Calculus of Love Chapter 01 - Orientation Night

Universe: Save the Day

This is part 1 of a book written in the superhero universe created by Zia

The artwork features Joseph, the title character, and was done by Clamcrusher.

So, this is the start of a story I've been writing on and off for a few years now. It's based off the characters and setting created by Zia McCorgi in his book Save the Day. If you haven't read the book (and you should), all you need to know is that it's a furry universe where superpowers appeared about 20 years ago, causing the rise of supervillians and heroes. there's a lot of super science in the setting, and Boston's MIT has become a center for study and learning on the topic.

Calculus of Love Chapter 01 - Orientation Night

***

The hallways of the Benjamin Franklin Dormitory Complex were full of bustling students arriving on move in day. The entire MIT campus was alive with activity on the first Saturday before the fall term, and the freshmen dorms were especially active as everyone tried to move in at once.

With his suitcase rolling behind him, Joseph Baker jostled and weaved his way through the crowd as he headed to his new dorm room. The black furred wolf also had a duffle bag in one hand and a messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and that made avoiding the other baggage laden students hard to do.

The door to room 304 was already open, and the wolf stopped at the threshold to look around. The door opened into a small, barren common area that was just big enough to hold a couch and small TV stand. While there was no TV, there was a pile of boxes in the middle of the room so at least one of his new roommates was already here.

Joseph sniffed the air, trying to catch any scent of his possible dorm mates, but the air was filled with too much disinfectant and too many people were passing by the open door. The only recognizable scent was his own nervousness. Meeting new people was never fun for Joseph, and these two, whoever they were, were going to be living with him for at least the next six months.

Were they going to be jocks like the guys back on his street in the big apple that dragged him into fraternity hi-jinks? Or recluses who lived in their rooms studying or playing weird music. Would they care that Joseph was gay?

Joseph set his duffle bag down on the couch and got his suitcase out of the doorway. He kept the shoulder bag with him though as he poked his head through one of the side doors and said. "Hello?" The little room beyond the door was empty.

"Yep?" A deep voice said behind him, and Joseph turned round to see the horns and head of a tall bull looking out of one of the other rooms. "Oh hey there, you must be Joe. I'm Kent." The big chocolate brown bull that lumbered out of the room was in a tank top and tight jean, and he smiled broadly as he stuck out a hand.

"Joseph, nice to meet you." The wolf said nervously as he looked up at the bull and shook his outstretched paw. There was a pause as Kent's eye's roamed his face, but Joseph didn't really notice. People always took notice of the three short white stripes on each side his face, like somebody had run their fingers through the fur on his cheeks with paint on them. They were really odd marking for a wolf, so people always glanced at them. Probably the same way people always looked up at the bull.

Kent was tall, really tall. The tip of his horns almost brushed the room's high ceiling and he ducked to get them through the door to his room. "Guess you've claimed that room?" Joseph said pointing at the middle door, and the wolf took a moment to admire the view when Kent bent over to pick up a box of his things. It was a very nice view indeed, as those tight jeans hugged the bull's body. Kent was ripped, and the big bull practically oozed down home southern charm as he straightened up and smiled.

"Yep, which ever door your key fits is yours, but that's the only one left now. So Joseph, where you from?" Kent gestured with his head to the door on the right side as he carried a box from the stack in the main room into his. The chocolate brown bull had a deep southern accent and since he was wearing a fairly small sleeveless shirt it, was easy to see a lot of the bull's defined body. His muscles bulged under his short fur in a way that spoke of some serious body building work. That and the bull's shirt featured a picture of the hero Metalyena with the slogan 'Pump Iron' on it. It was a fairly popular design even in New York among the muscle head crowd.

"New York," the wolf said in an offhand way as he tested the last door with his key and then lugged his bags into the free room and set them down. Even in this small room, the three bags holding everything he owned looked sad and alone. Joseph put his things into the closet, careful to put the messenger bag at the bottom of the pile for all the good it did.

As the wolf came back into the main room, Kent said, "Guess you're used to living in the big city then." The bull moved the last stack of boxes into his room as he spoke. "I'm from Kansas, never been in a city as huge as Boston before. It's going to be weird." The bull brushed his hands off and smiled at the wolf as he came back into the main room, his grin broad and his shirt clinging to him. "You want any help getting the rest of your stuff from your car?"

