Chapter One: Working Title

He was going to need to incinerate this shirt. After the second pungent and unknown first year had decided to stop him in the hall by shouting “No way Ender! You know ‘Stick and Poke’?” There was no way Lavender would wear this shirt on campus again and he only purchased band t-shirts to try and look like he belonged as a student. 

 He really did try his best to blend in to the student populace. While Lavender was not a particularly common name nor strictly speaking a “man’s” name he felt like it suited him. He did wish someone had pointed out how odd it was before he had started using it although he figured by this point most people just assumed he had eccentric parents. 

Besides all that people tended to call him Ender, presumably after the genocidal pre-teen from that racist homophobe’s book Ender’s Game. It was not his favourite nickname given its origin but it served his primary objective these days of blending in. 

This was also how the offending t-shirt came into play. While he preferred to dress in the more sophisticated stylings of the professors he knew in the literature and philosophy departments with their button waistcoats and smart blazers, he wore the logo-emblazoned t-shirts and black skinny jeans of his apparent peers. 

He was unfortunately in a rush this morning since he had woken up late. His long white hair was tumbling out of the messy bun he had thrown it in this morning. He didn’t have time to pause and fix it and his annoyance at this fact, along with the multiple interruptions on his way to meeting with his thesis advisor, had him in a state of distraction. 

He tried to juggle the loose pile of pages in one arm, a hip bag on the other side, and stuff fly-away pieces of hair back into bobby pins and the loose yellow scrunchie. 

He made a mental list of the things he had to get done today as he speed walked down the window lined corridor beside the open lawn where students lounged, laughed, and generally goofed off in the early October warmth. First it was the meeting with his advisor where he would be told it was too early to be working this hard on his thesis, then class with Dr. Simms the world’s most boring lecturer, then he was going to meet with Mabh for “book club”, and finally he would go home and burn this shirt. 

He was still trying to figure out how he would keep the fire contained in his small apartment as he turned the corner sharply and ran head first into a solid wall of chest and black fabric. He was brought suddenly back to the present moment and he landed on his ass, both hands smarting from where they had tried to break his fall and his thesis in a fluttering mess around him. He couldn’t do anything but stare at the man in front of him. 

‘Tall’ was the very first word that came to mind; he had to be over 200cm tall. The second word that came to mind was ‘ow’. Ears, lip, nose and eyebrows were all pierced in a way that screamed “I don’t care about what people think about me” which this man could get away with because he was stunning. His face was remarkably symmetrical and his features sharp, with a jawline that could cut glass. Most strikingly given his darker complexion and black hair were his greenest green eyes. Lavender hadn’t seen eyes like that since Braon– He cut off that thought as quickly as it started. 

Those eyes were wide in and an ever reddening face. Pure embarrassment spread across his cheeks, up his ears and down his neck. As they continued to stare at each other the final pages fluttered to the ground. 

“I should probably have stapled those.” Lavender examined the palms of his hands which were smarting from where they had helped break his fall, there were no cuts and nothing felt sprained.

“It’s my fault–”

“No, I am far too stingy with a stapler. It is a flaw I am afraid I do not see changing soon.”

“I meant knocking you over.” The giant offered a pale, calloused hand decked with silver rings towards him.

“You didn’t knock me over. If anything I knocked myself over by slamming into you. It's not your fault you’re a mountain.” He considered the hand in front of him for a moment. 

“Lemme help–” 

Lavender stumbled to his feet, deciding to ignore the offered hand, trying (and failing) to make it look like a graceful ascent and rather looking like a man in too tight jeans trying to push himself off a tiled floor, without further injuring his hands. 

The man in black had begun picking up the pages of Lavender’s paper and was being careful to place them back in numerical order, studying the tiny postscripts before shuffling their locations between his long, tapered fingers. He moved with the halting grace of someone who was painfully aware of their size and was used to trying to make themselves smaller to accommodate those around them. He had to keep brushing his unkempt dark hair out of his face. Lavender scooped up the pages without too much regard for the order he found them in, his attention mostly on this strange man. It was a rough draft; it would be good for him to have to reimagine the arguments in an order he had not chosen.

