Oh. They're just- actually interested in this kind of thing. For real. Like he is.

Okay, then he doesn't need to worry. He can just enjoy the information and the fact that he has new friends (friends!!!) who share some of his interests.

He's going to go home and read up on Hannibal and the Fabian strategy and the whole Second Punic War plus some surrounding context and he's going to practice a lecture on it and then tomorrow he's going to get to share that with them. He's looking forward to it. But not so much he forgets to pay attention to Maya! He is going to commit as much of this battle information to memory as possible.

And thus ends another cheerful lunch period spent with their new friend. "See you tomorrow, Joshua!"

Hailey and Maya both wave as well.

He waves and heads off.

He realizes halfway through his next class he has no easy way of causing the conversation to be about the Second Punic War without just saying, "Hey, do you want to hear about some really cool military history?" This is a problem, since saying that is Terrifying. Well, he can just read up on things anyway and practice and see if there's some way to bring it up. And maybe just do the terrifying thing. Maybe it would go fine? Probably it would go fine Maya did basically that today. And he can just have the practice and reading up he did be secret so it isn't obvious how much it means to him and they won't judge him.

It's only been a month since he listened to favorite history podcast covering the Second Punic War, it's easy to catch himself back up to speed. So, what things should he include in the background? Obviously they should know the rough extent of Rome and Carthage. A tiny bit of the First Punic War. It's important that Rome won that one. And of course some of Hannibal's background, it really does add to the drama of the whole situation. And then the whole arc of Hannibal's campaign in Italy, the general shape, his absurd invincibility on the battlefield, Rome's refusal to stop feeding him armies. The whole thing with Fabius. And maybe ending on Hannibal losing to Scipio in Africa? He's not quite sure. He practices saying certain things in his head, works out a structure of it all, and hops back and forth between doing that and browsing the internet vaguely for the rest of his night.

The next morning he feels kind of terrible for no actual reason. It's not, actually, easy to push through it. It helps to remind himself he has a Project, though. Well, it does the opposite of help when it comes to his anxiety levels, but he just rehearses his planned story a bit in his head and that helps with that. Tugs him out of the bad state he started in, even if he keeps finding himself pulled back in that direction. 

He feels better over time, though. Being out of the apartment, having made it to classes today, having friends he's meeting up with at lunch. All of it helps. He kind of figures he won't actually end up delivering the whole speech about the Second Punic War but if he does he is prepared.

When Joshua reaches the cafeteria, Hailey's beaten him to the lunch table. She's claimed the back corner seat, leaning against the window, and is looking around cautiously.

She looks up with a small smile when she notices him, though, and waves him over.

Yay, his new probably-friend! Okay, he can go to the same spot relative to her he nabbed last time. Having a thing he did last time is very nice. Makes it nice and simple to know what the right thing to do is.

"Hey, Hailey."

Going to the same spot seems to get a slightly frayed smile out of Hailey. "Hey Joshua. Good t'see ya. Good day so far?"

He notices the frayed smile but has no idea what to do about it and so is going to just be friendly and act like he didn't. That seems probably like an okay way to react.

"Thoroughly mediocre, which is good enough, really."

He's not even really tracking that he's lying.

Hailey certainly doesn't catch the lie either.

"At least someone's breaking even today. Maybe lunch will cheer me up though."

And that's when Maya and Sable arrive, one sitting smoothly next to Joshua.

And the other dropping heavily to the seat next to Hailey. "Hey there, Joshua," she greets with a smile.

Then she blinks for a moment on seeing how frayed the girl is. "Oh no. What happened?"

She takes a slow breath. "Fuck... Sue in English gave me some shit about being a quote 'parentless tranny freak,' unquote," she explains in a low hiss, just loud enough for her girlfriends and new friend to hear. "She was quiet about it, didn't seem to think anyone else would have her back, but the bitch grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to face her when I ignored her."

She scowls. "Don't know how she found out. Managed not to punch her, though."

Sable sighs and offers Hailey a hand. "Good job."

She takes it and squeezes. "Thanks," she whispers.

Oh, Hailey's trans too. Well, the question is now just- are she and her friends the kind of people that think nonbinary people are valid, or are they not? Being good to Hailey is not proof they will be good to him, necessarily. He'd guess they would be but he kind of did just meet them this week. He does not yet know, and so will keep his secret for a little while longer.

"Well, it sounds like she's a seriously shitty person. Sorry you had to deal with that."

"Thanks, Joshua," she replies with a slight smile.

"Ugh, why's it so hard for some people to just accept differences?"

Maya squeezes Hailey's other hand, and strokes Sable's back gently. "Not everyone is you, love."

"Also some people just suck," Hailey snarks. Then she turns to Joshua. "If there's another infodump saved up in that brain o' yours, I could really use a distraction from thoughts of that bitch."

He has never been more prepared for a request in his life.