The hours passed with pleasant conversation and interesting information about each other.

Nych and Willow were, surprisingly, very compatible with each other. Many of their interests were the same, once Nych got past Willow's party shell. She was actually quite nice, and not the prude everyone made her out to be.

Nych had decided to ride the bus with her, simply because he didn't have anything else to do and wanted to continue the conversation with her.

She was fun to talk to.

"So like I said, the machinery is going to be difficult. Building something this small hasn't been done before, but… I think we'll be able to do it."

They were nearing Willow's stop.

"I work with a lot of really small components." She ignored the strange looks she got from other college students on the bus, and reached up to press the button for her stop. "If I have the right equipment, I can probably do it. A lot of my projects revolve around robotics themselves. The medicine is sort of an add-on, and a way to have steady pay when I graduate. I do find it fascinating, though." She shrugged her shoulders.

She glanced out the window and pursed her lips. "This is my stop, here." She said after a moment, looking over at him.

She didn't really want to leave, but she'd talk to him again the next day.

He nodded his head, looking around the bus with a bit of amusement. "I'm sure I'll be able to find my way home. It appears you and Blake are going somewhere?"

Ah. Yes, that was Blake.

On the sidewalk.

Jumping up and down.

Waving like a lunatic.

She would never give Willow any peace, would she?

She had changed, hopefully for cleaner reasons than anything having to do with Shayne, into a long black skirt that hugged against her legs. Her top was black as well, and her high-heels gave her a good three inches over Willow.

That was saying something, considering she was usually an inch shorter.

Nych chuckled, looking at the very gothic-looking woman outside the window.

Willow stared at Blake for a second or two, and then rolled her eyes. What an idiot.

She stood up, and cast a look back at Nych. "We're getting dinner. I'll see you tomorrow during class." She stuck her tongue out at him teasingly, and then stepped off of the bus and onto the sidewalk. He was nice. She was glad her professor had approached her earlier that day, as working and talking with Nych had actually been quite the pleasure.

"You look like an idiot." Those were the first words she said to Blake, and she smirked slightly as she adjusted the leather jacket she was wearing. "So. How was your day?"

Blake feigned that Willow had hurt her feelings, before bouncing right back into her very cheery attitude.

"It was fantastic. I feel like I'll totally bang Shayne by the end of the week. And honestly, I can't wait." She smiled a bit, because this time she was actually being sarcastic. "I'm kidding. I don't really like him that much, considering I've heard stories of what he's done to girls. I think I'll lead him on a bit and then break his heart."

Well. She really didn't hold anything back.

Blake was definitely not a modest girl, but she had standards. She'd throw any asshole out to the wolves if she figured out he'd done something that she didn't like.

"Maybe at the football game. I'll reject him out on the field. Think that's good?"

The two of them had begun walking towards their apartment, with a skip in Blake's step.

She'd had a good day.

"Ooh, that's good." Willow nodded in agreement, looking over at her best friend as they walked along the sidewalk. "Embarrass him in front of most of the campus? Sounds like a good idea to me." She knew the turnout for those football games, and she knew that having something like that happen would crush even the strongest of egos. It was hard to recover when there were hundreds of people laughing at you.

It was quiet for a little while, and Willow enjoyed it. The streets of Vancouver seldom were.

"I'm gonna get changed when we get back to the apartment, and then we can walk over to the diner." She carried her binder under one arm. "I'm getting sick of wearing skinny jeans."

"Ooh, can I watch?" Blake asked, batting her eyelashes and winking at her. She was a very flirtatious woman, regardless of who she was talking to, and Willow had gotten used to it.

Sometimes, though, it was hard to distinguish her jokes from her desperate sexual desires.

Blake was a very sexual person.

"So how was your date? The nerd scare you off?"

"He has an entire underground laboratory." Willow spoke after a moment, a slight grin coming to her face. "It's huge. He's already finished our entire project, and we're working on actually testing his theory to see if it works. We're trying to cure cancer, Blake." Blake was one of the few who got to see the more mellow, science-loving side of Willow. She did, after all, have to deal with Willow building things in their kitchen.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

"He's cured Malaria." That was impressive, and Blake couldn't deny that. "And he has a fucking cage you can sit in like god damn Nikola Tesla and watch thousands of volts of electricity in the room around you. It's like being in the middle of a lightning storm."

She had evidently had a good time.

Blake's eyes widened as she spoke, but in the end, she didn't give off the expected reaction.

She sighed, and put her head in her hands.

"You can't actually like hanging out with him, Willow. Haven't you heard the rumors about him?"

Oh?

"… What rumors?" Willow frowned slightly, looking towards Blake.

She hadn't actually heard anything about the kid. In fact, before she had been properly introduced to him, he was no more than some random person on campus to her. Some nobody who asked too many questions and someone she would never know the name of during her time in school. That had changed, and she was somewhat worried if not intrigued.

"What have you heard about him?" She asked. "If it's anything bad, I doubt it's true. He's a pretty cool guy, honestly."

Blake looked at her with a bit of a frown on her face. "Willow… I've heard he experiments on animals and stuff. I've also heard that he gets human test subjects to participate in his weird experiments, without telling them what's going on."

