sortinghat_logs | Smart boys don't mess around

To be fair, Tony had nothing against his room mates. In fact, he really enjoyed their company for various reasons:

Bruce was the most obvious, he was the first person to really ever talk to Tony and was the first person he stuck to after getting skipped grades due to his own genius. They had become so close that Tony was almost too used to Bruce being around he actually paid more aware of when he wasn't around than when he was.

Next there was Sherlock, at first he didn't like him, his ability to read so much into Tony's actions un-nerved him and made him not trust him, over the years he realised that there were enough similarities to each other that he found himself looking forward to conversations with him, and they had both developed a habit of messing with each others things just enough for the other to be annoyed but never enough to cause a real fight.

Then, there was Herbert.

"You know, let's ignore the whole fact you're in a room of genius' and being one you're self you could always come up with some very ingenious way to drown us out. But hey."

Tony slips off of Bruce's bed where he had been reading, while glancing over at what ever Sherlock was doing. As his own bed was currently sporting a shirt of a car engine in pieces, and rifles through his trunk long enough to pull out a box of mouldable ear plugs then tosses them at Herbert.

"In the mean time, why don't you introduce yourself to the convenience of muggle technology and save us all from your whine. Last I checked, minors aren't allowed it."

It's not that Tony didn't like him. When he wasn't complaining he was alright to be around, it's just that something about Tony annoyed him. If it was explained to Tony, he had promptly forgotten it due to it not being important.

After all. Tony knew that you could never get 100% of people to like you 100% of the time.

"Tony, leave Herbert alone," Bruce muttered, closing his book and setting it on his bedside table. "It's pretty late anyway, we should all sleep."

Sherlock looked up from his small cauldron, rolling his eyes behind protective goggles at the status quo arguments. At least it was never boring in their room.

“As if sleep was ever the foolproof way of making Tony shut up or making Herbert less ornery. You do realize earplugs only serve to magnify the internal white noise, don’t you? Never mind, of course you do.” He grabbed another test tube of yellow liquid. “You could always try the common room, West. Other than Peter’s night blogging you’re probably assured to find some solace.” Because sleep? Ha! Sleep was for normal people.

Not one of them was “Normal”.

…well, at least half of them weren’t, anyway.

"Stark, I really wish you'd stop acting as though I'm completely ignorant of Muggle technology, since I was raised as a Muggleborn," Herbert snapped. "And I can't use ear plugs, I'm prone to ear infections and they make them worse."

He tossed the box back, though of course it only ended up landing in the middle of the floor instead of anywhere useful, like on Tony's bed or in front of him or something. "And I can't go down to the common room, either. Parker's just as annoying as Stark, and he talks even more, because for some reason he's both determined to be everyone's bloody friend, and he has no filter on his brain. Every little bit of nonsense that passes through his tiny mind just comes pouring out his mouth, it's ridiculous."

Tony raises a hand in the air as Bruce chides him.

"Uh, I'm trying to be helpful here."

He continues to look at Herbert, not paying too much attention to Sherlock's suggestion.

"Hey, some muggles don't know what a spectrometre is, so you can never be to careful around muggles or muggle-born."

He watches the case sail to the ground and just stares at it for a long moment.

"Hmm."

He stares at it longer, then sits on his trunk, still watching it. Once again, not really listening to what's being said around him. Even Bonnibell throws better.

"How, did you only make it that far?"

"You're being a prat. Actually, you too Sherlock." Sitting up, he glanced over at Sherlock's cauldron and frowned. "What are you even doing with that lot at this hour anyway?"

Sherlock frowned slightly. He was not trying to be a prat. That’s not fair at all.

“I’m working. Obviously. Just because you lot enjoying sleeping away half your lives doesn’t mean we all have to. Don’t worry, it’s non-reactive. It shouldn’t be, anyway. If you’ve been messing with my stuff again, Tony, this would be a good time to come clean,” he advised as he held up a blue vial in his other hand to add alongside the yellow.

"I don't sleep hardly at all!" Herbert protested, which was true - much like Sherlock, he often stayed up half the night working on things. "And I doubt Stark remembers how much of your stuff he's messed with, if it hasn't got to do with his stupid machines."

He drew his curtains partway shut around the bed, just in case - any Ravenclaw worth their salt put various repellent charms on the bed curtains, just because of the kinds of things they got up to in their dorms when 'proper' workspaces weren't available. But Herbert still kept one eye open - he was curious, after all, how it might all go wrong. "What're you doing, anyway?"

"Wait. 'Don't hardly sleep at all?' That's"

Tony shakes his head at how cowboy that just sounded and looks at Sherlock.

"I haven't slept for a day and a half, what are you even talking about?"

Then he slowly grins at the mention of him messing with Sherlock's things before flopping back onto Bruce's bed.

"For the record, I keep track of everything and anything I do to Sargent Perm's things. Because an over lap wouldn't be as funny."

He then proceeds to start stretching out on the bed, getting more comfortable, then pokes at Bruce.

"If you guys keep going with your pissing contest on who sleeps the least I swear I'm going to drug the lot of you with a Sleeping Draught," he grumbled, shoving at Tony with his foot. "Go to your own bed you idiot."

He glanced over at Sherlock again and eyed the liquids warily. "You sure that's not something that can wait until the morning?"

Sherlock continued to scowl. He wasn't being a prat, his hair wasn't a perm, and he didn't start the pissing contest. Just for all that, he was going to stay up all night on principle and leave the mother hen to his roost.