"Nah, don't have a car, or anything else. I travel light." Joseph said jovially. He locked the door to his room, smiling up at the handsome bull. "I was going to go check out the new student orientation party."

"Cool," the bull said in a breezy way as he gave the wolf a bright smile. "You want to head down there together?" Kent's thick thumb jerked toward the third doorway as he said. "Andrew there already headed down an hour or so ago, maybe we can find him and introduce you. He's a husky from Texas."

"What, just like the superhero Glacier?" Joseph said jokingly, but it wasn't really funny. Kent laughed hugely though, his barrel chest shaking.

"Naw, not really." The bull said with a grin. "You'll see when you meet him." Kent ran a finger along one of his horns, as if he were testing the point. "You know, I ain't never seen one of the Extraordinaries before. Guess that's one thing good about the big city eh?" The bull's smile broke across his face again. "I might finally get to see one in person."

"I guess so. Come on big guy, let's go." Joseph had to grin back, but he kept his tail from wagging too much at the bull's smile. There was no reason to get his hopes up after all; he had no reason to think the bull might be gay too. Kent was just being friendly, and not every guy who had a Metalyena shirt was bi. The hyena had only just come out that way after all.

***

Joseph closed the door behind them and followed behind the huge bull, when he learned there was at least one benefit besides Kent's good looks to his new roommate. It was a lot easier getting through the crowded halls in the wake of the massive bull.

They made their way down the hall, past the common showers and bathrooms, and to the elevators in the center of the building. Joseph and Kent took one look at the crowd of students with furniture and bags waiting for the elevator and headed for the stairs.

"Damn this building is big," Kent muttered at they started down the stairs to the ground floor. "You big city folks just looove your tall buildings." The bull squeezed past a couple of guys who had decided to carry their bags up the stairs rather than wait in the line on the bottom floor for an elevator.

Joseph laughed. "It's only ten floors dude, and we're only on the fourth. I used to live in a twenty story building back in New York." The wolf rounded the corner of the stairs, going down the steps in quick succession. "Besides, most schools don't have dorms this big."

"Then why is this one so huge?" Kent almost had to shout over the crowd of people and the ringing sound of his hooves on the stairs as he followed behind Joseph.

The pair reached the button floor and existed out into the lobby, where Joseph turned to tap the bull on the chest, right on the picture of Metalyena. "Cause of that lug, actually. I read about it in the orientation package they sent out."

"You actually read that stuff?" Kent snorted in amusement as they cross the building lobby and started their walk across campus. The weather was cold and a bit damp outside, and Joseph reminded himself to buy a good coat sometime soon. He'd forgotten to bring his from home.

"I read the whole thing actually. It was a long ride up here on the bus after all." Joseph said grinning to himself. "Anyways, the old Franklin Hall used to be smaller, until they had to rebuild the whole thing from the ground up."

"Whoa what caused that?" Kent said, quickening his pace a bit to keep up with Joseph. Despite Kent's longer legs, the wolf was faster.

"Etenior fucking tossed Metalyena right through it." Joseph said with a grin.

"No way!" Kent snorted, ruffling a passing raccoon’s hair. The brown bull was head and shoulders above most of the people in the crowd around them. Kent's face lit up in recollection, "I remember that fight!" Kent snapped his fingers and pointed at the wolf, a grin breaking out on his muzzle. "It was the middle of the summer, and I watched the news replay the fight footage over and over again. Everybody was all worked up cause it was the first time Etenior had ever lost to somebody other than the Lady! They didn't even think that was possible. Metalyena took one hell of a beating that day!"

"I know that was a crazy summer! Up in New York, they played the footage of Camo using his illusions to keep Etenior busy when Metalyena got knocked out for a solid month." Joseph turned, practically walking backwards now as he talked. "I heard the throw actually broke one of Metal's bones, and he's supposed to be indestructible with that metal skin of his. If Camo hadn't been there to distract the meathead while he recovered, who knows what would a happened, am I right?"

"Heh, do I detect a hint of civic pride in your hero eh?" Kent said in an amused tone, his hands going into the pockets of his jeans. The bull tipped his head at the wolf. "I bet you even cheer for the Yankees."

"Course I do." Joseph said with an amused wag of his tail. "They win." Kent laughed with him at that comment as they reached the Student Union.

