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Chapter Text

Her Imperial Royal Fluffiness Jeanne D’Arc of Laconblade was a chubby old lady, but one day she disappeared. The elementary school kids were the most worried about it, but nobody actually did much.

She was a cat that had been around the campus for years, she was probably older than a good amount of élèves.

But Gilbert liked her, she was a really more pleasant company than everyone else in that hellish place. How long do cats live? He didn't know. Mrs Jeanne might be dead, as dead as his will to deal with a new roommate.

He stayed out the whole day, skipping classes. And his plan? Staying out the whole night, too.

When the curfew came, he felt sick, hiding in the abandoned nursery garden. His skin was cold, and his blond hair was wet with droplets from the drizzling rain. And when he heard a loud, high-pitched noise and rustling of leaves and sticks breaking the silence of the garden, the young boy suddenly looked for the source.

At first, he thought it was his imagination. After some seconds, he realised it was not from a person or a child.

It sounded like an animal, growing up playing and wasting time in the gardens—the woods, wherever his family did not have to deal with his presence directly—, among the wildlife, he had gotten quite aware of animal noises.

But this noise was different from those, it was oddly soft. But extremely insisting!

He crawled, looking beneath the broken tables, and found a sort-of-nest with a couple of tiny creatures the size of his palm wriggling and moving around, crying almost desperately with its eyes closed and ears like fused to its head.

They were mammals, but what exactly were they? He had seen raccoons, squirrels, mice and some possums, but the sound they made was different—rhythmic, demanding; it wasn't frantic, though; Gilbert couldn't put his finger on it.

Therefore, he decided to stretch his hand towards the old gardening gloves, leaves and dirt nest, and touch the creatures.

They flinched and Gilbert gasped, they felt warmer than his already blueish fingertips, and their tiny paws pressed weakly against them. Then he felt tiny little sharp claws digging into his skin, too small to damage but big enough to be felt, and he guessed that they must be cats.

“You weren't fat after all…” Gilbert told himself, and he realized he missed Mrs Jeanne. That cat was the only good thing in Laconblade.

If these were her babies, and she wasn't around…

The kittens screeched.

He needed to do something to stop them. Quickly.

With a deep breath and hands colder than the poor babies, he cupped the possible Jeanne's offsprings and rubbed them against his not-so-cold chest to warm him up.

He had been avoiding his room so as not to see who was going to be living with him now, but having a new roommate was the last of his concerns right now.

Chapter Text

“Roll call!!” A deep voice announced.

All the doors in and locks clicked open, boys in pairs perking out of their rooms in the Building B.

“Line up in the hallway!”

Three students walked through the hallway, reading names from a list following the number of the respective room.

Serge stood under the doorframe, waiting, until he listened to his new roommate’s name.

“Room 17: Gilbert—”

“Uhm…” he shyly, but politely, smiled at them, “Gilbert is not here.”

“Who are you?” One of the older boys asked.

“I am Serge Battour.”

“Ah, you joined us today,” the first boy said with a sly grin.

With a teasing smile and narrowing his eyes, the boy holding the list asked, “what’s like being with Gilbert?”

But before the brunet had no time to reply, a blond tall man took the checking list from the boy’s hand and continued with the roll call.

“Don’t ask frivolous questions,” he scolded the students, “so Gilbert is out? Keep moving!”

The three boys fastly moved forward and the man stood in front of Serged, his features softening as well as his previously stern tone of voice.

“How’s the room?”

“I like it a lot, Professor Watts!”

“That’s good news.”

The smile the man gave him was warm, welcoming, but the smiles on his mates’ faces were different. They seemed malicious, mischievous, as if enjoying something secretly while they murmured.

When the roll call finished, everyone went back to their rooms.

Serger had noticed a lot of things in that school was a bit rigid, old-fashioned and almost militarized according to his companions’ words. First, the roll calls and strict technology and cellphones restrictions…

But that didn’t stop him from writing his parents a sort of letter.

Mother, I received a beautiful picture of you. I got it from Professor Watts. I’m here now. I’m where you once were, father: Laconblade.

Professor Watts recognized our family name, he introduced himself as an underclassman of my father. He told me you spent a lot of time together, during high school and until university.

I also met Carl Mice, the Student Monitor of my dorms: Building B.

Both of them approached me right away, mom, dad.

I’m so glad I came here.

With the lights off, the only thing illuminating the room was his cellphone.

Thick stone walls and restricted nightly signal messed the process up a bit, but Serge managed to be patient and perseverant enough to get the message sent.

Great!

He tugged the cellphone beneath the pillow, rolling on the bed and closing his eyes to finally go to sleep.

But his eyes landed on the empty bed on the other side of the room.

“Gilbert… I wonder how he is. Why doesn't he come to his bedroom?”

Even when he hadn't met him yet, he couldn't help but worry about his roommate. Where was he? Was he okay? Why did everyone else seem to have something to say, yet say nothing about it, about him?

Chapter Text

Gilbert coughed, unable to hold it much longer, and wished nobody was around to hear him.

