After a few minutes of impatient squawking, Vell finally relented and handed over the remnants of his apple. He wasn’t that hungry anyway. The ostrich snatched it out of his hands, threw it to the ground, and began to voraciously peck at the remnants. Vell returned to his homework.

Tiny chunks of apple were still flying moments later when Cane walked around the corner. He latched on to Hanifa’s wrist and walked the long way around to join Vell at the picnic table.

“Hey Vell,” Cane said. “I assume the ostrich is part of whatever it is you’re doing today?’

“Hmm? Oh, no,” Vell said. He looked up at the ostrich as if he had forgotten it was there. “Somebody just asked me to watch it for them.”

“Somebody- hold on,” Cane said. He let go of Hanifa and walked around the table to the ostrich, much to Hanifa’s chagrin.

“Cane, we’ve talked about this, an ostrich is not one of the animals you could beat in a fight,” Hanifa said. He topped out at a large dog, and even that was only a maybe.

“I’m not going to fight it,” Cane said. He edged closer while the ostrich was still preoccupied picking at apple scraps. “Just going to get in close here and…”

After ensuring the ostrich was not paying attention to him, Cane reached forward and grabbed the collar that helped leash it to a stake in the ground. He dug his hand around the interior of the tight cord for a second and then found what he was looking for.

“There we go,” Cane said. He removed his hand, stepped away from the ostrich, and held out a small mechanical device. “Some kind of short range scanner.”

Getting Vell to agree to watch an ostrich was easier than getting him to agree to an invasive scan, something some Quenay-curious students had taken advantage of. Cane dropped the device on the ground and then slammed his foot down on it. Almost immediately, two heads popped out of the nearby bushes.

“Hey, those are expensive!”

Cane lifted his foot to reveal an entirely undamaged device. The fake “damage” to their machine had brought the spies out of hiding, just as planned.

“And you assholes are spying on my friend,” Cane said. “Come here!”

The two students lurking in the bush broke into a dead sprint as Cane ran after them. Hanifa rolled her eyes as her boyfriend sprinted out of sight.

“He won’t hurt anyone,” Vell said.

“I know. He just likes to play tough,” Hanifa said. “He’ll be back once he thinks they’ve been scared enough.”

Vell nodded, and jotted down another answer for his coursework.

“So, how’ve you been, Vell?”

“I’ve been getting by,” Vell said. He looked up from his work for the first time since Hanifa sat down. “Sorry if I seem busy. It’s just that...I am busy.”

“Apparently not too busy to watch an ostrich.”

“He’s chill.”

The ostrich let out a small chirp.

“Anyway, did you and Cane need something?”

“Maybe he did, but I don’t know it,” Hanifa said. “He said we should try and find you, I guess he wanted something. Apparently not something important.”

The two spying students crossed a gap in the distance, with Cane hot on their heels.

“At least not more important than chasing some guys.”

“Sometimes chasing guys is very important.”

The current instant of chasing did not turn out to be that important, and Cane returned to the table visibly exhausted.

“Thanks for that,” Vell said. Getting scared like that always made people a little more likely to leave him alone.

“No problem,” Cane said. He then pointed to the ostrich. “You still got this thing around?”

“What am I supposed to do, set an ostrich loose on campus? At least he’s leashed.”

The ostrich had tugged at the stake in the ground multiple times, but could not free itself. Regardless of the circumstances, Vell did not have the time to do ostrich wrangling, and figured having it staked here was better than letting it roam free.

“It’s fine, I’ll get it out of here,” Cane said. He took hold of the leash in one hand and twisted the stake out of the ground with the other.

“Here, let me give you a hand,” Hanifa said.

“No, it’s cool, you take a seat,” Cane insisted. “You, uh, you two hang out for a bit. I’ll be back soon.”

Cane allowed no further argument, and hauled the ostrich away as fast as the ostrich itself would allow, which was not very fast. Vell and Hanifa watched him struggle with it for a few minutes before he managed to wrangle it around a corner and out of sight, and even then they could hear the frustrated squawks of an ornery ostrich in the distance.

“That’s weird.”

“Yeah, you’d think an ostrich would put up more of a fight,” Vell said.

“Not that,” Hanifa said. “Though that is also weird. I meant him telling me to stay. Did he sound nervous to you?”

“I don’t know, maybe a little,” Vell said. “I assumed it was ostrich related.”

“I don’t think so,” Hanifa said. “He’s been on edge lately. I assumed it was just graduation stress, but maybe there’s something else going on.”

“Could very well still be ostrich related,” Vell said. “Actually, why the hell are we sitting here? An ostrich can kill a man in one kick.”

“Good point.”

Both got up to go help Cane wrangle an ostrich.

----------------------------------------

Luke stared very intently at a rock. The rock continued to very intently be a rock.

“Hey, Luke,” Cane said. “Why’re you looking at that rock like it called your mom a bitch?”

“Because it did,” Luke said.

“Oh. You want me to grab a hammer so we can smash it?”

“I think that was a joke, Cane,” Hanifa said.

“Your better half is correct.”