“So, do you just lurk behind corners waiting to catch distracted classmates on their way to class? Or am I just lucky to have run into you?” Lavender had meant the words as a joke, but the man in black didn’t seem to pick up on it. Perhaps he’d inflected incorrectly. Maybe if he winked? He gave it a shot. 

“I… uh, no. I don’t normally hide behind corners.” 

“I’m Lavender, by the way.” Lavender extended his free hand. 

The man shuffled his pages around until they were in a solid stack and shook Lavender’s hand in his own. “Keenan.” His grip was firm and didn’t not hurt Lavender’s stinging palms. He looked at Lavender a little oddly as they shook hands, as if he could see past him to something that wasn’t there. Then he shook his head as if to erase that thought like an etch-a-sketch. 

“Well, Keenan, as pleasant as it was bumping into you, I am going to be late for my meeting, so I should shuffle along. See you around!” Lavender gently pulled the papers from Keenan’s hand and stacked them on top of his own pile. 

“See you…”

Lavender was already gone.

Keenan sat in his 13th Century Musical Theory class not really trying to pay attention. He doodled mindlessly as Dr. Emmet flicked through slideshows of early modern art depicting a variety of instruments. He wasn’t sure how this was supposed to help him get a job someday, but he did know for sure that, at the very least, he would not need to worry about said job until he had finished his Masters, maybe not even until after a PhD. He tried to imagine himself standing at the front of the class where Dr. Emmet leaned wearily against a lectern, apparently bored by his own lecture. Keenan tried to picture himself in starched suits and those weird professor coats with patches on the elbow and found the idea at once hysterical and terrifying. 

“Something to share with the class, Mr. Heath?”

Keenan realised with horror that he had laughed aloud. For the second time that day he could feel his face turning hot with embarrassment. He scanned the page before him, hoping desperately that he had been taking something resembling notes. Instead, his page was covered in a field of daintily sketched lavender blossoms. “The, uh…” He searched his brain for what the professor had been talking about most recently. “... The dulcimer? It has a funny name.” 

“An excellent point, Mr. Heath. I am so glad you took the time to point that out to the class. Now, if we can continue discussing the matter at hand?”

Keenan ducked his head down and began dutifully taking notes, but not before ripping out the page of lavender he had drawn and shoving it in his backpack. By the time the class had finished he had maybe half a page of scribbled notes and a vague idea that he would not have done well as a Monk. He darted through the backdoor of the classroom so he wouldn’t have to explain his outburst to Dr. Emmet, running directly into a slight young man and sending paper flying into the air. 

Lavender looked up at him from where he lay prone in the hallway, surrounded in a halo of pages. His hair had toppled from its bun with this fall and fell straight down his back like a wave of white silk. He winced, raising his hands from where they had once again caught his fall against the tiled floor, shaking them as though to shake out the pain.

“Are you planning to make a habit out of this? If so, let me know, and I will start tying pillows to my posterior before I enter this building.” He tried to manage a cheeky grin but it came off more as a grimace. His narrow face did not seem particularly good at hiding what he was thinking.  

Keenan felt his entire stomach drop out of his body.

“Sorry!” he sputtered, dropping into a crouch to start gathering up the pages of Lavender’s homework. “Sorry. I should pay more attention--”

“As should I.” Lavender stood and dusted off his jeans, then bent to capture the rest of the fluttering pages.

“I really don’t usually run into people so often,” rambled Keenan. “Oh! We’re losing a page down the hall…”

Lavender meandered to it and scooped it up almost casually. “I don’t think that is a habit most people employ Keenan. It’s fine. I wasn’t looking where I was going either.”

“I’m not sure these are in order?” Keenan quickly shuffled through the pages he was gathering trying to get them organized as quickly as possible.  

“It’s fine,” Lavender sighed, shuffling through the paper and tallying numbers. “It’d probably be a good thing to lose a paragraph or two. The whole damn thing needs reworking.” He shrugged in Keenan’s direction, “It’s my thesis.”

