Chapter 31: Childhood Sweetheart.
"Wren looks like a nice guy."
Elian tried his best to not make eye contact as he pushed the words out of his strangely uncooperative throat.
"That is quite a strange thing to say about someone you walked in on thirty seconds ago."
Bellamy said, though the deflection had less bite to it than usual, his voice still not quite back to its normal register.
"I’m trying to be supportive."
"You’re trying not to explode!"
A long moment of silence.
Then Bellamy groaned, dragging both hands down his face, some of the color slowly draining back out of it.
"God... Okay." He took a deep breath.
"That was..." A deep exhale. "...not how I planned for you to find out about that."
"You weren’t planning on telling me at all, based on how well that just went."
"I was going to tell you. Eventually. Once I had a good opening." Bellamy gestured vaguely, encompassing the whole disaster of the last two minutes.
"This was not the opening I had in mind, okay.?"
Elian finally risked a glance up, and Bellamy—usually so entirely unbothered by anything—looked genuinely rattled in a way Elian hadn’t seen from him yet, knee bouncing slightly, cheeks flushed red, breath still ragged, gaze fixed somewhere past Elian’s shoulder rather than on his face.
"Hey." Elian sat carefully on the edge of his own bed, knowing to give Bellamy space rather than crowding him.
"It’s fine, I don’t care that it’s a guy. I care more about the fact that there’s frost on our doorframe and I’m going to have to explain that to someone eventually."
That got a short, surprised laugh out of Bellamy, some of the tension easing out of his shoulders.
"That’s genuinely the least dramatic reaction I could have hoped for."
"I’ve had a long day." Elian shrugged lightly. "My capacity for drama is currently allocated elsewhere."
"Fair." Bellamy exhaled, running a hand back through his hair, mussing it up more than it already was.
"Wren’s a second-year, artificing course. On track to become a great Artificer, actually. We’ve been..." he made a vague gesture that covered several months of unspecified activity "—since before term started, technically. We’re childhood friends. It’s complicated."
Elian blinked, correcting his estimate from several months to several years.
"Complicated how?"
"His family, the Mattock’s. They rule a small domain in the western border, doesn’t know since we don’t know how they’d react. Mine either, for that matter, though mine would probably just be annoyed I hadn’t found someone more socially advantageous."
Bellamy said it lightly, but something under the lightness didn’t quite land as a joke.
"It’s easier if nobody’s officially aware of it yet. Fewer people to have opinions."
Elian for some reason, thought of six generations of Valcourts filing away failed staff attempts like dignified footnotes, of a collar tied too tight every morning to avoid exactly the kind of attention Bellamy was clearly trying to dodge now, and found he understood the impulse better than he probably should have.
His roommate was turning out to be someone that Elian started to care greatly about, being one of his first friends ever... and all.
"I’m not going to say anything," he said, offering gently. "Obviously."
"I know. I wouldn’t have worried about that part, you’d be more embarrassed than I am talking about it."
Bellamy glanced at him, something more genuine slipping through the usual performance.
"Mostly I’m annoyed you walked in during the good part." He pouted, the earlier panic already starting to drain out of him.
"There’s a good part I’m supposed to be jealous of missing?" Elian raised his eyebrows.
"There absolutely is! and you’ll never know it now, so your loss."
Bellamy flopped back against his own bed dramatically, some equilibrium visibly restoring itself now that the worst of the panic had passed.
"Anyway, I’m introducing a new house rule. Knock first."
"You don’t knock when you come in."
"That’s different. I live here."
"So do I!"
"Unimportant details." He waved a hand dismissively, already reaching for his book again like the whole incident hadn’t happened, though the faint flush still sitting high on his cheeks suggested he hadn’t fully recovered yet either.
Wonderful, Elian thought. He’s back to his usual shenanigans.
"So. I heard about what happened in practical casting. The rumors were Interesting... to say the least. Tell me about that instead, I need a subject."
Bellamy suddenly paused, considering something, then straightened.
"Actually, scratch that. We need to talk about this."
Elian braced before he could think about what Bellamy meant, old instincts kicking in before he could even figure out.
"Talk about what exactly?"
Bellamy looked him in the eyes, entirely serious all of the sudden.
"What do you actually think about Wren?"
"I just told you what i thought..."
"Not like that," Bellamy sighed. "Give me your professional Valcourt opinion... or something along that line, don’t they teach you to analyze people there?"
Elian blinked, caught somewhere between confusion and the distinct feeling that he was about to be handed a test he hadn’t studied for.
"That’s not really a skill they teach," he said, trying to keep the bewilderment out of his voice.
"It’s more of a survival thing you pick up on accident by being a Valcourt, like learning to not touch fire."
"Fine. Give me the accidental survival... reading, then."
Bellamy pulled his knees up, entirely serious now in a way that sat strangely on him after a full day of chaos.
"You watched him for exactly thirty seconds before he bolted out. What’d you get."
"Bellamy." Elian tried to be stern.
"Humor me, please." Bellamy pleaded.
Elian sighed, but thought about it properly anyway, because his roommate clearly wasn’t going to let this go until he did.
"He tucked his collar in before he left. Not after, but while he was still apologizing to me. Which means appearances matter to him even mid-panic, probably because he’s had to manage them carefully for a long time, most likely since childhood."
He paused, turning it over further.
"He said ’somewhere to be’ instead of making up an actual excuse. Didn’t bother lying convincingly, which either means he’s bad at lying or didn’t think it was worth the effort to lie, well, to me specifically."
Bellamy hadn’t moved, watching him now with an expression that had shifted from teasing into something more genuinely attentive.
"And he looked at you before he looked at the door," Elian added, quieter. "Checking if you were alright before he checked his own exit. That’s not... nothing, he cares about you greatly, even when in trouble."
Silence settled over the room for a moment, Bellamy’s usual restless energy gone entirely still.
"Huh," he said finally, voice smaller than Elian had ever heard it yet.
"That’s... considerably more perceptive than I expected from someone who insisted he doesn’t know how to read people, even more surprising considering how clueless you are."
"I said it’s not a taught skill. I didn’t say I don’t have it, and for the record, just because i don’t react doesn’t mean I’m clueless."
Bellamy huffed something that was almost a laugh, dragging a hand back through his hair again, and for once didn’t immediately deflect into a joke.
"He’s good, Elian Genuinely, I just don’t know how to make any of it simple, given everything."
"Nothing about any of us is simple right now," Elian said, thinking of frost on a doorframe, two lit petals, a teacher’s carefully controlled lecture about how much danger he was in, a cult with a name like a bad omen.
"I don’t think simple’s really on the table this year."
Bellamy was silent for a while, mostly letting his thoughts simmer.
Then the most unexpected words left his mouth, considering the situation.
"You really are clueless though."