***

The Student Union was big too, a three story building with tons of space, study rooms, a cafeteria, and even an arcade in the basement. Most of MIT's buildings were big these days, because building up was easier than building out in the crowded city, and MIT had changed a lot in the age of superheroes. Joseph hadn't been lying about reading the entire student orientation package, just when he'd done the reading. A lot of it was about the history of the school and various buildings on campus. It was clear that someone had put a lot of work into writing something that they didn't expect many people to read, and so they had gotten quite detailed about the history of the campus.

Still, the authors had tried to make it interesting. There had been seventeen full out super powered brawls on the MIT grounds over the years since Solarcoon's appearance and defeat of Power Puma, and hundreds of small scale incidents in the research labs.

The fight against Etenior had been the biggest attack in the city's history, destroying four campus buildings, and injured or killing hundreds of people. Boston's signature hero, the badger Stratagem, had been forced to call in his team mates Metalyena and Camo to help defeat the giant, indestructible mountain goat. Together they had been able to defeat the Frenchman, but the battle had done a lot of damage to the campus.

Most of the super fights in the city's history were centered on the heroic badger rather than the Extraordinaries as a whole. More than a few of them had resulted in serious property damage, but it seemed that MIT and Boston always rebuilt bigger and better each time.

Their dorm for instance had once only been four stories tall before Metalyena had crashed through the supporting walls and the roof collapsed on top of him. Building the dorm back as a ten story student housing complex had been a message to other supervillains that anything they could knock down, Boston would rebuild. Joseph figured it was a bit like being a Red Sox fan. It made sense for the city of the one Extraordinary who wasn't super powered to be so resilient.

Not that the lack of a super power like flight or energy control seemed to matter to the badger. People said that Stratagem was the smartest man in the world, and the history of MIT for the last twenty years read like a resume of the super science minded badger's accomplishments.

Huge advances in medicine, physics, and engineering had come out of the MIT labs over the years. Captured death rays gave rise to improved lasers and medical scanning techniques. Dangerous chemical weapons were repurposed into beneficial biomedical treatments. Robotic monstrosities provided advances in all sorts of engineering fields from architecture to metallurgy. The college took apart the mad science of the world and put it back together as something new and useful, what everyone in the news called leap tech.

Several prestigious government research grants provided the funding for one of the most impressive academic faculties in the world, and the school had become a bastion of invention. Only Mexico City rivaled Boston in the field of leap tech, and that was because the entire country of Mexico had thrown its energy and brain power behind the cybernetic hero El Gato Cibernetico and the team of geniuses who had designed his armor. Everyone knew that Boston's success was similarly due to the badger's super-science know how and Extraordinary connections. It was why Joseph had chosen to come to MIT. He wanted to study at the world’s greatest school for math and science. He wanted to learn what the people here knew.

Of course, being a center for research and discovery made MIT a giant target for supervillains and supercriminals wanting a short cut to power. They attacked the research labs with startling regularity, especially after Living Code had destroyed Astro labs. Still, in the last fifteen years the school had grown exponentially despite the danger of going to school somewhere that super fights were almost common occurrences. After all, most of the incidents happened in the research labs not out on the Quad in front of the Student Center and Stratagem was always on hand to stop the villains. The badger's constant vigilance made the people of Boston even more confident than they already naturally were.

When they got to the Student Center, Joseph pulled open the door and let Kent go in first. The place was full of people, and it was a cross between a full scale party and an information faire. Several clubs and organizations had set up booths to meet the new students, but up on the second floor there was free food and tons of people hanging out in the cafeteria area.

Joseph followed the bull's bulky frame, letting Kent lead the way through the crowd. It was all a bit overwhelming. Joseph instinctively folded his ears back to reduce the sound levels some, but it was still shocking to see so many people in one place. The damp weather meant that everybody wanted to be inside, and the free food and games guaranteed there would be a huge crowd. The mix of scents and sounds was a shock compared to the outside fresh air.

Kent looked around, and he grinned back at Joseph. "Well, whatya think?"

"MIT sure knows how to throw a party." Joseph said with a grin. "Let's go wander eh?"

"Yah," the bull said with a smile, and the crowd forced them to stay close as they pushed and jostled through the crowd. "There's a lot of clubs and such, you thinking about joining a fraternity?" Kent asked as they made their way between the various booths.

"Might, I don't know," Joseph said. "I haven't had a good track record with that sorta thing."

