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cw for the first section of this chapter: in-depth description of coughing (it's a lil gross lol)

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Paris Asmoday was known around the school for his ability to sleep in. However, none could fault the man for needing his beauty sleep. He was often awake late into the night socializing and drinking and trying to woo anyone his own age, and so of course he slept in each and every morning to recover some of his lost sleep.

And, of course, anyone watching him sleep would surely be jealous.  He was tucked in tight, snugly between his luxury 600 thread count sheets and his 100% ethically sourced goose feather comforter. He had brought his own pair of black-out curtains and strung them over the windows to obtain perfect darkness, and even then, he wore an anti-microbial eye-mask and a set of earplugs.

It seemed like a like of work just to sleep, but if anyone saw the way his skin absolutely glowed when he woke up refreshed and beautiful every morning? They'd do the same.

Unfortunately, no one was ever around when he woke up.

His one and only roommate, Ilyas, was an early riser (which made Paris gag), and was always long gone by the time Paris himself finally woke up.

Paris could hardly blame him, all things considered... Not wanting to be around. Not wanting to spend even a moment of time together...

Nay, it wasn't worth the trouble of thinking about. Paris should simply let bygones be bygones!

He'd been telling himself that for months.

Paris' eyes fluttered open sometime after 11 AM, and he swept the eye-mask away from his face and stretched peacefully to wake himself up. Removing his ear plugs, he treated himself to the pleasant sounds of the school in the late morning.

His ears were met with nothing but silence. Odd.

It suddenly dawned on him why there was no one around. Ah. That's right... The new students were arriving today. They likely already had. The rest of the student body was surely down in the foyer introducing themselves? There was hardly very many of them. Paris hardly had an interest in meeting them for himself--he'd heard a rumor that they were younger. It was hardly appropriate.

Paris seated himself on the edge of his unkempt bed, taking out his hairbrush and beginning to groom himself.

Evidently, Paris had but one thing on his mind, related to the rather uncouth nickname that he had been given. It wasn't an insult, he'd been told, but rather just a description of the nature of his ability. Everyone who'd ever come to the school with his ability had been called that, no, no, really!

Hmph. Well. It hardly mattered. If Madam Quartermane wanted to bestow that name upon him, so what? It was nothing for him to trifle with. Most of the students simply called him by his name, anyway. Or they didn't speak of him at all.

Parasite.

He was a parasite. The Parasite, even. What a dignified title. The one and only!

Paris had spread the word around that he had total control over his ability and didn't leech without an expressed effort to do so. That was true. However, he had not corrected anyone when they proceeded to assume that he hardly ever used his abilities. It was a perfectly reasonable assumption--he certainly didn't come across as someone who was particular strong or powerful. And he wasn't. Truly.

He just hadn't told anyone that he needed to use his ability in order to sustain a "normal" baseline. What everyone else took for granted as a "normal" amount of strength and capability was something that Paris fought for each and every single day. Something that Paris stole for.

Paris' chest tightened as he stood to his feet, wrenching a series of awful coughs from his mouth. He reached for the box of tissues he kept in his nightstand, hacking and struggling to clear his airways of the disgusting slime that always plagued him.

After seeming to clear out most of his lungs, he cleared his throat and attempted to restore his dignity. His eyes lingered on Ilyas' bed, neatly made, wondering almost if... if...

He shook his head, trying to shake the depraved, desperate thoughts from his head.

Seemingly against the will of his brain, though, his body stepped closer to Ilyas' bed.

Actual physical affection was much more powerful, much more sustaining, but Paris could sense the sustenance lingering in Ilyas' bed. All Paris needed was just a little, tiny touch... he dragged his fingers down Ilyas' sheets, over his pillow, feeling himself get more and more rejuvenated by the moment.

He never felt guilty about using his ability for his own sake. He needed it. Nobody ever noticed when he was leeching because he was always so careful to only take just enough. Just barely what he needed.

But something about this... Something about stealing love that... that wasn't meant to be his. Ilyas hadn't given this to him. In fact, Paris seemed to recall something Ilyas had said specifically about not wanting to give Paris his love, despite what lovely nights they had once shared together.

Paris hadn't even noticed that he had slid his arms underneath Ilyas' duvet and was nearly halfway into Ilyas' bed altogether. He jerked away, shocked at his own shamelessness. He quickly smoothed out Ilyas' bed, trying to get the perfect tuck that Ilyas always had.

It took a while until Paris considered it passable--neat enough that Ilyas wouldn't notice the difference unless he had looked with a very scrutinizing eye. He was nearly convinced that Ilyas had worked in a hotel in a past life, with the absolutely flawless way he maneuvered his sheets.

