"It would've been very narratively inappropriate for her to."

"...I'm sorry?"

"Don't worry about it."

"...right. Well, off with you two, it is far too late for you to be here and you both have class tomorrow morning."

"Cheers, sir. Please don't tell my brother about my crimes unless you think it'll be very funny."

Edmund exits the library in a substantially better mood.

And next time he looks at Pete he'll be pink again. "Is Sophie gorgeous, too? I'm betting she is. I mean, I'm bisexual and all, it would be strange to only have boys be part of the plot."

"...Susan's roommate? Um, yeah, think so, I've never seen her smiling but I've heard she has to beat boys away with a stick. And sometimes has. Isn't Jenkins after her?"

"He is! And according to Susan, Sophie won't stop complaining to her about how annoying Hywel is. That sounds like plot, either to split them or bring them together, I'm not sure yet. If nothing else being Hywel's roommate means I have a better lever to get him to stop going after her even if this isn't Officially A Plot."

"Your bloody simulationism. ...she usually has breakfast with Susan, if you want to meet her and judge for yourself."

"Simulationism or divine meddling, my life is going to be more like a story than not," he says with a shrug. "I'm just trying to be genre savvy."

"Yeah, I remember," Edmund sighs. "I don't like it but you are not obligated to live a life that i like in every particular."

"I think it's not anywhere near as much under my control as you seem to think it is? Or, well, it'll be a kind of narrative I'll be happy to have been a part of when all is said and done but the life I'm living will be a narrative whether I want it to be or not. ...I do want, given the guarantee that it'll be a narrative I like, but."

"...it's not that I think it's under your control. I just... I don't know. It trips the parts of my brain that think living like you're in a story is dangerous. Even though you are. It's my problem, not yours, and I'll try not to make it yours."

"...Ed, I don't love that phrase, but I'm having trouble expressing why in a way that doesn't sound presumptuous. I like you and I'd like to make your problems mine? Even if we're not, uh, if we've just met and we may not have A Proper Long-term Relationship, that's also being a friend."

"Or I may be interpreting you as saying much more than you're actually saying, that's likely too."

"I - appreciate the sentiment, but - actually, before I move on: I appreciate the sentiment. I am extremely happy about the sentiment. What I mean, though, is that I am hearing things you're not saying. Which is not something you have to fix for me, it's something I have to fix for me."

"...alright. But do feel free to actually ask me to say things some other way or clarify myself or whatever, if I sound too insane. I do best when I have people to call me on my bullshit and check my thinking." Which would actually make sense of why he's already pulled the curtain so far back for Edmund, actually, he'd been wondering at this going really quickly but having One Person in on the secret to help guide him is actually pretty sensible.

"This isn't calling your bullshit! I've called you on your bullshit something like three times in under twenty-four hours!"

"No, I know, I know, just in general, if I start talking about plot this tropes that narrative over there too much. I don't always know what I'm talking about."

"Mm. I can do that, then. Not in this case, though, Jenkins does need someone to either slap him on the nose with a newspaper or help him do something besides pulling girls' hair, and it may as well be you, you're the only one with time for it."

"I do have time for it, you're not wrong."

And here's the dorm building. He could really get used to this thing of reaching places only once a scene is over and all that. ...well, he really will get used to it, his life is a badly written fic now. He'll never have to worry about the realistic amount of time anything takes ever again.

The dorm building is entered. Pete's room is reached.

Edmund kisses him, quickly, at the door. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

"You most certainly will. Good night, Edmund."

He considers whether he needs anything from Milliways, but decides he doesn't—he could get the Narnia books to refresh himself on the Pevensies but he kinda doesn't want to make the knowledge asymmetry between them any wider—so he just walks back into his room.

"Hail, hail," Hywel says, raising a hand limply in salute. "How was your last day before school?"

"Very long. I did go swimming, and then went on a date with Edmund—Pevensie, that is—and we watched some anime together. How about yours?"