”
Ace cuts the carbon copy off, “Yeah no. The accent’s wrong, that’s not Florian.”
“Why do you have his accent memorized?” Grant gustin finally pulls himself out of carbmaxxing to question.
“I know the voices that egg on my super ego.” Ace answers simply, taking a sip of pepsi, “Riley’s for example.”
“I’m not that mean to you.” Riley defends herself mid pizza bite.
“We’re all pretty mean to each other, to be fair.” Rose validates both points. Riley is very mean to Ace but everyone is mean to everyone so Ace's point is still kinda moot. No one is right but everyone is right. Call that Schrodinger's Correctness.
Before they can derail once more, “Can I introduce myself or not–”
Never guess what? Carbon copy is cut off AGAIN, this time by Florian, “Eugene, what’re you doing here?”
“Hot guy invited me to sit with you guys. Make room, twin of mine.” Eugene elbows Florian in the side and this is the most disgusted anyone has seen Florian look since the first time he heard Ace open their mouth.
“Pute.” Florian sneers at his twin.
“What did Maman say about s/ut shaming :/” Eugene places his plate next to Max’s and crosses his arms as he looks at his twin mockingly.
“It’s almost uncanny, those two…” Wyll mutters at the two brothers, literal carbon copies of each other. Just realized I never introduced Wyll. I’ve decided he’s in MacK’s advisory and he started talking to her on the bus, something about sympathy for Gale’s death (he always liked her and is trying to shoot his shot now that Gale is dead).
“It’s like someone hit copy and paste.” MacK whispers in response.
“I have a twin. Why is that such a big deal??” Florian asks, pushing his salad around on his plate. Ace places a chicken nugget on his plate and he glares. He stabs it and eats it, but glares.
“There’s just.. Two of you. You’re already… a lot, for lack of a better word.” Astarion says slowly, not intending to offend but it’s FLORIAN. Well no, he definitely wants to offend but Tori told him he has to be nice to people.
“He’s worse. Different spectrum, but worse.” Florian informs the group.
“I don’t think anyone could be worse than you.” Ace points out because Ace hates Florian’s guts. He doesn’t dignify the schoolyard taunt with a response.
“Can I speak now?” Eugene asks finally.
“No.” Florian says swiftly.
“Any other opinions?” Eugene looks to the rest. Collectively, just because it was Max who brought him over, they also decide no, he may not speak.
“Can’t we just be nice–” Max is again cut off.
“Nope, you can’t talk either.” Astarion slaps a hand over Max’s mouth.
Everyone smiles gleefully at the shutting up of everyone’s least favorite twink. Life is good, sure, there’s a new twink to worry about, but who cares? The group breaks into randomized groups as they talk, kinda like actual lunch. Like Tori, Kylie, Max & Astarion (considered one entity, not two people) will be talking about one. Rose tortures Grant Gustin while Kylie is distracted. Kate, not having her ear buds, joins the conversation between Dean and Riley. Kayla, MacK, and Wyll discuss Kayla's most recent interest, this one guy named Law. Florian sits in silence because he hates everyone at the table. Ace is working on some writing piece or another while whispering to their grief induced hallucination. Eugene is trying his best to find where he fits in (we all know it’s going to be with the other twinks but. We can pretend).
Anyways. The admins have decided that dinner should end right here, right now because they have a game to catch!! Everyone tosses their plates and begins the walk to the volleyball game.
“Dude, do you think this is gonna be like Haikyuu?” Ace looks at Kayla on the arena, cort, whatever.
“Ace.” Kayla places a hand on Ace’s shoulder, “This is definitely gonna be like a Haikyuu game.”
“WELL.” Eugene, the Florian carbon copy and supposed identical twin cuts in, “Football, or soccer to you Americans, is way better than volleyball.”
“Nobody cares. Shut up.” Florian smacks his brother in the back of the head as he walks forward.
“Come on, Eugene, don’t make me agree with Florian.” Ace complains, unsure which bothers them more, the sound of Eugene’s voice and useless opinions or Florian’s entire existence.
