And that night:

"Heard you were good at kissing."

"Is that what you're here for? A hookup?"

"Depends. Do you want one?"

"Maybe."

Alex is, in fact, good at kissing.

Wilbur does his best, too, kissing the back of Alex's neck and down his spine, but he knows he's worse at it than Alex, but he makes Alex laugh, at least, and-- he deserves this much, surely. Just one night.

And then, afterwards: "I want you to kill me, Alex."

Alex laughs for a long moment, and then: "What? What the fuck?"

"I thought about it, and I'm younger than you, right, I'm a sophomore, so if you push me into the void and take my room you'll have a safer one."

"What the fuck-- no! No no no no no, Wilbur, listen--"

"It's almost curfew, Alex. We'll get swarmed if you stay here. Or you can push me into the void and make sure I fucking stay there. I've tried, you know, I always fucking panic and run back before I manage, but you could do it, you could hold me under with magic, I don't have any mana, it'd be easy."

"What the fuck, no no no no no no, no, no, fucking-- you can't fucking do this shit, Wilbur!"

"And why not! Give me one fucking reason why not! Explain it to me! Give me a reason!"

"Fucking-- you can't do that shit! You're going to hurt Tommy, Toby, Niki, you-- we don't even know if you can poach rooms not in your year-- it's literally the day after Toby got fucking blown up! You can't fucking do that shit!"

"And what about them? They're better off without me, without me dragging them down! Do it, Alex, kill me, they'd all want you to!"

"Absolutely fucking not, you're just gonna hurt everyone with this shit! You can't do this!"

"And why not!"

"Give me a chance."

"What chance. When. You're just saying things and they don't, they don't mean anything--"

"Just--just give me a bit, alright? Toby's still healing, Niki's birthday is in a couple weeks, we can--we can calm down, we can take some time, we can make a decision."

"Okay. Niki's birthday. And if you don't have a better reason by then--"

"Okay. We've got--we've got a timeline. Just--just hold on until Niki's birthday, alright? You can do that?"

"And if you don't have a better reason before then, I'll kill myself and you won't get a room out of it."

"--Look, Wilbur, I have to go now so I can get back in time for curfew, okay?"

"Thank you."

As soon as Alex gets back to his room, he collapses, his head dropping into his hands. "Fuuuuuuuuuck."

Okay. Plans. He can do plans. Probably. Or, well, it doesn't really matter if he can; he needs to, and fast.

They can--have another party, maybe. For Niki's sixteenth birthday. Maybe get rid of some of the bad memories of the last one, make some new memories, better memories. Wilbur can come to this one, and Alex can keep an eye on him in the meantime, and--tell Tommy and Toby what's up, probably, they're young but they know Wilbur better than he does, maybe they'll know how to talk him down. There probably won't be anything useful in the library but he can check, at least, or ask around. He might be able to get a bit of mileage out of Niki's birthday, too, can convince Wilbur to take another delay by the time it comes around, convince Wilbur that it'd ruin their happy memory of it.

He has no idea what he's doing, and it's probably obvious, but--something is better than nothing, something has to be better than nothing. He can do this. They don't have much to make a party with, but he's dating Karl and Nick now, he can get something nice. Especially if he invites them.

Niki's birthday is in 17 days.

He stops rejecting the mana Tommy gives him, starts carrying around a mana crystal again. He'll have time to give it back, and right now he needs to save Toby's explosives. (He'll have to figure out a way to thank Toby for them. It feels like it might be gauche, given--well. Niki changes the dressings every day, and the burns are on track to heal, but they're also on track to use up a healing potion and a half.)

He saves his tokens, too. He doesn't deserve them. At the party he can contribute all he has, and then he can go.

He starts planning it out. At the end of the party, probably; they should all get a chance to have some nice memories. Before anyone starts leaving, though. He wants everyone to be there. Rising action, climax, falling action, denouement, and he's the climax, he's the grand event, he can't let them go without him.

He has Toby's explosives, and something Clay gave him to coat them so that the fire won't go out for a good long while. It'll hurt like a motherfucker, but it probably won't leave him alive. And he makes sure to give himself some fresh cuts, make himself appetizing.

(Fuck, he hopes he doesn't fail. He can already see Tommy wasting a healing potion on him. Hopefully Alex and Toby can keep him away, talk some sense into him.)