“Ah.” Keenan nodded as though he understood, but he’d barely chosen a topic for his thesis, much less started writing it. He was in his third year, which meant he probably should have been thinking about his final project more seriously, but his classes had him so weighed down in midterms and readings that he couldn’t remember the last time he’d taken an hour or so for himself. And with that thought, he was suddenly very aware that his last shower was nearly three days ago.

“I hope we don’t meet under these circumstances again,” Lavender was saying, “However good for my thesis it may be, I’m starting to bruise. I might even make you stumble one of these times…” Keenan watched Lavender eye him for a moment, “yeah, maybe if I grow a foot and put on like 20 pounds of muscle. What are you, a physical fitness major?” 

“Music.” 

“Unexpected.” Lavender nodded, considering, “that's fun.” He handed Keenan the papers he had gathered, apparently so he could tie up his hair again. 

Keenan had begun to push the pages he’d collected into Lavender’s stack, but he pulled up short. “Can I… I’d like to make it up to you.”

“Are you offering me a favour?” Lavender raised a slender eyebrow at him and grinned, his golden eyes twinkling mischievously. Were those contacts? Keenan wasn’t sure what this guy's deal was but he had knocked Lavender over twice now, and the thesis looked like it’d barely survived a windstorm.

“I just, uh. Can I buy you a coffee or something? As an apology.”

“Coffee,” Lavender mused, taking back his thesis. “I suppose that’s not too weighty a favour. And I would enjoy the caffeine before I have to sit through one of Dr. Simms’ lectures…” he rolled his eyes and made a sound like cartoon snoring. Before giving another weird blink at Keenan, first one eye then the other. Like a frog. 

“Is… that a yes?” Oh my god was he trying to wink? What grown man couldn't wink?

“Yes. Do you have time now? Or is there a class I am keeping you from?” 

“No, I’m done for the day–”

Lavender used Keenan’s elbow to turn him towards one of the on campus coffee shops. “Well then, lead the way!”

The walk over to the nearest on campus cafe was an awkward one. Lavender kept rifling through his papers, rearranging them. Keenan noticed that he was not arranging them in the numerical order marked on the bottom of the page and had in fact undone a lot of the careful ordering he had done while gathering them. 

Keenan realised with a start that he knew Lavender, well knew of him. His roommates, Cooper and Travis, had a nickname for him: Flower Prince, because of the strange way he talked and his reputation for being standoffish, not to mention the fact that he was beautiful. There was also the fact that he could often be found with wildflowers stuck in his unnaturally white hair. 

“So… what’s your thesis about?” Keenan asked in that way one does when one is trying to make small talk with the most notoriously odd man on campus. Trav swore he once saw the guy riding a motorcycle in a three piece brocade suit, but Trav spent a lot of his life high as hell so Keenan took that story with a grain of salt. He bought both Lavender and himself cups of coffee, as well as a small box of pastries from the university bakery while Lavender picked out a seat on the patio that offered shade on one side from a tall oak tree and a beam of sunshine on the other where he settled down. Keenan balanced the coffee and pastries along with some packets of sugar and cream over to the table and settled back in his seat, stretching his long legs to either side of the tiny table after arranging everything so that Lavender could reach it all. Lavender perched at the edge of his seat with his back pin-straight.  

“The Chinese art of Bonsai as it relates to industrial growth and the need to control one’s surroundings.”

“Damn,” Keenan whistled. “That’s a mouthful.”

“I’ve been told,” Lavender hummed as he continued rearranging the pile of papers before him. “A shoe print. That would make my advisor say something new at least.” 

“What’s it called?”

“Hm?”

“Oh, uh… that would make a really long title, is all, so I figure you didn’t call it that. So what’s its title?”

“Well, it was called Bonsai, Industrial Growth, and the Need for Control...” Lavender sighed. “It’s a working title.”

“Right.” Keenan tried not to laugh at Lavender, whose brows furrowed as he flipped through the pages of his thesis. Keenan was starting to think it was a nervous habit, he was sure now that he was not re-arranging them into the order they had originally been in, especially now that the page with the boot print had been set aside under Lavender’s coffee where Keenan was sure it would get another stain.

“I don’t suppose you have any clever ideas?”

“Huh?”

“For a title. For my thesis.”