With one last glance into the mirror on his nightstand to check himself over, Paris sauntered out into the hallway.

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Ara Cary shivered. He had been very excited to meet the two new students, but on his way to the foyer, he had found himself getting too excited and had to duck away instead. He hadn't even seen the new kids before getting overwhelmed. He was supposed to meet Diana there, but he knew that calming himself down was most important. She'd understand.

Currently he found himself sitting on the floor alone in the cafeteria. He balled his hands together--used to the way his fingers locked together even if he was missing several of them. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead, on the back of his neck. His entire body quivered at the tickling sensation of droplets sliding down his back, down his face. He pawed at his face with the back of his hand. The heat radiating off of his skin was so intense that the sweat began to bubble, hissing and sputtering as it slowly boiled into the air.

Yikes! 

It was worse than Ara thought. He scooted away from the wooden furniture scattered about the room--wooden walls, wooden chairs, wooden tables. The stone floor was a sanctuary, and Ara quickly threw himself onto it, from sitting into laying. Spread eagle. Cold, cold, cold thoughts. He'd never gotten hot enough to melt stone or metal. He wasn't sure if he could, at--at least by accident? He'd-- Sometimes it felt like--as if he were something to be afraid of--

Not again... not again, not again, not

Ara hadn't struggled to control himself like this in a long time. He'd never had the best control, sure. He wasn't denying that. When he first showed up at the school, Madam Quartermane had shoved him into a room in the East Wing all by himself (when every other student was in the West Wing, except for--) because she was worried he might explode into a ball of fire or ice, respectively.

An unsettling feeling had been sinking deeper and deeper into his very being for weeks now, and he'd been brushing it off for just as long. It was just nerves about the new students, it was just his usual anxiety fits, it was just his usual but--but now...

It felt as though, almost, like a... a candle deep inside of his chest was down to his last inch of wax. Or--Or an ice cube melting away, or one of the other ten thousand temperature related metaphors that Madame Quartermane had related to his ability.

Ara shook his head, letting the thoughts loosen and rattle around before gently tapping the side of his temple to finally force them out. Doing the physical motions helped. Shake shake shake and tap the overwhelming thoughts out.

Ara stood to his feet. He touched his forehead. Normal temperature, he thought. He wasn't sure. To the touch, he always felt like he had a fever. Or so he'd been told. Nope, nope, nope. Shake the thoughts out again. All good. All good. He had this under control. Yet, despite having regained his sense of composure, one last thought wiggled into his head as he pushed open the door.

Something... 

Something was very, very wrong.

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Madam Quartermane was not present to greet the new children. This surprised exactly... one student. William Sanderson (though he much preferred to go by Sandy), one of said new children. Even the slightly-older girl he'd arrived with hardly seemed to react. She carried only a small bag on her person, a single duffel bag small enough to bring on a plane as carry-on.

Sandy was, admittedly, more disappointed than surprised. He expected that Madam Quartermane would be a very busy woman. Running the sort of place that she did must take a lot of time. But... he'd never met her. His father had never met her.

"Have you ever--" Sandy cleared his throat, fighting to free himself of the influence of his gift. In his own voice, this time, and not the voice of the last couple people he heard speak, he spoke again. "Have you ever met her?"

Sandy had latched onto a pair of twins, nearly the same age as him. They had introduced themselves to him, explaining that the three of them would be rooming together. Room W6.

Clarisse Smithers laughed, but it was her brother, Isaac, who responded. "Yes, everyone has. She's the best teacher around."

"Teacher? Do you have the same ability as her?"

That made Clarisse laugh again. "Wow... I remember when I first got here."

"We've only been here for like, two years," Isaac mused, trying and failing to do the proper math in his head on short notice. "Like" would have to do. Maybe it was actually three?"

Clarisse ignored him. "No, Sandy, Madam Quartermane teaches everyone. She's... special. As far as I know, she's pretty much the only one in the whole world who can do that. She has basically... every superpower ever. And she knows how to use them, too."

Sandy was finding it harder and harder to believe with every passing moment that anyone's family would send them here. And yet, here he was, sent off by his father. And here Clarisse and Issac were (he wasn't sure about their exact situation, but surely someone must have sent them here, too). Who was sending their precious children to this strange place in the middle of nowhere with absolutely no knowledge of what goes on here?

"I don't think that was the best explanation..." Isaac said. "Well... If he's still doing it, Ilyas will have a pamphlet for you. It should go over just about everything. And he's more than happy to answer questions and stuff, too. He's like, the biggest fan-girl ever about this place. I think he might know even more than Madam Quartermane does."

"I doubt it."

"I don't."

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