They reached the apartment building and walked in through the front doors.

"I've also heard… Well, I've heard there's something wrong with him. Like a disease or something, but he won't answer when anybody asks him about it. Everyone suspects there's something wrong with his brain, and that's why he never talks to anyone."

Blake seemed very nervous about Nych.

Willow frowned slightly, thinking of their interactions earlier that day. For the most part, he had seemed… Normal. He was on the same par as her with an unhealthy obsession with science, but other than that, she hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary.

… Had she been wrong?

"I… I don't think I saw anything like that there, though." She shook her head, walking towards the elevator so they could get up to their floor. "The only living things I saw in there were mosquitoes, but that makes sense considering he was engineering a cure for Malaria. And I mean, who gives a flying fuck about those little bastards anyways?" She rolled her eyes, but then sobered up once again. "… I'll be careful, don't worry." She lightly bumped Blake with her shoulder. "You know I'm tough as hell. If he tries anything, I'll crush his balls so hard he won't be sitting straight for the next year."

"Or maybe… Maybe you wanna ride those balls."

Blake's mouth fell open after saying those words as she looked to Willow, surprise lacing her eyes before she fell into a bout of nearly hysterical laughter. "Oh my God, you like him, don't you? You have a thing for him! That's why you're defending him!"

Blake pulled her keys from her purse, but she was laughing all the while, and it took her a bit to get the door open.

"I can't believe the first person you wanna fuck is the college weirdo."

"Oh my god." Willow scoffed, face-palming and sighing as she dragged her hand down her face. "He's nice, but not fuck material." She stepped inside the apartment, throwing her binder onto a nearby couch and kicking her shoes off before she walked further into the apartment. "I also like having access to a private underground laboratory that's bigger than a football field, and somewhere I can take some of my equipment."

Blake would be happy about that. It was kind of clogging parts of their apartment.

She shrugged, pulling her hair from its bun and letting the wild orange curls free. Her hair went down to her waist. There was no telling how the hell she was able to take such good care of it. It was a monstrosity.

"Oh, you know that's a downright lie. He might be weird, but I'll give you the fact that he's attractive. Those eyes? Have you ever seen eyes like that? They're such a weird color, I'm almost tempted to say they're fake. But… I really don't think so."

She smiled, following Willow to her room.

"You should ask him next time for me. If they're natural, he really won the genetics game. If I wanted to fuck another goth, and wasn't kinda scared of the kid… Well, I'd go for it."

Of course she would. She was Blake.

"I'm putting money on it right now. A hundred bucks. He takes your virginity."

"You'll give me a hundred bucks if he takes my virginity? Sounds like a deal." She raised an eyebrow, snickering to herself, as that obviously wasn’t what Blake meant. She eventually walked into her room. It was a bit of a mess, robotics parts scattered about and blueprints pinned to the wall in random places. They were all pieces of her crowning achievement, which was sitting on the dresser in her room. It was an arm. A fully functioning robotic prosthetic arm.

She hadn't told anyone other than Blake yet. She wanted to patent the design and make it widely available to amputees who needed it. She was working on replacements for other limbs as well.

She pulled off her jeans, walking around in a t-shirt and underwear as she dug through her dresser. "I gotta say, it's tempting if you're the one giving me money."

Blake, although tempted, stayed out of Willow's room while she changed.

"Haha, very funny. You think I'm joking? I'll bet you a hundred dollars that he's the one you fuck first, and if you cave and actually bang him, you owe me a hundred. If I'm wrong, and you fuck someone else, I'll give you a hundred."

Would she take that?

It would be interesting. They were nowhere near that close yet, but… Nych was definitely the most interesting man in the school.

"What if I don't fuck anybody?" She pulled on a pair of sweatpants, and took her bra off under her shirt and tossed it to the side as she grabbed a hoodie off of her bed and put it on. She wasn't planning on looking nice. She was planning on going to that diner, eating a shitty burger and a bunch of french fries, and probably watching movies on the TV in her room until she passed out later that night.

Good priorities.

"I'm gonna be celibate." She smirked, walking out of her room. "I'm a nun, now. God bless you, you slutty bitch."

Blake groaned, banging her head against the wall.

"God, you're hopeless. Are you taking the bet or not?"

She looked her up and down when she came out of her room, and didn't comment on her outfit. The two of them had very different styles, and they had learned to never criticize the other person's. It just never ended well.

"Because I could really use a hundred bucks right now."

"Does it look like I have a hundred bucks?" Willow quirked an eyebrow, walking over to the door and slipping her shoes back on. She was hungry. She hadn't eaten since breakfast, and she was starting to get a little wobbly on her feet. She needed to eat sooner rather than later. "We'll see. Come on, get your ass in gear. I want a burger and I'll be damned if you’re gonna stop me from getting it."

She grabbed her keys and her wallet, and opened the door to their apartment to step outside.

She mulled over what Blake had told her earlier. Perhaps she'd have to talk to Nych about it the next day. She was never one to keep things quiet anyways.