“Don’t look at me like that, a talking rock wouldn’t be the weirdest thing we’ve seen,” Cane said. Luke could not disagree. “Anyway, you switch to geology or something? Why do your classes involve rocks now?”

“It’s not specific to rocks,” Luke said. “Part of my physics finals involve estimating physical properties like drag, density, terminal velocity, et cetera, through simple observational techniques. No tools. I’m practicing on this rock.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Luke continued to stare at the rock. Cane stared at Luke staring at the rock.

“Riveting,” Cane said. “You need a hand with that?”

“Somehow, I’m pretty sure I’ve got it under control,” Luke said, as the rock continued to be a completely normal and inert rock.

“Hanifa makes stuff,” Cane said, prompting a somewhat confused grunt from his girlfriend. “She knows all about the properties of things.”

“I work with leather and fabric, not basalt,” Hanifa said.

“Obsidian, actually,” Luke said.

“Case in point,” Hanifa said. She took Cane by the hand and pulled him a step away. “I think what Luke really needs is to focus, babe.”

“I could also use a slightly more interesting rock, if you find one,” Luke said.

“We’ll keep an eye out,” Hanifa said.

“But...ah, never mind,” Cane said. He walked away, still looking nervous.

----------------------------------------

With a loud scream, Hawke went flying through the air overhead, and Kim jumped up to catch him.

“Thanks.”

“Can’t have you landing on anyone’s head, big guy,” Kim said. She landed hard and dropped Hawke on the ground. “And try not to do that again. These things are huge, Hawke, they shouldn’t be hard to dodge.”

“About that.”

A swinging tentacle slammed into Kim and launched her into the air.

“Try not to land on anyone’s head!”

Even as she spun through the air, Hawke could tell Kim was flipping him off. He chuckled to himself and then got back to his real priority: running away from orca/shark/octopus hybrids.

“You seem remarkably chipper about all this,” Skye snapped. She was concocting an anti-mutagen for the hybrids, while Vell led the loopers in her defense.

“It’s just nice to be doing something familiar, is all,” Vell said. “It feels more manageable.”

“Exactly what about this is familiar?” Skye said. She snatched a few valuable chemicals off a shelf and then ducked as a tentacle swung overhead. “Or manageable, for that matter?”

“Long story, tell you later,” Vell said. “Just some good old fashioned Marine Biology department nonsense.”

Unfortunately for Vell, there was a great deal of nonsense from a great number of sources in the universe. Today’s source was Cane.

“Vell!”

“Cane?”

Cane dragged Hanifa under the flailing tentacle of an orcarktopus and then smacked another one aside with a large garden shovel he was carrying.

“Hey,” Cane said. “We’re here to help.”

“We kind of have this under control,” Vell said. He shot another orca hybrid in the face to scare it off. “Mostly. Not sure you can really help here.”

Hanifa nodded in frantic agreement.

“If anything we are actively making the situation wo- Look out!”

An orca-hybrid lunged at the group. Cane valiantly smacked it in the face with a shovel, which had little effect. The second metal impact was far more effective, since it was Kim plummeting down to earth and landing directly on the creature’s skull.

“Landed on its head,” Kim shouted in Hawke’s direction. “Hey Cane, Hanifa. You guys probably shouldn’t be here.”

Kim dashed off to dole out more orca-based violence before they could respond. Vell wanted to shift the topic anyway.

“Cane, what are you doing here?”

“Trying to help-”

“I mean with Hanifa,” Vell said. “You keep bringing her around, trying to get her to hang out with me or Luke.”

“Why is that so suspicious-”

“Cane! I can tell you’re up to something too,” Hanifa said.

“I just like you guys, and you never hang out,” Cane said. “Is it so weird that I want my best friends to get to know my girlfriend?”

“Under the current circumstances, yes,” Hanifa said. She took cover behind a desk to avoid the gaze of another orca hybrid.

“Well I figured that in high stress situations-” Cane paused to swat aside a tentacle with his shovel. “People tend to show their true selves!”

“Actually the opposite is usually true,” Vell said. “High stress levels cause people to make impulsive reactions, and behave in ways very uncharacteristic of their usual-”

An orca hybrid came crashing through a nearby wall, and its gaping jaws latched on to the desk Hanifa was hiding behind. She kicked away from the colossal fangs of the beast, scrambled to her feet, and ran off screaming.

“Hanifa!”

“Exactly what I mean,” Vell said. “In a less extreme situation, nobody normal would abandon their boyfriend like that.”

“Am I not normal, then?” Skye asked, as she plugged away at her chemicals.

“Nope, and I love it!”

----------------------------------------

“Fucking Jerome stealing my fucking vials again,” Skye grumbled. She filled her hands with containers of orca, shark, and octopus DNA and then stormed off to secure them even better. No matter how hard she locked down her samples, someone always found a way to break them out eventually. Usually Jerome, that fucker.

“And now that that nonsense is handled, time to go deal with the other nonsense,” Vell said. He texted Luke that he was free and got moving. His former roommate met him halfway, and the two headed to Cane’s dorm together.

“So, what do you think is going on in Cane’s head?”