“Well, um… I haven’t read it, so…”

“By all means!” Lavender, gathered the pages back into a semi-cohesive stack with the boot printed, coffee stained page on top, and slid the paper around the box of pastries on the small outdoor table. “Have at, as they say.”

Keenan blinked. He’d always assumed pretentious and pretty went hand in hand, but this was the first his theory had been actively proved correct.

“Er… now? It’s a pretty big stack…”

“Take it home with you. I know you are probably busy with your own work but it doesn’t need proofreading or anything, just a set of eyes on it who are not as obsessed with me taking a break from working on it as my advisor is. You can return it to me when you’ve had a chance to look it over. I have a digital copy anyways, so I’ll still be able to make edits, not to worry.” Lavender stretched his legs accidentally knocking against Keenan’s shoe, “Honestly the whole thing is deeply boring according to Dr. Mitchel but in my defense, so are his classes.” 

 I did knock him over. Twice. Maybe this can be a second apology. Yeah, that sounds… “Sure,” he said aloud and, before he knew what he was doing, he had delicately placed the thesis between the notebooks in his tattered bag.

“How long do you suppose you’ll need to read it? I’ll want it back as soon as you’re finished. And of course you’ll tell me any ideas for a title you might have.”

“Maybe give me a week…ish? I should have some free time over the weekend– ”

“Perfect.” Lavender nodded, as though the situation wasn’t entirely absurd. Keenan sighed to himself.

“Yeah. Perfect.”

“Did that hurt?” Lavender pointed at the side of his own nose to indicate the piercing in Keenan’s. 

“Ah, not really. I’ve got a pretty decent pain tolerance though. You have any?” Lavender didn’t appear to have piercings in the traditional places, but one never knew.

“No, I have a metal allergy.” Lavender shrugged. “I have always been curious though.” 

“Ah, sucks. My buddy Coop’s allergic to zinc.”

“Yeahh well, I am not sure I would be up for shoving a needle through my nose for fashion in either case.” Lav grinned. 

“It’s not for everyone,” Keenan agreed with a chuckle. ““How about tattoos? Got any?”

“No. I have never been a part of a subculture that encouraged body modification.” 

“Fair enough,” said Keenan, musing silently that that was a weird way to phrase it.

“So what got you into it? Is it a music thing? What do you play? Or do you play anything? What made you decide on “Music” as a major?” Lavender settled into his seat leaning on the table with his elbows, disposable coffee cup warming the palms of his hands as he took small sips. 

Keenan stretched his long arms over his head, thinking. The left sleeve of his t-shirt was pulled back to reveal intricate lines of ink twisting around his bicep, a many-stranded Celtic sailor’s knot intertwining into what appeared to be the edges of a dara knot. “It’s a mixed bag, really,” he started slowly. “My first tattoo was a tribute to my Grandad. He had one like it. Not exactly, ’course, but similar. The others, and the piercings, have been… well, mostly decoration of the temple, just because it’s mine– y’know?” He added awkwardly. “Uh, what was the other question? What do I play? Guitar mostly, mine’s in the aud at the moment. I’m somewhat out of practice with the piano but I do percussion and bass for a couple different student bands when their usual guys can’t make it.”

“Decorating the temple? I like that” Lavender mused. “Is your family irish?” He gestured towards Keenan’s arm.

He touched the tattoo almost absently. “Yeah, on my Grandad’s– dad’s– side. You want to see it?” He pulled up the sleeve and leaned forward into the light.

Lavender leaned forward and set his coffee down on the table before lightly tracing the lines of Keenan’s tattoo with the tips of his fingers, “Protection, eh?” almost unconsciously he traced another series of lines outside of the tattooed area almost as though he could see something beyond the ink that was already in Keenan’s skin. 

Keenan’s ears and cheeks turned red at Lavender’s closeness, goosebumps raising a trail where his fingers grazed. “Uhm, yeah, and wisdom and, like… strength and endurance. Is your family Irish as well? Mine were, um, Gradys. What’re yours?”

“Oh yeah, a long time ago. I don’t have a huge connection to it now but I love the symbology.” He settled back. “What kind of music do you play? You mentioned playing for other groups as a stand in. Do you not have your own group?” 

