Tagged for a WIP share by @tallmatcha so I dug something up.
Tagging @runephoenix6769, @patchodraws, and @astraskylark to share a WIP exerpt (if they want to).
I haven't touched this in a couple of years and it may be a little rough, but this is from some backstory I wrote for Raven in Just Drive, my last BBB fic. One day I'll finish my Rosebird (Summer/Raven) tie-in fic for it.
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On the first day of the fall term, they met Summer and Taiyang.
Tai was too bright, too cheerful, too nice, and far more genuine than anyone Raven had ever met. He surprised her with a smile that made it seem he was happy to meet her and a firm handshake that conveyed a friendliness that she didn’t know how to respond to. Raven wondered if he had mistakenly chosen the wrong school.
Summer was even more disconcerting. If she had a superpower, it was the ability to see past all the bullshit to the truth of a thing, to the truth of a person. Raven felt like Summer saw into the most hidden parts of herself. It made her terrified of the woman.
Of course, the other three became fast friends, so she was forced to deal with Summer being around a lot. If she wasn’t hanging out with the boys, then Raven was randomly running into Summer all over campus. Every time she stopped for a coffee, there was Summer in line somewhere nearby. When she went to the library, she would find Summer curled up in a corner on the floor, so deep into a book that Raven could have gotten within stabbing distance without the other woman noticing.
Raven bought a taco bowl from one of the food trucks, turned to leave only to have a hand wave in her face.
“Hi Raven! Funny running into you here. Oh, is that the special?” Summer peered at the bowl held in Raven’s hands.
Then at the student store, when she realized that she’d be better off with graph paper than lined paper for Calculus.
“Hi Raven! I didn’t expect to see you again today. Which math are you taking this semester?”
She rolled her eyes at Summer and got into the checkout line.
They were on the same floor of the dorms. Running into Summer in the bathroom the next morning was what broke Raven. After a literal crash of bodies (how could Summer seem so graceful and incredibly clumsy at the same time?), Raven pulled her aside to ask if Summer was stalking her.
“What? Of course not! Why would you accuse me of that?”
“Because you’re everywhere!” Raven threw up her arms as her voice increased in volume. “Every time I turn around, there you are! Getting a coffee, reading in the library, laying on the grass in my favorite spot, sitting under my favorite tree. It’s creeping me out!”
Summer was quiet for a moment as she studied Raven.
“You’re upset that we like the same places?”
“That’s-” Raven made halted sounds of distress. “That’s too much to be coincidence.”
“Is it? I’d say it sounds like we have a lot in common. How about I buy you a coffee, and you can tell me why you like to go to Mike’s instead of Starbucks, and how you found that little garden way behind Thurston Hall?” Summer gave Raven a slow smile.
Raven’s eyebrows must have leapt completely off her face, because Summer was looking at her expectantly with clear interest in spending time with her. Alone. Without the boys.
Though she was loath to admit it, Raven had not had many friends growing up. She had people she would do things with. She had people she’d get into trouble with, those she’d hang out with to avoid becoming bored, others she fooled around with, associates she knew would throw down with her if she started a fight. Friends were people who required trust, and trust was something that was hardly ever earned or freely given in the circles she had been trapped in. But she did travel all the way to university to start building a network.
“Fine. What are you doing around three?” Raven asked.
And thus began the best friendship Raven Branwen had ever had.