"I want to." Kent said jovially. "I used to hang out with my older bro's frat buddies, and they were a lot of fun." The big bull motioned like he was drinking, and then he raised his hand in a wave to someone Joseph couldn't see over the crowd. "Yo, Andy!"

Joseph followed the bull, which broke away from the crowd of people who moved between the club booths and towards where some tables were set up. At a table full of guys, there was a slender husky in a hoodie who had turned around in his seat and was waving at Kent enthusiastically. “Kent! Kent, over here!” The gray and white husky was wagging so fast his curled tail was slapping the guy next to him. “Is this our final roomie?” The husky who was evidently Andy had a big grin on his face.

“Yah, this is Joe.” Kent said with a grin as he grabbed a chair and coaxed the guys around the table to scoot over so he could sit beside Andy. After the husky’s tail attack, the otter to his right was eager to move away from him and he made room for both of them to sit. Joseph grabbed a chair and joined the table, sitting backwards on the chair and resting his arms on the back between Andy and Kent.

“Hi, I’m Andrew, but call me Andy okay?” The husky’s eyes were bright blue, and Joseph smiled as they shook paws, the husky a bit too energetic about it. He also had a thick Texan accent. “What’s your major gonna be? I’m taking classical art design.”

“Joseph, and I’m gonna be a math major.” Joseph pulled his paw back, smiling at the enthusiastic husky whose tail was now battering the cougar on the other side of him, who didn’t seem to notice. Kent was shaking hands with people around the table, and Joseph did the same, noticing that beneath the collar of his light blue hooded jacket Andy was wearing a rainbow pride necklace.

Andy’s muzzle split into a big grin as he said, “Oh, you’re an egg head huh? Good, I’m gonna need help passing even the basic math courses I have to take. Kent’s doing architecture, so I’m sure you’ll share some math courses with him.” The big bull grinned at them when Andy reached behind Joseph and nudged him playfully. “What made you want to study math of all things?”

“Oh, I like stat-” Joseph started to say, when somebody across the table interrupted him.

“Hey Joseph, where you from? You sound like a New Yorker. What burrow?” Somebody across the table, a raccoon that Joseph on closer inspection realized was actually a skinny girl. She had a bright eyed bandit look with the traditional raccoon mask, and she spoke in a familiar accent.

“The Bronx,” Joseph said with a grin, “You from the city too?”

The raccoon shook her head, making a face like she had just eaten a lemon. “Jersey.”

“My condolences,” Joseph said as if consoling her on the death of a family member and everybody, including the raccoon girl, laughed.

Her long tail swished in a circle as the cougar between her an Andy said, “So you another frigging Yankees fan?” It was a joke. The big cat was smiling in too a playful way for it to be anything but a joke, but Joseph saw a couple guys in Red Sox caps around the table turn their heads to look at him.

Joseph grinned at the cougar, and dialed his accent way up to say, “Ya, whata yah gonna fucking do about it, eh?” Joseph even shrugged his shoulders and flicked his ears back like every kid in his neighborhood did when talking like that. It was so over the top that people laughed. The sad part was, he reflected as everybody grinned, it wasn’t hard to put on a show like that. He’d talked that way all that time not too long ago.

Kent nudged the wolf and asked, “So, you know much about baseball or are you just a fan of the home team?”

Joseph grinned up at him a bit sheepishly, “Ugh, I’m actually a total nerd about it. I know, like everything.”

The bull raised his eyebrows, “Oh really?” He said it with a playful grin and the wolf grinned back with a gleam in his eyes. Then, he proceeded to rattle off the entire roster and batting average of the Kansas City Royals. Kent was shocked, because well, it was the Kansas City Royals, and they got into a brief debate over the team’s line up. The wolf briefly became the center of attention as one of the guys in a Sox cap go into the discussion, and once the other guys realized he was a walking textbook on the game, they began to pepper Joseph with weird trivia questions trying to trip him up.

They were all laughing and checking his facts on their cell phones by the time the cougar passed around a flask of something alcoholic for them to spike their punch with and that changed the subject. Fraternities were mentioned and the guys, and one girl, around the table fell to talking about what degrees they were taking, what dorms they were in, and everything they could think about their new school. Joseph grinned, chatting happily with them, talking fast and with everyone who directed even a word in his direction. He kept tabs on all the conversations, revealing in the chaotic discussions flowing around him. He rubbed elbows with Andy a few times, and Kent slapped him on the back more than a few times, the bull laughing a booming laugh as he did.