“Nah, no time.” Keenan leaned back as well and hoped the shade hid his blush. “I practice a lot for my playing tests so I’m always kind of, like, almost behind on my papers and shit. I live on the edge.” He shot finger guns at Lavender and cursed his awkwardness.

“You should talk to my professors they are constantly annoyed with me for getting too far ahead.” Lavender barked a laugh. “Maybe I simply need to pick up more hours, or a hobby other than research.” 

“You play anything? I know a couple girls who could use another member, super part time.”

Lavender blinked rapidly. “I’m not a girl?” he pointed at his face, “I know I have long hair but like…” 

Keenan sputtered. “No! Gods, no, sorry, I wasn’t assuming either way I just know they wouldn’t care about gender as long as the person’s chill, and you seem– chill, so I figured… Uh, I’m sorry.”

“I seem chill!” Lavender’s face lit up. “Now I am sad I don’t play anything… unless they are looking for someone who plays the Dulcimer. I haven’t found many people are all that interested in that these days.” 

Keenan slowly brought his hand up to his face, thumb and middle finger to one temple each, hiding his face as he struggled not to burst into laughter. “You- ha-hmm. You sing?”

Lavender squinted into the sun pursing his lips together. “I do not. Maybe I should take up knitting?” 

Keenan chortled and nearly choked, so he sipped some coffee as pensively as possible. “Knitting is cool, you could make your own clothes and blankets and shit.”

“No it’s not.” Lavender lightly kicked Keenan in the shin. “I’m not stupid. I know I am not cool. I am not trying to be cool.” 

Keenan did burst into laughter then, and apologized profusely when he was done. “I’m so sorry. So sorry. Do you know what your nickname is around here? Also, sorry, we were talking about dulcimers in class today, that’s what set me off,” and he laughed a little more.

“Eeeender?” Lavender shrugged. 

“What? No, Flower Prince. I don’t know if my roommate made it up himself or if he really did hear other people say it first but I’ve definitely heard it from other people.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that.” Lavender crossed his arms. “I was not aware that people were observing me closely enough to form ideas about me. I don’t know whether to be amused, flattered, or insulted.”

“I wouldn’t take it too seriously. I think it’s just because you sometimes have flower petals in your hair and it’s… really impressively long. And really blonde.” Keenan gestured somewhat vaguely.

“Uh. It’s actually white.” he picked up a strand and twirled it between his fingers. “Also I work in a flower shop so… Flowers happen around me a lot. I really did think I was flying under the radar this time. Where have you heard this nickname other than your roommate? Also who is this roommate?”  

“His name’s Travis, he’s in my year. He’s blonde– like, dirty blonde, not white. He’s taking, like… everything.”

“Taking… Oh! Drugs. Right? The high one?” Lavender asked, “I don’t know him. How does he know me?” 

“No, I– I mean, yeah, but I was talking about classes. You know who I’m talking about, right? That’s basically all it is for Trav too, he probably sees you in some of his classes and he is the type of person to say to his neighbour, ‘hey, who’s the guy with the long white hair?’ because he thinks it’s cool. And also he knows everyone somehow.”

“Maybe I have come across him then.” Lavender conceded. “Still. I am not sure how I feel about people assigning me some sort of… moniker which alludes to my standing apart from them. I also don’t really want to cut my hair, or stop working at the flower shop though…” Lavender uncrossed his arms and sipped at his coffee. “I guess that is the price we pay for existing in society. Being noticed.”  

Keenan smirked playfully. “Yyyyeah, sorry you had to learn this way… Have you not spent a lot of time existing in society?”

“Relatively little in this century.” Lavender shrugged. Then seemed to start at his own admission. “Perhaps in a past life?” He laughed. 

Keenan laughed, somewhat awkwardly. “Maybe. One of those Irish ancestors.”

“Yes. One of them.” Lavender downed the last of his coffee and stood to go throw away the cup. “It has been… an experience… meeting you Keenan.” 

“Yeah, no kidding.” Keenan stood, too. “I’ll update you if I have any title ideas.” It wasn’t until that evening when he was back in his room that he realized he hadn’t even asked for Lavender’s phone number.