Work Text:
Cultish homeschooling has its downsides, obviously, but effective pedagogy is not actually one of them. Comparatively, based on the intellectual state of Harrow’s BIOL111 class, New Zealand standardised education seems to consist of handing out NCEA Level 3s like participation trophies for mediocre illiterate teenagers, and telling their parents not to worry about the youth unemployment crisis. It’s also apparent to Harrow that this education system does not imbue its students with emotional resilience in the face of constructive criticism. Demonstrably so.
Really, she’d been charitable. It’s only that one of the thin-skinned airheads has taken it upon herself to be the student handbook equivalent of a big fat tattle-tale. Well. As Palamedes had put it: trying to reach consensus with Harrow in restorative justice mediation is like trying to get your unconscious pet elephant through the cat flap by gently tugging on its leash. Harrow usually resents Palamedes’ egregious similes, but admittedly this one is apt.
13 minutes ago, the mediator called a bathroom break and left the room. About a minute after that, Miss Tattle-Tale left too, seemingly bored without a susceptible audience to her victimhood. The meeting room has a yellow-stained attempt at a window, and Harrow can see her slouched in the hallway with the mediator, sharing a fucking green-apple dispo. Who’s lacking appropriate decorum now, huh?
Harrow is alone in the room with a blessed lack of vape fumes and Palamedes, who, among other things, is the head tutor for BIOL 111. Unlike the vast majority of people she’s met at university, Palamedes is tolerably intelligent. Initially, she’d wondered how he’d made it through standardised education with an intact neural network –he'd done IB.
"I'm sorry about that,” he says, nodding at the window. “The mediator probably shouldn't be sharing a vape with one of the student parties. It gives an impression of bias."
"Obviously."
Palamedes sighs.
"Harrow, I'm begging you to just apologize when they come back. This is tedious."
“So is taking 100-level biology.”
Palamedes gives her a side eye. His undereyes are dark.
"You know, the dean might've let you test out of your pre-reqs if you hadn't called him a degenerate in the meeting."
"Aren't you supposed to be on my side?"
"No, I told you, I'm an impartial witness."
Harrow scoffs.
"Advanced placements shouldn't even be discretionary. I could take the final now and pass, but I have to waste my time with mitosis worksheets just because the dean thinks I’m a violent heretic and you refuse to forge my attendance."
"I'm not getting fired for you, Harrow."
"You're a coward, Sextus."
He rolls his eyes.
The door opens and the mediator and Tattle both come back into the room smelling of artificially sweetened nicotine addiction.
The mediator stares melancholically at his clipboard. "Okay. Harrowhark. I think we'd all like if this didn't turn into a formal process for misconduct. So. I think that if you apologise, and promise to be more considerate in the future," the mediator looks at Tattle, "it would give everyone a bit of closure, and we can avoid that."
Harrow makes eye contact with Palamedes. He gives her a small nod, looking about as hopeful as a PhD student can get –which is to say, very slightly. He should know better.
"No," she says (in her periphery, Palamedes wearily closes his eyes), "I gave an academic critique. It's not misconduct, and making me apologize isn't closure, it's bureaucratic disingenuity."
Tattle opens her mouth, but the mediator cuts her off.
"I understand that that is your perspective, Harrowhark, but Emily feels very hurt, and is within her rights to make a complaint. And I think that you might want to avoid this escalating given the– conditions of your enrollment."
Harrow blinks. Of course it comes down to that. Palamedes has started talking.
"–not appropriate to discuss in front of another student, let alone use as leverage–"
Harrow is done. She stands up.
"Fine. I apologise and vow to be considerate in the future. Sextus, I'm leaving."
She makes for the door, and hears Palamedes' chair clatter as he gets up to follow. And because she can't help herself:
"Before I go, and I’m just being considerate here, you might want to stop recreationally inhaling carcinogenic battery acid. For your health."
***
Palamedes offers to buy her coffee.
Harrow manages enough social awareness to realise that it will be embarrassing to say that she doesn’t like coffee, or tea, or flavour, so she accepts. There are no free tables at the campus cafe, so Palamedes asks for takeaway. The barista asks what she wants, and Harrow does not have an answer. Palamedes gently suggests a mocha and she nods vaguely. After several minutes Palamedes hands her the coffee in a takeaway cup –well, the university’s environmentally friendly equivalent, which is a perfectly normal coffee mug, ceramic and lidless. She looks around, and realises that nobody else seems to be concerned about wandering around campus with hot beverages in open vessels.
“Here,” Palamedes tells her, “let's go sit in the tutors' office.”
Harrow is helpless to follow him on the treacherous path to the BSci tutor’s office, wielding her uncovered mocha. It would be easier to carry if it wasn’t so completely full, but that would mean actually drinking it, which she is not yet prepared to do. By some luck of coordination she makes it to the office without giving anyone second degree burns.
She sits across from Palamedes at a uselessly small and cluttered round table and places the mocha on top of what appears to be a tear stained thesis.
“You were right,” he says, “it was barely misconduct–”
“No, I said it wasn’t misconduct–”
“ –and you shouldn’t have had to apologise like that–”
“You told me to apologise–”
“Not like that, they shouldn’t hold it over your head.”
“My enrollment is quite literally conditional.”
Palamedes sighs and sips his coffee. Harrow watches her coffee’s cocoa-powdered foam slowly deflate.
“The dean doesn’t think you’re a violent heretic,” he says, because apparently he enjoys giving her inane reassurances that make her blood boil.
“Everyone thinks I’m a violent heretic,” she says incredulously, “I was convicted.”
Palamedes rolls his eyes. “Drink your coffee,” he tells her.
“Fine.” She picks up the cup and doesn't drink it.
She starts aimlessly scanning the thesis it was resting on. No wonder someone was crying over it, they’re researching the genetic equivalent of a rhinoceros and calling it a unicorn. She’s about to voice this to Palamedes when he decides to say something stupid again.
“What are you doing this weekend?” he asks.
Harrow can only manage to stare at him.
Palamedes has the grace to look slightly embarrassed.
“You should- could come to mine and Cam’s flatwarming party.”
“I should come to your what?”
“The party that we’re having for our new flat.”
“I may have been raised by nuns, but I know what a flatwarming is,” she scolds. “You’re having a party?”
She had –mistakenly, apparently– felt some solidarity with Palamedes, thinking that he shared her science obsessed social ineptitude.
Palamedes frowns a little, “Yes. with Cam. And you should come.”
Harrow does not understand what reason anyone could have for thinking that she should be at a party. He smiles at her stupidly.
“Fine,” she says.
Her phone buzzes, and she glances down at the notification.
necrobithc how did meetign go
u get expelled or waht?
She sighs.
“Can I bring a plus one?” she asks Palamedes.
Palamedes is now the one staring incredulously.
“You want a plus one?” he asks.
Her phone buzzes again
we need toilet papre!!!! Pls bring!!!
URGENT
NEED TO SHIT
DO NOT GET 2PLY
“Yes,” she tells him, scowling, “Unfortunately.”