"It's actually more a chemistry experiment than a potions one. Trying out some cross-studies applications. Rather difficult to find a stable alkaline from available components but--" Sherlock poured the two liquids in steady but BOOM with a sudden puff of smoke there was green goo shooting off out of the cauldron. Ceiling, walls, his bed, several outlaying areas, all speckled in plops of a thick, viscous substance that, while volatile in the cauldron, seems just a slimy mess everywhere else.

Sherlock put the empty viles down and pulled off his marigolds. "...might have had the heat on too high..."

"Have you tried-" Herbert started, trying to ignore Stark on Bruce's bed, but he was interrupted by the explosion. He ducked behind his curtain, waited a few moments, then peered out again at the mess Sherlock had made. He snickered, hiding his mouth with his hand. "I guess you really aren't sleeping tonight unless you use someone else's bed. Brilliant, Holmes."

"Sleeping Draught? Now that's just kinky. And I can't. There's bit of car on it, and homework."

As the cauldron explodes, Tony sits up and looks surprised at first, but grins at Sherlock soon enough. even though he's flicking some of the goo off his trousers, not realising some is in his hair.

"For Christmas, I'm getting you a shirt. You'll really like it. It has 'stand back, I'm doing science' on it."

He looks around the room to take in the mess that's been made then looks at his bed.

"Oh yeah, you are so cleaning this all up before you do anything else. And there better not be any of that science-gasm on my camshaft, or I'm keeping Victor."

He points a finger at Sherlock with an over dramatic look. It's annoying, getting slime out of his engine parts has been what he's been doing all semester. He just doesn't want to do it again.

Bruce had just managed to duck behind his bed drapes to avoid getting hit in the face with a load of slime. "Damn it Sherlock!" he yelled, running a hand over his face and taking a deep breath to make the green fade from his eyes at the instance of panic he'd felt with the explosion.

“Shut it, Banner. I have half a mind to blame you.” He shifted his goggles up high on his head, surveying the spread of the goo. “House elves will clean it up later. It really wouldn’t do for me to do their jobs.”

He stooped to pick up a few bits and throw them on his bed to be collected and cleaned all the same, dropping his cauldron in the middle of the pile to be scrubbed before turning a quick wand on the more encroaching areas outside the vicinity of his own bed.

"It looks like it got a big glob right in the important bits," Herbert said gleefully, peering at Tony's bed. "Nice one, Holmes. It that caustic? Please say it is."

He pulled back his curtains, stretching out on his bed with his book and luxuriating in the nice, clean blankets. He did glance over at Bruce though, watching what bits he could see of him from behind the curtain, wondering if he was all right.

"It's what?!"

Tony shuffles off the bed, and goes over to his own to inspect the engine.

"Aw, come on. You. I just..."

He wipes some of the goo off and flicks it at Sherlock.

"I've been cleaning this all term. I demand Victor as recompense."

And with that, he starts to stride over to where the skull was kept, with every intention of taking it.

"How is this my fault?" Bruce snapped, throwing his drapes back to glare at Sherlock, eyes back to their normal slate grey. "Unless you're suggesting it's my fault for not having given you detention for every time you had an experiment going in the dorms when you know you're not meant to be doing them in the dorms?"

"Well, maybe if someone wasn't lazing about, acting like lord prat, I wouldn't have left the burner on high." Sherlock shot Bruce a scowl as he moved over to Tony's bed to survey the damage.

"It's not caustic, it's not even water based, it's fine. Look." Sherlock took the end of his robe and scooped a blob of it off Tony's parts. "Just think of it as an oil based lubricant. The parts could actually benefit from this little mishap." He hoped.

"Maybe you shouldn't have taken all term to clean it," Herbert said to Tony, smirking, and added to Sherlock, "And you blow loads of stuff up no matter who's around, don't be an idiot. What was that meant to do, anyway?"

"Yeah, because who wants a clean camshaft in a car they're building that would just be ridiculous."

He rolls his eyes at Herbert, then wipes his hand along the machine and flicks it at him.

"Here, because you need a lube job more than my engine does."

"Tony don't be crass," he muttered, throwing a pillow at him. "Sherlock, I always lie around like 'lord prat', that's never affected how high or low you keep the burner. Can you clean this mess up or do we need to ask the House Elves for a favor?"

Sherlock scowled but deflated in his indignity a bit. “It was meant to be a sterile base for growing bacterial cultures.” He produced a rag to see to Tony’s engine parts, sort of eyeing it as to what the hell the bits and pieces were meant to be and in what way they were okay to be rubbed. “It’d hardly be asking the house elves a favor when it’s their job in the first place.”

"Yeah, and who takes that long to clean-" Herbert retorted to Tony, then squawked as green goo splattered on his cheek and partially into his open mouth. He immediately started sputtering and spitting to get it out, rubbing at his tongue with the back of his hand and wrist, and glaring at the other boy.

"Sterile bases for bacterial culturing already exist," he said icily to Sherlock, then retreated into his bed again, pulling the curtains shut as haughtily and violently as he possibly could. Seeing as they were made of cloth, however, it hardly made for much of a dramatic gesture.

Tony laughs at Herbert's reaction as he catches the pillow thrown at him. Seemingly unbothered by Sherlock inspecting the engine part while he wipes at it.

"Hey, Punxsutawney Phil. Let me know if you see your shadow when you come out, okay?"

He hugs the pillow to his chest, as he comes back to Bruce's bed flopping on it and him, then looks up at him.

"Shirley Temple's right. It is their job to clean up our messes. They're the only reason my bed is ever made on the odd occasion I sleep in it"

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