Meanwhile, “I remember the last time I was in Connecticut. Dad, Sammy, and I were taking care of a vamp nest–”
Astarion sneers, “You don’t say?”
“Yeah man, I don’t know what you want me to say. They were sucking people dry, ya know, ganking them.” Dean shrugs, not all too worried about offending Astarion, who grimaces
“Eugene sucks people dry too, could you.. Gank him too?” Florians asks, bro has BEEF with his twin brother.
“I also volunteer Max!” Tori adds her two cents to the conversation with a grin. Max looks ever so offended by this request.
“I’m not above it.” Dean decides, eye flitting around. Likely for witnesses.
“NO. WE’RE NOT KILLING ANYONE.” Riley scolds, she’s so sick and tired of having to baby her friends and keep them from committing crimes and other wordly (and unwordly) troubles. Dean raises his hands in defeat, it’s been less than 24 hours and he’s decided that he’s entirely devoted to Riley and if she says no to killing, then, unfortunately, no killing. Dean knows he could die any day at any time in his line of work so he lives hard and fast, he loves hard and fast. He’s not one for commitment so he’s not sure how long this… thing with Riley will last but he holds fast for now. The last time he decided to be this devoted to a person, they went to super hell.
Instead these guys just end up at a volleyball game. There are metal detectors. Knowing us, that can’t be good at all.
Rose tries to walk through and she sets off the metal detector, “My bad.” She takes a bomb out of her pocket. She tries again and it goes off, “My bad.” She discards a knife from her person. She tries again and sets the alarm off again. She sighs heavily and gets rid of her long sword back from the war. She tries again and proceeds to set off the alarm again, “Sorry again.” She puts down her 9mm and tries again. The alarm goes off. She throws her katana away and almost hits Max, “Crap. I missed.”
“HEY.” Max tries to advocate for himself but he’s cut off by the metal detector going off again.
Rose huffs once more, “I can’t believe this.” She gets rid of a sniper rifle, a musket, a hunting knife, some c4, a couple sticks of dynamite, and a few blocks of TNT. The machine still goes off. Everyone is staring in horror at this point. She gives up. She snaps her fingers and everything disappears for a moment. When everything returns to normal she’s on the other side of the metal detector and no one is none the wiser to everything she put back in her pockets nor the things that never left her pockets.
Dean has to dump all his weapons, Astarion has to pour out his thermos and leave what will likely become a crime scene in the near future when someone finds a random pool of blood, Rose has to leave all excess energy outside to be regained at a later time (side effect of everything she just prior), and Grant Gustin can’t bring in all the snacks he brought to satisfy his carb needs because he’s yet to get a doctor’s note about that when he really should.
After THAT let down, the game has started and everyone is just getting in. Uconn Huskies vs Karasuno Crows. Personally, I’ve never seen a husky and a crow fight but here we are tonight, folks. UCONN vs KARASUNO, who’s winning?!?!
“Wait, does anyone understand volleyball?” Tori ends up.
“They basically hit the ball back and forth and when it falls on the ground the other team loses a point.” Max doesn’t know a lot about volleyball, but he wants to impress Tori so he shares what he knows.
It’s actually Eugene, local jock, who ends up monologuing about volleyball and the rules. No, I will not write that out because I don’t know anymore about volleyball than Max does (this is a partial lie, but Haikyuu has only taught me so much).
Everyone kinda just stares at him when he finishes, Rose is the one who speaks up, “What did we say about talking?”
“Not to :(“ Eugene frowns.
“Good.” Rose pats his head thus rendering him immobile for a moment but he regains control over his limbs momentarily. Everyone makes their way to the stands eventually. They make their way into a little configuration where the entire group of 15 can talk to each other without interrupting the entire game, which has been going on for a solid 20 minutes before they even sat down.
They direct their attention to the match, “Waiiitttt, the little one with orange hair got hops!!” Rose watches the black haired setter set the ball and the orange one jumps as high as humanly possible to hit it over the next, UCONN blocks it because you know they stay cooking.