He felt weak, cold, dizzy, yet he managed to stumble upstairs and through the hallways. He didn't want to be caught, and hopefully everyone was already sleeping.

The blond grabbed the doorknob, muffling the baby kittens' crying with his hands so as not to wake up his new roommate.

Closing the door slowly, tiptoeing over the wooden floor, Gilbert reached the desk and looked for his phone. He left the creatures close to a turned off lamp—still warm—and quickly tapped his query.

what to do with a newborn cat

Serge woke up to the sound of coughing and something like a soft crying.

“Who's there?” The brunet sat on the bed, his eyes adjusting to the darkness after rubbing them.

There was no response.

He rose from his bed, trying to look around, and something grabbed his ankle.

“WAAH—!!” He yelled in panic, almost falling to the floor.

In the middle of the darkness, with the moonlight and outer illumination coming in through the window and curtains, Serge could distinguish a wavy blond mane.

A hand gripped to his pajama pants, then he climbed him and suddenly a boy was leaning dangerously closer to him.

He was cold, wet, and his piercing green eyes froze Serge’s blood inside his veins.

Terrified, the boy pushed him away, but the sound of coughing and something quite similar to choking alerted him.

“A-Are you okay?!” Kneeling in front of the collapsing boy, he grabbed him by the shoulders. “Hey! Answer me!”

But all he heard was a sibilant sound he knew all too well.

Ignoring the screeching and the initial fear, the new boy stood up and opened the door. He had to get some help as soon as possible!

“Carl!” In the express tour he had earlier, he saw where the Monitor’s room was, and he slammed his fists against it. “Carl!!”

There was no response.

“Carl!”

“Shut up!” A boy shouted from the next door, “Carl is not here! He sleeps in his flat, in the city, if you have some problem go get the headmaster!”

And with that, the boy shut his door and Serge was left alone, terrified, and wondering what to do. Where was the principal? Someone who could help? Maybe the infirmary…

As Serge turned his back, thinking what to do next, a pair of glasses greeted him and the poor boy gasped in fear.

“Calm down,” a boy holding a first aid kit said gently, “it's Gilbert, isn't it? I'll take a look at him.”

Who was this boy? Serge was speechless.

“He's having an asthma attack,” adjusting his glasses, the boy looked at Gilbert’s shallow breathings, he helped the blond sit straight, shaking a rescue puffer before placing it between the boy's lips. “Here.”

Puff.

Serge watched Gilbert's chest rising slowly.

One, two, three…

Gilbert coughed and Serge could finally breathe again.

And they heard the screeching.

Chapter Text

“What is it?” The older boy asked, looking around the room until his eyes landed on the desk.

“What are those?” Serge looked closer, poking the soft almost hairless bundles.

“Don't touch them!” 

Both boys looked at Gilbert, who had just risen from the bed, panting and staring at them angrily.

“Calm down,” with a serious face, he tried to ease the blond, “you almost fainted—”

“I said don't touch them!!” A sibilant hiss let out his lips as he stumbled towards the desk, turning on the lamp and pushing the two boys away.

The cubs were crying, they must be freezing, and the older one could see a remnant of the umbilical cord still attached to their bellies.

“Serge, can I have a word with you?”

The new boy nodded, and so they left the room, closing the door to talk in the hallway.

“Sir…”

“I'm Pascal Biquet,” said the boy. “I’m older but we are both in the same year, ploughing is my hobby, you know.”

“Pascal then…” Serge eyed the door behind him with a concerned expression. “Does this happen a lot? You seem to be used to it.”

“Oh, right,” Pascal thought a moment before speaking again. “Let's say it's not uncommon.”

That was a bit concerning.

“He didn't want to come back here once you became his roommate. But with this weather, him being injured and… those little things, he ended up coming back.”

“You say he was trying to hide them?”

Pascal scratched the back of his head. “Well, pets are not allowed in the dormitories. Maybe that was the reason he tried to kiss you.”

“Kiss me?!” Serge’s face went pale, “no way! In that condition he wouldn't…”

“He may be thinking that he could try and seduce you in exchange for your silence and help.”

“Please, stop!” He tried to keep his voice low, but he couldn't help raising the volume. “Don't say seduce—we’re both men.”

It couldn't be possible for him to hold those feelings towards another boy, and for Pascal to say it that easily and carelessly…

There was something else bothering him, though.

“Besides, what do you mean in exchange for?” The brunet frowned deeply. “I wouldn't just turn my back on someone who needs help, let alone my roommate!”

“Fine, fine,” Pascal smiled and Serge felt a bit embarrassed, “you win. Have this.”

Pascal handed him a few things and Serge couldn’t be more confused.

He looked down at his hands, then back at his superior, and the young man smiled.

“Give it to him, he’ll need it for the kittens,” and turning around, he covered his mouth as he yawned. “Goodnight, Serge. And good luck living with Gilbert.”

Good luck? Oh, yeah, maybe he would need all the luck in the world…

Pascal lent him a syringe, a rescue puffer, cotton, and… a dropper? What for? There was also a dosage cap.

The puffer was surely for Gilbert, but what about the rest of the things?