"BOOTS! Boots, KILL IT!"

Boots sighs and rolls off his bed. There's no point in waiting, in yelling back to ask Bruno to hold his water for two minutes while he finishes the math problem, no point in doing anything but going to play white knight to Bruno's disturbingly masculine damsel, because Boots is fully aware that Bruno will only keep screaming until he does.

He knows, because this has been going on all week.

"Dammit, Elmer," he grumbles under his breath as he snatches up the jar sitting on his desk, because this is all Elmer's fault, Elmer and his Brazilian Hopping Spiders. The bush hamsters had been such a raging success that Elmer had set out on a one-man crusade to save all the other endangered species he could cram into his room, and the Hopping Spiders were his latest project.

Or at least they had been until Sydney slammed open his door right as Elmer was walking by with the terrarium, shattering glass and spiders in every direction, and the arachnid world had gone from being Elmer's world to being Dormitory 3's world.

Bruno had not sung 'Born Free' this time.

"BOOOOOOOTS!"

"I'm coming!" Boots hollers back, shouldering open the bathroom door. "For christ sake, Bruno, it's only a..."

Boot's voice chokes, because it isn't only a spider, it's a spider dangling from the ceiling in the middle of the shower in front of a naked and dripping wet Bruno Walton. The spider waves cheerfully; Bruno whimpers.

Boots wants to whimper as well, but he settles for an immediate inappropriate erection. Tearing his eyes away, he focuses on getting the jar open without it slipping out of suddenly uncooperative fingers.

Because they can't actually kill the spiders, obviously, because they are Elmer's and Boots has no wish to be sent to into the depths of the Amazon by the Fish to collect more specimens for Elmer, although the mental image of Bruno wearing a safari hat and waving a machete has some appeal. So instead of complying with Bruno's shrieked demands, Boots must instead scoop the spider carefully into the jar and screw the lid back on without getting any of its legs caught. This is the fifteenth spider in two days, and Boots is getting quite good at it.

Although it's a lot easier when his hands aren't two inches from Bruno's bare skin.

"Got it!" he says when the lid is firmly on, the spider tentatively poking a leg out one of the air holes they hammered into the lid with a screwdriver, voice light as though the flush across his nose has anything to do with the steam of the shower.

"Whew!" Bruno slumps in relief against the shower wall. "You're a life saver, pal. That thing was going to eat me alive!"

"Only a spider," Boots mumbles, eyes on the ground. "I'm going to take this back to Elmer."

Bruno watches Boots shuffle quickly out the door, noting how tightly Boots is clutching the jar and how his blush is creeping down under his collar. Bruno manages to suppress his grin until the door is firmly shut and he has returned to his shower.

Operation Toy With Roommate's Sexuality is proceeding as planned. At this rate, it'll only be a few more days before Bruno can enact Phase Four: Come Out Of Shower Early And Catch Roommate Jerking Off.

A spider darts out from behind the shower curtain, and Bruno casually flicks it away.