“That’s just like me!! I’m super short and I’m a middle blocker too!!” MacK grins.
Wyll looks at her, “You’re a middle blocker? Don’t you like… need to be tall for that?”
“I jump super high so I’m good.” MacK replies, do we believe her? Sure. Why not?
The teams are playing valiantly, the group watches a guy with green hair flub a serve after they barked at him, thus scoring UCONN a point which allows UCONN to serve themself. They serve and theyyyyyyyyy…. GET AN ACE.
Ace was staring into empty space, as they tend to do lately, “Why is my name on the screen.”
“They got an ace!!” Tori looks up from the row in front of them.
“I see…” Ace replies then immediately sticks their tongue out and does the zesty sonic thing.
Florian glares at them but he yawns before he can say anything, much to everyone’s joy. Love when that guy shuts up. Mostly Ace but regardless.
“Awwww is it past somebody’s bedtime~” Eugene taunts his twin brother.
“Kill yourself.” Florian replies, fighting back another yawn.
Unfortunately, no one cares. Back to the game.
Everyone is actually running toward the net on the orange side, the black haired guy is setting, but everyone is running no one has any clue who is about to spike it fr. The buzzcut guy hits it and…. IT BREAKS UCONN’S DEFENSE AND FALLS.
Now it’s on Karasuno to serve.
Rose starts barking at the guy serving, he looks like a japanese version of Florian but with glasses. Ace joins in on the barking. As does Tori and reluctantly, Astarion. Dean, too, is barking with MacK and Wyll. Most people in the arena are barking at the guy trying to serve. Number 11. He looks into the stands at the group and just stares quietly. He’s saying bad words in his head but he can’t openly chew out a bunch of high schoolers as a grown man in college. He accepts this loss and serves. He does NOT get an ace. His serve actually just barely makes it over the net. He glowers at the group once more.The barking thing actually really works.
UCONN as they receive the ball go in for the kill with a perfect synchronized attack, similar to the one Karasuno tried earlier. The goes flying when one of the players spikes it, it breaks Karasuno’s defense and flies toward the white line. The japanese Florian goes for the receive, just barely misses it but a guy with brown hair who sports the number 1 picks it up. The black haired setter gets it and sends it to the orange haired boy again… The ball hits the ground on the other side. The ref calls a time out. UCONN claims that was 4 touches and thus the point goes to them. Karasuno argues that the blond guy didn’t touch the ball before number 1, the captain, got it. A brief recess is called to review the tapes.
“I’ve literally never cared about sports in my life but I hope UCONN got that ball.” Ace crosses their arms.
“I swear I saw 11 touch it. I swear!” Kylie adds on, trying to replay the footage in her mind. Grant Gustin nods because he agrees with everything Kylie says. If he doesn’t agree, know that that is NOT Grant Gustin.
“He totally did.” Kayla nods, then whispers to Dean, sitting in front of her, “I wasn’t paying attention.”
Dean shakes his head, “Neither was I.” He was watching Riley the whole time, the way her light blue orbs moved back and forth across the court following the ball. The last person who looked at him the way Riley watched that ball… Castiel. In place, Dean wishes Riley would look at him that way. Look at him like he’s a volleyball in the middle of a match, which feels stupid to think, but he misses the feeling of being loved. He has Sammy, sure, but the love of a brother is different than what he’s craving. No mom, emotionally absent dad, a little brother who wants nothing more than to escape, how could he not long to be loved properly. Dean knows he can’t commit, only Amelia knows how long he’s staying in this school. He can’t fall, let Riley fall just to leave her. Of course he doesn’t know that the reality warping entity in the friendgroup would just change the timeline to bring him back if he did leave, but the idea is sentimental regardless.
I know I mentioned Castiel like 2 chapters ago as if he was alive and we knew him but I changed my mind. We changed timelines again. Blame Rose, not my shitty writing and plotholes. Or don’t. Blame whatever and whoever. I’m, allegedly, hallucinating my dead boyfriend, you can’t hurt me.