“I’ve got my suspicions, but I want to talk to him first,” Vell said. “There’s a lot that could be going on there.”

Relationships were complicated enough, as Vell knew firsthand, and with the stress of school (and occasional orca-based incidents) added on top, Cane might be acting weird for a lot of different reasons. Vell kept his mind open to all the many possibilities as he knocked on Cane’s door.

“Vell, Luke, what are you guys doing here?”

“Talking. Maybe doing some mild to moderate haranguing, depending on how the conversation goes,” Luke said.

“Yeah, cool, let me just call Hanifa, I’ve been meaning-”

“No,” Luke insisted. “That’s actually what we’re here to talk about.”

“You’ve been weirdly insistent on us hanging out with Hanifa lately,” Vell said.

“What? Is that a problem? Do you not like her?”

“We like her just fine, Cane, you’re just being weird about it,” Luke said. “Is there something going on with you and her?”

“No, nothing, except a great relationship,” Cane said. “You’ve just barely ever spent any time with her. Is it weird that I want my best friends to know my girlfriend?”

“It’s not inherently weird, but you are doing it in a weird way,” Luke said.

“Well I just wanted to get your guys opinion before- you know, graduation,” Cane said. Vell raised an eyebrow.

“Graduation?”

“Yeah, graduation,” Cane said. “There’s not a lot of time left, and -and stop looking at me with that wrinkly forehead, man.”

Vell continued to look, and to have a wrinkly forehead. He was thinking real hard about something, which Cane did not like. What he liked even less was when Vell stopped thinking and stepped up to put a hand on his shoulder.

“Cane. You and Hanifa are a good couple,” Vell said. “And if you ask her, I think she’ll say yes.”

It took a moment for Luke to follow the thread. The look of embarrassment on Cane’s face was the final piece of the puzzle, and Luke let out a surprised gasp.

“Cane Beukes, are you thinking about getting down on one knee? Popping the question? Making an honest woman of Hanifa??”

“I would appreciate it if you were chill about this,” Cane said. “But...yes. And get the fuck inside, I’m not having this conversation standing in a fucking doorway.”

Cane dragged them both inside, and grabbed both of them something to drink, both to be polite and also to have an excuse to put the conversation off slightly longer. Eventually he could stall no longer, and Cane was forced to live out one of his least favorite things: talking about his feelings.

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about proposing a lot,” Cane said. “We’ve already decided we’re moving in together after we graduate. Figure I might as well go one step further, right?”

“You could give yourself some time after the move to let things settle,” Luke said. “But if you love Hanifa and she loves you, go for it.”

“It ain’t so much about love, I’ve got no doubt about that. It’s the logistics,” Cane said. “We’ve got to find a place to live, get jobs, get settled, I’ve got to adjust to living in Egypt. Feels like there’s a lot going on before adding a wedding into it.”

“Well, like I said, you can always wait, let all that play out first,” Luke said. “No harm in it.”

“And if you’re really worried, maybe just talk to Hanifa about it,” Vell said. “Seeing how she feels about getting married right now could make things a lot easier.”

“That is completely lacking in romance, Harlan,” Cane said.

“Some people find practicality romantic,” Vell said with a shrug. “If you want to commit to something, you plan it, and if you want to commit to something together, you should plan it together.”

“Wait a minute,” Luke said. “Have you been talking with Skye?”

“It, uh, came up after her dad visited,” Vell mumbled. “She says we have to have lived together for a while before she wants to really open that can of worms. Same approach might work for you and Hanifa.”

“Maybe,” Cane said. He took a sip of his beer and rubbed his face for a moment. “I think I’m getting too worked up over this. We’ve got to at least graduate first.”

“Smart. You should’ve just sat down and talked to us at the start, Cane,” Luke said. “This was, what, two minute conversation? Could’ve saved you a lot of stress.”

“I’m not the type of guy to beg for help with dumb shit like this,” Cane said. “But...thanks. I think I just needed some advice from the two smartest guys I know. Man, I do not know what I’m going to do when you two aren’t around.”

Though Vell had extended an invitation to join Harlan Industries, neither of his former roommates had accepted it, opting for opportunities closer to home. Part of the reason Cane had opted to move to Egypt was an abundance of job opportunities near Cairo, and Luke was apparently already on track for a job at the University of Dublin.

“Don’t be talking like we’re never going to see each other again,” Luke said.

“Three guys on three different continents does make it hard to arrange movie nights,” Vell said. Throughout the past four years, Luke and Cane had been reliable constants in a chaotic world. Soon he would go from seeing them nearly every day to being lucky to see them at all.

“Yeah, we’re not breaking up the band yet. It seems like we’ve got a wedding or two to plan for,” Luke said. “And- damn. I just realized I’m the only single one here. How’d that happen?”

“Most people probably think you’re out of their league,” Vell said. Luke was, objectively, a very beautiful man.

“They’re right,” Luke said. “But I’m not an asshole. I’m willing to date down.”

“If you want to not seem like an asshole, maybe don’t refer to it as ‘dating down’,” Cane said.

“Shit."