The party's nice. He contributes eight tokens and doesn't take any of the food. Karl's showed up. It's fucking weird, for a Tampa kid to be there, but Alex likes him, and it's been a long while now since Wilbur's had anything much to say in terms of fraternizing with the enemy. Whatever. He flirts with Alex, so Wilbur ups the flirting, too. When they do karaoke--which Karl demands they do--he sings the Jonathan Coulton version of Baby Got Back (and if it makes Tommy and Toby collapse in giggles, so much the better).

Karl asks what he's doing, if he's trying to imply anything, trying to get with Karl's man, and Alex says--that Wilbur's just practicing his music. So... Okay. Alex already has a Schlatt replacement. Makes sense, honestly. Moving up in the world, too, if the power-sharer on Karl's arm is anything to go by.

"Just practicing," he echoes, "my affinity's song spells, so I have to keep warmed up," and he switches to a love song.

And at the end of karaoke--

"I have a message for you, Alex."

"What?"

"Look at me. Don't look away from me. Stop being terrified of me. Look at me."

"I'm looking. What do you want?"

"I want to kill myself." Wilbur laughs a little. "And you're going to watch." He holds up the little metal ball.

The party erupts. Karl's saying "whoa whoa whoa" and Niki's saying "oh my GOD, somebody do something" and Toby's frozen in place and--

--Tommy's there, his hand tight around Wilbur's wrist. "Holy SHIT."

"Can you please let go of me?"

"NO??????????"

"I have a speech, can I please give my speech."

"Go ahead." He's stronger than Wilbur and they both know it. Wilbur can give a speech all he wants but he's not going to be able to move that explosive an inch unless Tommy lets him.

...Right. Okay.

"I'm happy to announce--I don't know which of you heard from Alex? I was going to do this, uh, about two weeks ago, but he convinced me to wait. It's better like this anyway, I think. I want you all to bear witness."

"--He said he checked the door fifteen minutes ago, he didn't, there's at least one mal there, the rest of you need to take care of it. --Continue, please."

"What is the fucking point, I'll be dead soon anyway, it doesn't matter! Look! Listen."

"What you mean, Wil-- Why-- Why soon? You don't have to do this, we can just--we can just go back to our dorms, man."

"No. Enough waiting. I'm going to do it today."

"Going to-- going to do what today?"

"What do you mean, what am I going to do today?" He can hear his voice going high and cruel and mocking.

"Wilbur, this isn't the right thing to do."

"WELL-- WHO ELSE IS IT GOING TO HURT!"

"Fucking-- everyone, Wil, how can you not see that!"

"Let go of me."

"Wilbur, this isn't you, you can still take this back, Wilbur listen to me--"

"I just--! I just want to end it! Fuck, I just want to end it!"

"Wilbur. Wilbur. Stop fighting. Even if I let go of you you're too close, you'd kill me too, it isn't fair."

"Why did I-- I'm such a fucking showman. I should have just done it. Why did I think this was a good idea?"

"Don't test me, I will stay here past curfew if you don't move. You kill yourself and you kill me. Don't do this."

"Why did you-- why do you have to make it so difficult? If you'd just let me go--"

"I let you go, I'm not moving. Do you want me to go down with you?"

"I don't-- I don't want to kill you."

"But if you do this, that's what you're doing."

"Oh, fuck you! Fuck you, man! Why did you have to make it so hard, I'm such a fucking showman--

--Have you heard of a Chekhov's gun, Tommy?"

"No. I've heard of, I mean, a gun."

"Chekhov's gun is an idea in-- in plot devices. If you tease something for long enough, if you keep it around, if you keep saying you're going to do it, you have to do it at some point. Or else it's a false promise. The story's not complete until it comes into play.

Tommy, do you trust me?"

"Do you want to kill me? 'Cause if you do--"

"Tommy, if you trusted me, you'd let me go."

"If you want to kill me--" He loosens his fingers around Wilbur's wrist and sends up a prayer, please God please don't let us die here. "--Then be my guest. But I don’t think… I don’t think you're going to."

...Wilbur finally breaks eye contact to look around. The audience has cleared out. Either afraid of him or dealing with the mals. Or both.

"I'm not. I'll--I'm going back to my dorm."