Riley suddenly speaks up, “He definitely touched it. Just the tip of his finger.”
“And that’s enough for the three touch rule.“ Kate nods, eating popcorn that she used her Juh powers to spawn.
Ace annexes, “Eleven touched it, 1 received, nine set, then ten spiked. That’s enough for them to not get the point.”
Florian is struggling to keep his eyes open but still speaks, “I didn’t think you cared so much about sports. Much less volleyball.”
“I don’t. My favorite anime in middle school was about volleyball and–”
“So you get all your volleyball information from a tv show?” Florian looks unimpressed.
“YOU DIDN’T LET ME FINISH.” Ace scolds Florian with an eyeroll before continuing, “As I was saying, after interacting with that content so much, actual volleyball matches and players started showing up on my feed and I learned more than I intended to.”
“Guys, they’re back!” Tori points back to the court as the players return. Karasuno looks upset, especially number 11.
“Looks like it didn’t count.” Astarion observes.
“Clearly not.” Max loves to undermine anything Astarion has to say. Astarion debates strangling Max but decides it’s too risky with all these witnesses. Then he does it anyway because he knows Rose will just hide the event from the human eye because she, too, hates Max. Max is deceased for now.
“Oh! Max.” Tori tries to seem upset but she don’t care f’real.
“Aw. Oh no.” Ace snaps their fingers, “Drats.”
Wyll, Florian, and Eugene look alarmed. “Is no one gonna address that???” Wyll asks in a panic. They don’t know of Rose’s true power yet.
The core group looks at Max on the ground, disintegrating, and collectively respond, “Nah.”
“He’s dead! He just killed him!” Wyll urges them, looks to the rest of their classmates and back the corpse.
“Yeah, but everyone comes back to life at least once. Sure, what’s dead should stay dead, but everyone gets at least one free pass.” Dean nods, he’s died his fair share of times.
“And how would they do that??” Eugene asks, eye darting around unsure of what to do as Max finishes disintegrating.
“Rose, obviously.” Kate grins, “Me and Ace could help too, but even our power doesn’t really compare to Rose.”
“And what is Rose??” Florian questions.
“She’s Rose.” Kate tells him which is actually code for ‘never ask that question’.
The guys have no choice but to just accept it. Back to the game.
Karasuno is serving so everyone is barking at them, except Wyll, Florian, and Eugene who are still in shock, and the green haired guy, number 12, serves and the ball hits his hand wrong and the ball makes its way into the stand like a cannon ball, hitting MacK directly in the face, Susumaru style. There is a gap in her face as the rest of her body disintegrates in response to the trauma (death). Wyll, again, just stands there with a dropped jaw. The twins are sorta coming to terms with it. Sorta.
Kylie looks to Wyll, “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“NO. I‘m gonna bring her back.” Rose argues.
“YOU USUALLY DON’T. SO I WAS JUST SAYING.”
“YOU DON’T GET TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO, KYLIE. WE’RE DOUBLE DIVORVED.”
“NOW WE’RE GONNA BE TRIPLE DIVORCED.”
“NUH UH. WE’RE DODECA DIVORCED.”
The broken up “couple” argue. Grant Gustin tries and fails to quell the argument. The game goes on.
Ace hears a small huff and feels a weight on their shoulder, they glance at Florian, asleep on their shoulder, “What the hell.” Their face contorts into something that’s a combination of disgust and perhaps endearment.
Eugene looks up as everyone else is wrapped up in the game and barking and stuff, “Oh yeah. He has the sleep schedule of a toddler, 9:00 PM is far past his bedtime.”
“Gross.” Ace’s expression remains the same, though they relax, just slightly. They’re still sorta side-eying Florian as they wrap an arm around him. To strangle him. Yeah. Yeah totally. That’s why. They’re totally not being nice to him or anything. No this is all a plot. Sure. Yup. 100%.