***

Hours later, the crowd of freshmen boys around the table broke up, but only because they were shooed out of the Student center staff at three in the morning. Joseph, Andy, and Kent sauntered back towards their dorm with the group, people peeling off and heading to their own rooms.

Eventually it was just the three of them, walking down the hallway from the elevators to their dorm room. People on their floor were still wide awake, doors open and folks inside chatting loudly as the night wore on. Evidently the residence assistances weren’t patrolling the floor tonight. Kent opened the door and Andy darted in front of the bull, deftly avoiding Kent’s big hooves as he pulled off his jacket and hung it on a peg by the door. Kent glanced at Joseph, who shook his head with a grin at the husky’s back. The bull rumbled, “Goodnight you guys. You wanna grab breakfast in the morning downstairs before we gotta finish registration?” Joseph nodded at him, kicking off his shoes as Kent opened the door to his room. Joseph headed to his door, but as he was opening it, Andy came over to him, an almost shy grin on his face as he stood real close to the wolf.

“Hey Joseph, you never did answer me,” Andy said, the husky’s paws behind his back as he stood by Joseph, looking up at him slightly. Joseph frowned, unsure what the effeminate husky could possibly be talking about. “What made you wanna study math?”

Joseph smiled slightly, blushing slightly. “Oh, I’ve always loved numbers, statistics and stuff. It’s why I’m so into baseball.” The wolf grinned at the bouncing husky, who looked up at him with a hopeful expression. “I figured MIT was a pretty good place to study that.”

“Guess that’s true. MIT has the best science departments…” Andy trailed off, and his curled tail wagged back and forth as he just watched Joseph for a second without speaking.

“Yah,” Joseph said in confusion, staring into the husky’s blue eyes. “Um, goodnight I guess?” Joseph said, smiling awkwardly as Andy flicked his ears back for a moment.

“Goodnight,” the husky said in a slightly startled way, before leaning up and kissing Joseph on the lips very briefly. Joseph blinked in surprise as the husky sort of bounced back from him, like he was expecting a slap or something. Instead Joseph grinned, stepped forward, and kissed him properly. The wolf cupped Andy’s face with a paw, their muzzles meshing for a moment before the sound of a door closing behind them made the husky jump back, breaking the kiss. Andy turned to see Kent standing there, and the husky scampered past the bull blushing like mad, his tail tucked but wagging a mile a minute as the short husky raced past Kent.

Kent had stepped out of his room while they were kissing, and had clearly seen the two of them locking lips. Joseph swallowed nervously when he saw that the bull was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts and carrying a toothbrush and toothpaste tube. That was not how most straight guys would want to find out their new roommates were queer. Kent had an unreadable expression on his blank square jawed face. Silence hung in the dorm room as Andy unlocked his door and Joseph felt his fur prickle along his back as his tail sink, the big bull sort of looming over him.

“Well,” the bull coughed, his naked chest heaving slightly. “Can I get a kiss goodnight too sugar?”

The wolf laughed in sheer relief as a big, frat boy grin spreading across on Kent’s square muzzle. Joseph nodded yes without thinking, blushing hard as Kent’s took a step toward him and leaned way down to kiss the shorter wolf. They kissed only briefly, without the soft affection of the kiss with Andy, but there was a charge of passion to the kiss that came from the way the bigger bull kissed him a bit roughly. Kent’s free hand came up and cupped Joseph’s side in a way that made the wolf’s tail wag, and Joseph put a paw on the bull’s muscled chest experimentally, seeing if this was some kind of dare on the bull’s part. The big bull didn’t pull back, and the kiss ended with them grinning at each other. Then Kent licked his lips, smiled broadly, and ducked his head as he turned away. The broad shouldered bull walked away like nothing had just happened, but unless Joseph was seriously mistaken, Kent was tenting his boxer shorts quite a bit as he headed for the bathroom.

Across the room, Andy was barely controlling his laughter, covering his muzzle with one paw, his white fur almost turning pink from the redness of the skin underneath as he blushed hotly and fumbled with his door key. Joseph shook his head at the grinning husky and finished unlocking the door to his room.

This was going to be interesting.