“Aww. Look at our child experiencing human emotion. I’m so proud of them.” Astarion places his hand on Tori’s shoulder as they observe the scene featuring Ace looking mildly uncomfortable, partially affectionate. Just a bit.
“We raised them so well.” Tori leans into Astarion’s shoulder. Ace still looks like they’re either plotting their way out or perhaps plotting their way into a wedding. Probably murder.
“You literally didn’t, the same kid likes HOMELANDER.” Rose chimes, crossing her arms.
“UNPR–” Ace stops and considers Florian asleep on their shoulder, “Unprovoked. And that was before we started hacking into their security system to watch like a reality tv show!”
“Awwww.” Tori snaps a photo.
And thus the game continues far into the night. I absolutely have no idea what more I could write in regards to this. I used all the plot devices I could think of for this honestly. The game eventually concludes and UCONN comes out on top. LET’S GO HUSKIESSSSSS. WOOF. Rose swears she saw the orange haired one crying. Number 11 is still glaring at them as they leave. Ace flips him off with their free hand, number 11’s eye twitches. Ace’s other arm is around Florian’s waist. Yes, they will deny this if asked.
The people get on their respective buses, Wyll is still asking about MacK and Max. Ace climbs up the stairs and knows this ride is going to be terrible ride because Connor’s at the wheel.
“What’s that look for?” Grant Gustin nudges Ace slightly upon seeing the look on their face. He’s pretty sure it has something to do with Florian.
“We’re all gonna die.” Ace sighs and sits back in their seat, puts their headphones on, and accepts it.
Live Grant Gustin Response:
When Ace says stuff like that, they’re typically right, unless they’re being particularly deprecating but it’s hard to tell the difference with them.
“We’re all going to die eventually. Silly Ace.” Rose has a smile plastered on her face as if she can’t see Connor at the wheel. Little does everyone, but Ace, know, while Connor was driving after he got his permit last year, he purposely crashed into a tree while illegally driving on his own. A split second decision that Connor cannot explain why he made. His ass had (has? He’s still in this realm and #aceisstillindenial) borderline personality disorder. He couldn’t explain most of his split second decisions. Ace was one of those split second decisions, he just happened to not regret that one as much as the others. Not to say he didn’t regret it sometimes, him and Ace that is.
“Don’t rub mortality in my face, that’s a sore subject.” Ace musters, settling back in their seat.
“You.. good, Ace?” Kate asks as she takes her spot by the window across from Ace.
“Yeah, you kinda look like you’re putting the dread in existential dread.” Astarion points out.
Ace take a deep breath and just holds it instead of letting it out, “All good. Connor is at the wheel and that never goes well is all.”
“Ace, my child, Connor is dead. He can’t be at the wheel.” Astarion says softly and Ace still flinches like an abused child. They let out that breath they were holding and turn up their music. Tori and Kylie glance at each other but sit down regardless.
Tori tries to lighten the mood, “So who’s excited about the hotel and seeing who we’re rooming with?”
“OM, I’m so excited. I just put down everyone on the list– except Max– and I’m hoping for the best.” Kylie crosses her fingers as she thinks about her dream room assignment. The most unrealistic part about her dream room is that Grant Gustin is there and she knows their Catholic school is NOT letting that happen.
“Oh my gosh, me too.” Kate chimes in, “There’s no way they could do this wrong.”
“And it’s been like 3 years, they gotta know who we hang out with by now. I doubt an overnight thing is a time they’d try to push the ‘make new friends 🌈✨’ agenda.” Rose points out, unfolding her own headphones, jerking slightly as the bus lurches with a start. She doesn’t react because she knows just as well as Ace that they’re so cooked.
“What do you think they’ll do with the new kids? You know, like Wyll–” Grant Gustin begins to ask.
Astarion interrupts, “Wyll got here last year with me.”
“...He’s been here a year and I never noticed him?” Grant Gustin sounds distraught at the thought of not noticing a potential friend.
“He was just a background character last year. We never notice anything outside the friend group.” Rose, 4th wall breaking entity, comments.
“...You’re so right?” Grant Gustin is confused. He glances at Kylie for some sort of explanation, Kylie shrugs as if she’s not low key an eldrich being on a similar to Rose except she’s a neutral good instead of chaotic evil. She’s mostly not talking because she’s sleepy and she knows she’s a little bit evil when she’s sleepy.
The drive continues and everyone kinda just vibes like before. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up. The bus speeds up– You get the point. They’re basically at F1 speeds now and the bus is chaos as they try to figure out who the hell is driving the bus as if Ace didn’t TELL them because why would we believe Ace, blinded by grief.
The bus swerves off the road and rolls into a ditch. The white light is blinding. At least for most people on bus 2.
Meanwhile on bus 1, “Did you guys see that?” Riley asks, leaning out of her seat to look out the windshield.
“See what?” Kayla asks, looking up from her phone. You already know she downloaded some anime for the ride fr.
“Hm.” Riley hums, “Guess it was nothing.”
“Could be a Djinn.” Dean suggests. Everyone looks at him weird, “Sorry.”
“Anyone excited about rooms?” Kayla asks, changing the subject. Florian snores in response, bro is KNOCKED out.
“Yeah. I think so. I put down you guys and like Janin and Ella, you know.” Riley shrugs a little, glancing out the windshield again. She realizes she can’t see bus 2. She tries to write it off as some Rose related scheme, but as the Holy Spirit she knows there’s something more to it. Dean nudges her and raises a brow, a passing streetlight is reflected in his apple green eyes. Riley shakes her head and looks away. Dean looks at her a bit longer.
“Yeah. Don’t wanna know what that was.” Kayla shakes her head and closes Netflix, “You guys wanna play crazy 8s?”
“With just us 3?” Dean asks, he pulls out his phone regardless.
“I’m sure someone else on bus 2 will join.” Kayla waves a hand, dismissing Dean’s question.
“Nah.” Dean says, “Ace is hallucinating that Connor guy and that seems time consuming. Kylie and Grant are probably–”
“Grant Gustin. Not just ‘Grant’.” Kayla corrects Dean as she sets up the match.
“Whatever. Grant Gustin and Kylie are probably distracted with their ooey gooey couple stuff. Tori is probably wrapped up in the vamp. Kate might join and we know Rose is playing Cookie Run Kingdom.” Dean continues, “Florian is dead asleep. Eugene and Wyll are… no where to be found. It’s sounding like a game of 3.”
“Then so be it. Who cares?” Kayla sends the invitation to the group chat.
Only Riley, Kayla, and Dean join. They create brand new rivalries during these matches. Dean and Riley smile and giggle (for lack of better word) as they try to hide their phone screens from each other as they play since we all know Dean is 100% trying to cheat and get a glimpse of Riley’s cards. Kayla looks into the camera like this is The Office, unfortunately she thinks this is the wrong form of media. Either way she makes a vow not to play a game with just herself and a couple. She kinda wishes Rose had brought MacK back before they left for the hotel. Not Max though, he can stay gone. Kayla’s starting to wonder why Rose hasn’t done that yet. They get to the hotel before she gets to voice her slight concern. When they get there, they’re the only bus. The teachers up front of whispering rapidly to each other, pacing, sending out phone calls. Then. Reality warps. Bus 2 arrives and it’s like nothing ever happened, as a result, MacK and Max reappear on the bus.
“Hey guys!” MacK smiles, not at all concerned by the being brought back to life. She’s so Kenny coded.
“Ugh.” Max rolls his eyes, he hates when Rose just leaves him dead like that. Max glancing at a still sleeping Florian. “Can we go in yet?”
“Shh shh. They’re giving room assignments!” Kayla reaches over to smack a hand over Max’s mouth.
Do with this information as you all would like in preparation for the next chapter.
Grant Gustin, Wyll, Astarion,
Max, Eugene, Florian (the french room)
